Lucy as a daughter
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patient with her mother and encourages her mother that she will be just fine but unfortunately Nora answers that she prefers to die rather than being disappointed
again. When Karen tries to hold Nora’s hand, she pulls her hands away. The next scene happens in the same room in the hospital in the next day at afternoon. This
scene depicts that Nora has a better relationship with their servant, Sofia and Christi, her daughter. Karen sees that both of them can make Nora smiles and Karen never
see her mother smiles at her. No matter what Karen still stays beside her mother in the hospital until her mother dies eventually. This shows that as a daughter Karen is
really trying to be such a good daughter in front of her mother despite the fact that her mother treats her coldly especially since her mistake in her past.
NORA’S BEDROOM – DAY Karen opens the curtain and takes off the sheets from her mother’s bed.
KAREN V.O. She’s gone now. She will never see your face and you will never see hers. There will always be silence between you.
Intercut with Ka ren placing the urn containing her mother’s ashes on the
floor inside a closet. After placing the urn she stands there and looks at it. KAREN CONT’D. I don’t want that for us. For you and me.
Karen kneels down again, opens the urn and looks at the ashes. She smells them.
Back to Karen writing at the kitchen table.
KAREN CONT’D. I know it in my heart that we will meet one day. And I will ask you to forgive me. Garcia, 2009: 34
Karen’s voice over above tells that she implicitly blames her mother for not looking for her daugh
ter’s existence. The scene intercuts with the scene when Karen places the urn of her mother’s ashes, looks at her mother’s ashes, and Karen’s voice over
says that she does not want what she and her mother have to happen to her daughter
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and back to the scene when Karen writes the unsent letter for her daughter. Intercut is the same with cross-cutting which means the alternating shots of two sequences
Giannetti, 1987: 469. Karen thinks that the obstacles for her to look for her daughter is her mother and she believes that somehow she will meet her daughter and her
daughter will forgive her after she explains the truth that she does not want her daughter to meet Nora because she is afraid that Nora will hate the existence of her
daughter. It is the same with Herst states that mostly the daughters blame their mother for their unhappiness related to bad mothering from their mothers 1998:xiv.
On the other side, it is understandable that Karen feels guilty because she has
disappointed her mother. She thinks that she cannot fulfill the values of an ideal
woman based on her mother’s point of view. This conveys that Karen thinks she has failed her mother as a daughter and this fact makes her unhappy and scared of his
mother. KAREN. It’s not upsetting. I’m not upset. I’m just wondering what’s going in
my own house. A beat.
KAREN CONT’D. Did my mother ever talk to you about me? SOFIA. Sometimes.
KAREN. What did she say? Sofia shrugs “I don’t know”.
KAREN CONT’D. What did she say? A beat.
KAREN CONT’D. What the hell did she say? SOFIA. She said that you were not happy.
A beat. KAREN. What else?
SOFIA. She said it was her fault. Karen is surprised to hear this. Garcia, 2009:49-50
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Based on the dialogue between Karen and Sofia above, the researcher comes to a conclusion that Nora’s silence toward everything gives Karen the wrong message.
Karen thinks Nora is angry at her because of Karen’s mistake in the past whereas actually Nora is unhappy too because she sees Karen is unhappy and Nora feels that
Karen’s unhappiness is her mistake. When the truth is eventually revealed by Sofia the servant after Nora dies, Karen is surprised. Karen never thought that Nora also
felt guilty to see her daughter unhappy. The bond between Karen and Nora is difficult because both of them do not be
honest to each other. This is what Adrienne Rich means when she states that negative echoes of mothering sometimes give double message that confuses the daughter in
Humm, 1992: 275. By double message, the researcher means Karen’s wrong
interpretation because of Nora’s silence and cold response. Karen brings the burden of guilt feelings that makes her unable to open herself up and being a difficult person.
According to Herst, the bond between mother and daughter might be intensely rewarding or brutally painful for the daughter 1998: xv, and it is pretty obvious that
Karen is not the one who gets the reward instead what she gets is the pain from her bond with her mother.