This is why you have to stay awake, or else there's a knock on your door... You're good enough... that's all you need to know." (122)Learn much from this group of strong women, which is what she has been missing in her brother's cocoon of protection and comfort. Although Ethel and the other women are lower classes, judging by where they live and their occupation, they are responsible for the. one's life. To live for them, regardless of social circumstances, is to be lived to the fullest, a lesson that helps Cee later in the novel Ethel can be read as Cee's surrogate mother, in the same way that Mattie is for Taylor in. The Bean Trees. Both women have a positive impact on younger women. The moment for Ethel is when she tells Cee not to let her grandmother's inhumanity, the doctor's cruelty and her ex-husband's foolishness decide who she really is. “This is slavery. Somewhere inside you is that free person I'm talking about. Identify it and let it do good in the world” (126).