Safety and Survival Theme Analysis

As children, Molly and Vivian both become responsible for their own survival, and they struggle to find a place in which they feel safe physically and emotionally. Their safety is often threatened, making them vulnerable to exploitation and abuse—and even when their safety isn’t immediately threatened, their status as orphaned children makes them vulnerable to the whims of strangers, which prevents them from ever feeling truly safe. Their struggle makes them strong and resourceful, but it also forces them to repress their emotions in order to concentrate on survival. Nevertheless, they both ultimately find a place in the world where they feel safe.

Without consistent guardians, both Vivian and Molly are vulnerable to exploitation, abuse, and neglect. In response to abusive and exploitative caregivers, both girls become skeptical and distrusting of others. For example, at the Byrnes’, Vivian is underfed, exploited for free labor, and abandoned to care for herself. At the home of the Grotes, she is also underfed, left to sleep in the cold, and sexually abused by Mr. Grote. After these experiences, she becomes distrustful of the intentions of others. She moves forward in life assuming that most people are selfish and potentially dangerous. Similarly, Molly’s experiences of neglect, physical abuse, and sexual exploitation while in foster care have led her to believe that most adults are selfish, deceitful, and unreliable. She sees herself as being the only person responsible for her survival, and she struggles to trust the intentions and reliability of others.

As the novel illustrates, a sense of safety also requires having a stable, secure home and family. Conversely, a feeling of being unsafe results from living in an unstable or temporary home, or living with the constant risk of rejection. After losing their parents, both Molly and Vivian are left to move between temporary families. The temporary nature of foster care (and in Vivian’s case, adoptive care in the 1920s) keeps them from developing a secure sense of home and belonging. In each new home, they run the risk of being ejected if their presence becomes unwanted. This creates a constant fear of rejection. Even when the girls’ physical safety isn’t endangered, they have no guarantee of how long they will be welcomed and cared for in each home.

With no consistent guardians to keep them safe, Vivian and Molly must both be vigilant about their own survival—and their struggle to survive requires them to repress their emotions in order to continue moving forward. Because they are in “survival mode,” their energy and effort is entirely dedicated to self-protection. This produces a drain on their emotional energy, which then disrupts their ability to feel and express normal emotions and to invest in building human connections with others. For example, as a child temporarily living with the Grote family, Vivian feels no love or connection to the other Grote children. She knows that they need love, but she only has enough energy to perform her household chores, feed the children, and take herself to school—she doesn’t have the strength or resources to provide the love that the other children should be getting from their parents. When Vivian finds a stable home with the Nielsens, however, she again begins to feel capable of empathy, as evidenced by her interest in the hungry homeless children who visit her adoptive parents’ general store.

For both women, a lifetime of focusing primarily on physical and emotional survival often means moving forward without fully managing the trauma of the past. Moving forward involves going through the motions of building a new life without acknowledging one’s underlying emotional needs and experiences. After so many experiences of abuse, neglect, hunger and deprivation, Vivian simply craves a comfortable, safe home above all else. But while she craves love and a sense of belonging, she also desperately fears the risks associated with these pursuits. When her fear of loss materializes in the death of her husband, Dutchy, she retreats yet again into focusing on her survival, repressing her lifetime of grief and eliminating any possibility of risk by marrying someone she doesn’t love deeply. Similarly, Molly tries not to think about how she misses her parents or to consider her sense of loneliness and fear. Instead, she is always focused on holding herself together and finding a safe next place to live. One of the many reasons she resists forming attachment is that it is easier to let go, bounce back, and move forward after loss when she isn’t attached to people and places. For both women, their friendship ultimately gives them a sense of physical and emotional safety and security that then frees them to address their emotional needs for meaning and connection.