Part Two: Becoming - Chapters 13 and 14 Summary and Analysis

At the age of six, The Great Depression hits. The family moves to the country where they live in a one-room chicken house. Hattie becomes a catatonic lump, and no longer harms Sybil. Willard also suffers physically, but Sybil helps him.

One day Sybil hears her mother's insane laughter, and instantly freezes, paralyzed by fear. Hattie has come back to life. The laugh is the same one heard almost daily in the house at Willow Corners, right before Sybil is struck by a broom handle or has a washcloth is shoved down her throat. Sybil again loses time.

Since Sybil began analysis with Dr. Wilbur, it is suspected that Hattie is the root of Sybil's dissociation. Now there is an indication of the torture inflicted on Sybil by her own mother...