Reply To: TBC: Each chapter takes on a different point of view of the women at the boarding home.
I think the use of multiple points of view provides more character depth. We see the characters’ perceptions about each other and then the reality for each character. I enjoyed Grace the most because she was the most mysterious. Her listening is a comfort to boarders and non-boarders. She nudges when others are stuck. She feeds and she fixes. She protects her friends by taking Arlene along when Grace has to disappear again to give Arlene “a fresh start and make sure she stayed patched together.”
Arlene Hupp is the character I had the most difficulty with because she is so needy, jealous and self-centered. She is only interested in fame, fortune and finding a husband for herself. She views many at Briar House as “mannish or eccentric or bitchy.” She doesn’t understand why no one likes her when “she dressed how the magazines agreed a girl should dress, and had the kind of job people agreed a girl should have before she married, and said the kinds of things everybody agreed a girl should think.”
Mrs. Nilsson is a close second. She doesn’t mail her son’s letters to his father and tells him that his father hasn’t sent any money because he doesn’t care. She refuses to get the glasses that Lina needs. She goes through the suitcases of new boarders. She makes Pete drop out of school so he can work and bring in more money and she is stingy with food for the boarders’ breakfast and for her children. She grows vegetables, but only so they can be sold.
