beta
Ashley has been neglected her entire life and Mildred sympathizes with that. The extra care she gives Ashley is because she needs it so much more than her own daughters who are older, more independent and capable of holding their own. In comparison to Ashley who is too clumsy to handle any chores and has never had a mother figure or any other adult figure to guide her on how to behave. There is also the added fact that Mildred believes Ashley's happiness will lead to their happiness, but I honestly think it's secondary to Mildred's maternal instincts. We've seen that she focuses on her daughters based off their needs. If one doesn't need help she'll focus on the other ones that do. It's just that the person who often needs reassurance and care is Ashley. The closest metaphor is when someone new joins the class and Mildred is catching her up to speed. On the other hand, it must be jarring for her children to suddenly have to 'share' their mother. Their mother who had previously only given them her care and affection while neglecting Ashley. It understandable that they would perceive their mother as now favoring and prioritizing Ashley over themselves and feel resentful.
Mildred needs to sit down her children and explain that she loves and cares for them equally. That she would never prioritize one of them at the expense of another.
I don't think Mildred's ignorance to how her children have been feeling is as extreme as neglectful, they just need to communicate more.
omg yes, I agree with everything you are saying I think they just need to sit and talk about how no one is getting special treatment and Mildred doesn't like cinderella more
I feel like even if Irene was 'good' the entire time, she would still have been complicit in their family's neglect towards Sylvia. Like maybe they were both victims of their family's unfair treatment, but Sylvia definitely got the shorter stick.
I totally agree with you, although i doubt she isn’t two faced, if she was truly a saint she wouldn’t have contributed or enabled the bullying of her sister since that’s essentially what she did by being a bystander. Like she knew her sister was aggressive towards her but if you look at how she’s treated in the family it is obvious to understand why, irene is definitely not clueless of the abuse the mc got but never actually did anything useful to help her. and like i previously said the mc’s acts of aggression while not justified are understandable, instead of playing the all forgiving saint it would have been better to actually get to the bottom of why she was acting the way she was acting, that way the mc could have felt seen and would have stopped hating irene. (i’m mostly referring to the mc of the original story before she was possessed)
I couldn't have said it better. Her actions have all been performative and haven't actually done anything to address their family's blatant neglect towards Sylvia and favoritism towards herself.
I really hope that the author doesn't make her a 'saint' just because it would be less cliche. It just doesn't make sense according to her character.
Definitely, it would be disappointing if she remained the saint that everyone believes her to be, bc not only does that just show how ignorant she is but also…kind of dumb since she’s not recognizing an issue that is very in her face