Need of Importance

"She decided to donate blood to the Red Cross; she wanted to donate a quart a week and her blood would be in the veins of Australians and Fighting French and Chinese, all over the world, and it would be as though she were close kin to all these people. She could hear the Army doctors saying that the blood of Frankie Addams was the reddest and the strongest blood they had ever known." (23)

At the start of the novel, the narrator mentioned Frankie was involved in any clubs and that she had wanted to fit in somewhere. Frankie is tall for a girl her age at nearly five and a half feet tall. In this section, the narrator tells the reader what Frankie had wanted to do for the war effort. There is no way she'd be able to give blood, but Frankie just imagined what she could do to help out and be recognized for.

By wanting to give her red and strong blood, Frankie was hoping to receive recognition, thanks, and a feeling of comradery with the soldiers receiving it from her. This shows the reader that Frankie will do just about anything to fit in with any group. Later in the same passage, the narrator mentions that Frankie "was not afraid of Germans or bombs or Japanese. She was afraid because in the war they would not include her, and because the world seemed somehow separate from herself."(24) Frankie has the type of personality that wants inclusion and appreciation, but feeling so different, she cannot find such feeling.

Q: Was it the neighborhood clubhouse members' not inviting her to their parties that created this feeling of loneliness, and does the wedding of her brother add to it?