Her mother is a symbol of how entrenched the rules of the machine are. Having in her time experienced, surely, the same suppression as her daughter she was still unable to conceive a life outside the machine or to offer that freedom to her child. Instead she denies her the slight pleasure she found in marrying a man who appealed to her insisting that she instead take the practical course of marrying the man with the highest income though what she is offered is a pampered but empty life. It is questionable if she in fact loves her daughter or simply nags her because it is her method of keeping her in line. It begins to seem as though she simply ensures that she herself will be taken care of, so that a rich husband her daughter is an opportunity to jump at, not for Helens benefit but for
Her mother is a symbol of how entrenched the rules of the machine are. Having in her time experienced, surely, the same suppression as her daughter she was still unable to conceive a life outside the machine or to offer that freedom to her child. Instead she denies her the slight pleasure she found in marrying a man who appealed to her insisting that she instead take the practical course of marrying the man with the highest income though what she is offered is a pampered but empty life. It is questionable if she in fact loves her daughter or simply nags her because it is her method of keeping her in line. It begins to seem as though she simply ensures that she herself will be taken care of, so that a rich husband her daughter is an opportunity to jump at, not for Helens benefit but for