The Optimist's Daughter Summary & Study Guide

This Study Guide consists of approximately 65 pages of chapter summaries, quotes, character analysis, themes, and more - everything you need to sharpen your knowledge of The Optimist's Daughter.
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The Optimist's Daughter Summary & Study Guide

This Study Guide consists of approximately 65 pages of chapter summaries, quotes, character analysis, themes, and more - everything you need to sharpen your knowledge of The Optimist's Daughter.
This section contains 831 words
(approx. 3 pages at 400 words per page)
Buy The Optimist's Daughter Study Guide

Part One

As The Optimist's Daughter opens, Laurel McKelva Hand leaves Chicago and goes to New Orleans, where her father, Judge McKelva, is seeing an eye specialist to find out why his sight is failing. Laurel meets her father's young, new wife, a selfish, disrespectful woman named Wanda Fay ("Fay"). The doctor tells Judge that he has a detached retina and that it must be operated on at once. After the operation, the eye seems to be recovering normally, but Judge's health is not bearing the rigors of surgery well. He is lethargic and his health declines. Laurel and Fay, along with another woman, watch Judge to assure that he does not move very much, which would jeopardize the recovery of his eye.

Laurel and Fay have adjoining rooms at a nearby hotel, but Laurel fails in her attempts to get to know Fay. Meanwhile, Judge is now...

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This section contains 831 words
(approx. 3 pages at 400 words per page)
Buy The Optimist's Daughter Study Guide
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The Optimist's Daughter from Gale. ©2005-2006 Thomson Gale, a part of the Thomson Corporation. All rights reserved.