Matilda Gage believes a Cornell University diploma will be Maud’s saving grace—that it will let her change the world. She tells Maud that, “[with] a diploma in law, you will be able to right this wrong and many others” (31). However, Maud does not have faith in the power of the diploma. First, she doesn’t believe she can achieve it—“a diploma for a woman seemed even more impossible than a crow getting a fair shake in the world” (31). Once she attends Cornell, she realizes that a degree isn’t what she wants. She wants happiness, which she sees with Frank.

The diploma shifts from being a symbol of the unattainable dream to being a symbol of the ability to change the dream. Matilda puts her whole belief into the idea that a diploma “gives a woman her freedom” (111). By contrast, Maud learns with Frank that she does not need a diploma to be an educated individual, nor does a diploma make her more or less likely to succeed in the world. By giving up the university diploma, she changes her definition of her life’s dream and pursues happiness rather than external validation.