LeftBrainer wrote:
Alice is lonely, with most to all of the kids ignoring her in school and her family situation. She imagines Polly’s mother to be a mother who would demonstrate some affection and be a mother.
Alice wants to have a "normal" family life ... if there really ever is one.
Her mother has always been in bed as far as she can remember. She fantasizes what it would be like to have a mom, to have a best friend. She has had to develop a tough skin to cope with her chores and especially her dad. He doesn't see her grow and develop in front of her. He thinks work and money, and never of her needs. Alice can only imagine ...
cindersue wrote:
LeftBrainer wrote:
Alice is lonely, with most to all of the kids ignoring her in school and her family situation. She imagines Polly’s mother to be a mother who would demonstrate some affection and be a mother.
Alice wants to have a "normal" family life ... if there really ever is one.
I agree with you guys. She is not having a "normal" childhood for a 12 year old, with friends and play and time with mom. She loves her parents but with both of them, she is for all intensive purposes, "invisible". You read right off that her sister has left too and she was the whole center of the family in Alice's eyes. Alice is like...whats left over and a ranch hand. By pretending to be best friends with Pollie, she finds a way to matter to several people she would not have without doing so. She comes to matter to someone a bit later (no spoiler here
) that she wouldnt have otherwise. She imagines in Pollie's mother, the mother she wants to have, with all the caring and TOUCHING and taking care of her, that she has never known from her mother. I emphasis touching because as you read, you see how much Alice thinks about the touches of the grown women around her,sometimes just brushes, sometimes hugs, sometimes pretend hugs like from Pollie's mother. Also you see that her father does not touch her with hugs and she wants to hug him but backs off from the thought and just walks with him. She is a very lonely young girl, for friends, for family, for tenderness and also for what we all need, someone's touch. Pretending to be Pollie's best friend in some ways will fullfill those needs (fulfill them in real or imaginary ways) and it will bring people into her life that will talk to her, be her friend. This one imaginary friendship becomes profound on all real relationships she is trying to build and later, to whether she thinks she has the right to what she percieves as being Pollie's.
