Why did the mummy abuse and then try to kill her own daughters?
It’s implied in the book that Eleanor’s dad raped mummy so where did the sister come from?
We know nothing about the mum beyond the fact that she is nasty and cruel and we don’t seem to receive a satisfying backstory.
Eleanor’s mum also seems quite pretentious with her obsession with fancy food so maybe she came from the upper class and ended up in poverty when she had her daughters?
The mummy character seems like an interesting exploration but the author just turned her into a one-dimensional bogeyman
by Tricky_Umpire_3516
3 Comments
It’s been a few years since I read this book, but I have a vague memory of someone hearing voices.
The story is not about Mummy. >!Among other Eleanor-related events and changes, it’s about Eleanor’s relationship with Mummy. The way Eleanor remembers – and imitates – Mummy tells us what we need to know about this relationship. Further details about Mummy are effectively irrelevant. In some ways, they would even be inappropriate. !<
>!Why did Mummy try to kill her daughters? Mummy is presented as having certain mental health issues. Hope you noticed this. A few of these seem to have directly led to quirks in Eleanor’s personality. There are instances where Mummy balmes her daughters for her own failure to achieve success or a comfortable life in which she had constant access to fancy food, or where she says she would be better off without the daughters. It’s strongly suggested this blame was the motivation behind her abusing and attempting to kill her daughters.!<
>!From memory, Mummy ended up with several men over time. Do you think one of them might be responsible for the sister? !<
>!You could also look at Eleanor’s life and the direction it is moving prior to the events in the novel. It seems they might be pretty similar to Mummy’s life. Would there be any justification in diving into these more than once? !<
I took it that we get the victim of abuse’s memory of the abuse and the abuser, not the reality of the abuse and the abuser.
I think that Eleanor’s recollection and narration are likely imperfect and I never thought we were seeing the detailed truth of her past beyond the fact that it was highly traumatic.
Or to put it another way Eleanor is an unreliable narrator of her trauma because of her trauma.