Escapism

The escapism demonstrated by the characters within the novel shows the boundaries of what the human spirit and an individual family may withstand. Although all of the sisters and their parents must contend with the void Julia left in their lives after her disappearance, they must maintain some façade of family life and sanity, contributing all the more to individual delusions of escape and return to an easier way of life or dependence on another person to save them.

Initially, Claire is incredibly eager to attend college at Auburn University in order to have an opportunity to get out of Georgia, somewhere “far enough away from home to be meaningful” (58). Her first matter of business is finding a boyfriend who can occupy her time. She even seeks a boyfriend from somewhere far away from her own hometown, the pain of being with somebody who knew...