Nettie's niece, Olivia, on the other hand, understands that the Olinka's withholding education from females is a means of suppression not unlike white Americans keeping blacks from learning. Ignorance keeps Olinka women and American blacks limited. The Olinka are puzzled by Olivia's independence. They can interpret Olivia's intelligence as a sign that she might someday marry a chief, but they cannot envision the possibility that Olivia might someday attain importance in her own right.
In this context of women's suppression, it is just possible that Corrine could be pleased to be a sort of non-person as a wife and mother. Remember that she has tried to hide her children's origins. She does not want anyone to know that she is not her children's biological mother. We will discover eventually that she and Samuel suspect that Nettie might be the mother of Adam and Olivia; perhaps, then, this is Corrine's motivation for asking Nettie to call her "sister" and to call Samuel "brother." By suppressing not only herself, but her children's identities, as well as Nettie's identity, Corrine is preserving her own dignity, as well as maintaining the customary status quo for women and, especially, for missionary wives. Her rationalization, of course, is sound: how can she and Samuel hope to convert the Olinka if their Western values appear to be alien and unnatural?
