Mothers and Daughters

Throughout the novel motherhood is examined as something essential and important to every woman’s life, though it is not always simple or easy. Often it is complicated and messy, and often it causes a good deal of strife within the characters’ lives. Even so, it is one of the most essential and meaningful relationships that any of the female characters have in their lives.

The first mother-daughter relationship in the book is the one between Rachel and her own mother, Esther. In the narrative present, Rachel’s mother is in a nursing home, recovering from a stroke that has taken away almost all of her ability to communicate. But even so, Rachel goes to visit her and she confesses something she does not admit to anyone else “I miss Aviva” (14). Even though her mother is incapable of responding, Rachel finds solace in being...