Essay Questions

Why does Violet's mother believe her to be dead?

When Violet's mother decides to travel to California in order to properly meet the son she has never seen, she leaves quickly. She also leaves the courtesan house in the care of a man she trusts, but should never have trusted. He takes over the house but needs to pay his debts to a crime syndicate who will kill him if he does not do so. He kidnaps Violet from the house and sells her to the syndicate who promptly put her her to work in another courtesan house. He then tells Violet's mother that Violet is dead.

Of course, should she want to do so, Violet could probably find an opportunity to contact her mother and let her know she is actually still alive, but she is extremely hurt, and feels abandoned, and the last thing she wants to do is reach out to the woman she believes abandoned her in favor of a young man she has never met before. Violet is angry with her mother and chooses to remain estranged from her, not realizing that she is believed dead anyway, and therefore never making any contact that will disprove this.

Violet becomes less angry with her mother after she becomes a mother herself. Why is this?

Understandably, Violet was very hurt when her mother abandoned her for a young man who was essentially a stranger, despite the fact he is her son. She could not understand how her mother could do this if she loved her as much as she said she did, and it leads her to question their relationship and whether it was something completely different to the relationship she had believed them to have.

When she becomes a mother she begins to understand the bond that exists between mother and child, and she also began to understand how there was still a bond between her mother and the son she does not know. When Flora is taken away from Violet by Edward and Minerva, she directs her energies towards finding her, and plans to effect a reunion one day when Flora is old enough to decide these things for herself. It is at this time that she realizes how her mother must have felt about the son who was taken away from her, and she also understands that just because he was out of sight did not mean that he was out of mind. In becoming a mother herself she achieves a better understanding of what her mother's motivations were and is able to judge her far less harshly than she did at first.