Family

The relationship between Willa, Elaine, and her parents, as well as Denise and Cheryl, shows how different children can turn out depending on how they are raised and what relationship they have with their parents. Willa and Elaine, who dealt with an abusive mother and a passive father, both developed in different ways, while Cheryl with a close but more independent mother shows great maturity.

First, Willa develops a passive personality like her father because she did not want to become as aggressive and abusive as her mother. She admits this to Ben at the end of the novel while they are discussing what it would be like to marry someone as good as Gandhi. Willa says “my father was so mild-mannered that he thought it was impolite to pick up a telephone in mid-ring… it was marry such a person or be such a person...