Iowa is where Jane encounters violent realities. He witnesses how the usually placid farmer, Harlan, becomes violent towards Bud Ripplemeyer, the Iowa banker, after being rejected by him for a loan. He shoots Bud in the back and then commits suicide. Jane also hears the story of the unnamed Osage man who tortures his wife to death and then "hangs himself in his car shed" (Jasmine 156). The violence in Iowa, however, is presented in an ambiguous dialectic. The narrator insinuates that despite these violent events, the American people are resilient in their hopes and are optimistic about the future. Violence, then, the trajectory of everyday life, with its usual ups and downs, unfolds in Jane's life and she tries to carve out her own identity in her own image.