The hidden world of paper flowers. On V.C. Andrews’s Flowers in the Attic.
I struggle to think a more fucked up book that I’ve read in my life. Naked Lunch? Sure, Burroughs’s work is nightmare fuel and bits of it can shake up your psyche a bit. But just like a drug-induced high, the feeling would be gone after the rush. Ellis’s American Psycho maybe? Sure, the work is violent, but I can’t help feeling that the book remained what it was: fiction, and a damn good satire for corporate America. Even Miller’s Under the Roofs of Paris with its fucked up feast of hypersex pales in compare to the level of fucked up that is Andrews’s Flowers in the Attic. But why is that?
There are extremes here that have very heavy connotations, especially for a book often marketed as young adult fiction: parental death, incest, murder. But there is something much more serious than that, there is a deep pain etched in ever page of the novel. It’s not until I stumble across the Guardian article on V.C. Andrews biography which gives the context to her most famous work (this one) that the pieces start to fall into place.
The book is Andrews’s way of rebelling against her mother. In a way to address the trauma and the strains of the relationship she has with her mother. It is also in a way, her sexual liberation, as Andrews in her adult life was confined to a wheelchair due to her rheumatoid arthritis and thus, had never really enjoy the fruits of sexuality. The sexual frustrations of the Dollenganger children manifested in the rape of Cathy by her older brother, Chris. Andrews, despite having written a book heavy with sexual undertones would borrow the sexual experiences of her adult niece, combined with her own unfulfilled yearnings.
The story of The Flowers in the Attic is wild, but what’s happening in the background in the author’s life which leads to the creation of the book is arguably wilder. The heart of the matter is the toxic relationship between the mother and child: Corrine Foxworth is a mere prototype for Andrews’s own mother, and thus her unresolved parental trauma. In the novel, of course, this relationship is exaggerated (Andrews’s mother did not attempt to poison her), but the elements of disappointment, neglect and selfish manipulation tie the fictional woman and the real one together. Andrews’s mother would also starve her as a punishment, the same way the Dollenganger children would be punished if they misbehaved.
The wilting flowers in the attic
The sudden death of the Dollenganger breadwinner throws the rest of the family into disarray. This is the traditional nuclear family with the father having a single income supporting the wife and four children. The wife, with no skills to work, a mortgage to pay and pride to save face decided to beg for help from the parents who had disowned her. When the good news came, the surviving Dollengangers packed up their bags and headed to a mansion in Virginia, remote from any cities and surrounded by mountains and trees.
It seems to be the idyll getaway, that is until the children met the grandmother who with a cold demeanour pushed the children into the Northern wing of the mansion and locked them in. The mother promised to win back her old man so that she can tell him about the children’s existence, and eventually when his imminent death passes, to inherit his riches and secure the children’s wellbeing. But they need to hide for now in their new home, in the confines of a small room shared between them all and an attic the size of a football field, hiding all sorts of antiques even from the Civil War.
The mother returned, shocked and distraught, her back whipped mercilessly like a naughty schoolgirl. She has absolutely no power in this house and her father is headstrong on her errors in having married her half-uncle, who unbeknownst to him has also fathered four children with his daughter and hiding literally above his nose. So they need to wait until the old man dies, which should be soon.
But the old fella is strong, even after some close calls was able to recover. The children would receive food every day, except for that time their puritan grandmother caught Cathy without her clothes on and Chris just balking at her, so starving them for a good few days. They pass the time reading, watching TV (a gift from their mother, which quickly becomes a substitute parent), making a garden out of the attic complete with fake paper flowers and misshapen animals. They are quickly growing, realising their own yearnings which cannot be fulfilled — for their freedom, the presence of their mother and physical touch. The years go on with no resolution, and their mother increasingly absent and distant.
Exploring the family dynamics in an attic full of paper flowers
What happens when you leave a group of children alone, with their hormones jutting out of their childhood, with little access to the outside world? Though this isn’t really the underlying question of the book, it is somewhat a hypothesis of what might happen. I tell you what happens. Shit fucking happens, that’s what. With two children in their teens, one male and female, and a set of twins who are several years younger, the children was set to become a prototype of their own family.
Chris and Cathy naturally deviate to the role of parents for Corey and Carrie. But this role of sibling / parent makes one question whether the separation of this role is natural, or whether the sibling should play the part of the parent. In the story, Chris and Cathy play an infinitely better job than their mother Corrine, teaching their younger siblings how to read, managing their tempers and performing their day to day role such as bathing and clothing them. Yet, their knowledge and life experiences fall short, and they bear a heavy burden in adapting to their own maturity.
Yet, in their own way, the Dollenganger children is a microcosm of family life. Cathy and Chris are no less responsible for their siblings than any parents are for their children. They are entrusted unexpectedly, with little experience of what being a parent should be. Yet, short of being breadwinners in the household, Cathy and Chris played the role of parents to the tee for their siblings. It is not a perfect representation of family life, but anybody is capable to take the role of the parent. But we’re not going to address how Cathy and Chris are playing mommy and daddy to each other here. Yes, they in fact did smash.
But this begs the question: what the fuck is the mom doing all this time? Corrine Foxworth is perhaps one of the most vile creations in fiction. If there is an award for the worst parent award in literature, it is more than likely that she’d take the cake. Choosing her own life over her children, she was more than willing to let the children languish slowly to their deaths, feeding them with arsenic laced donuts. If we compare it with examples from the news over the last decade, we need no debate whether a character such as Corrine is realistic. She is terrifying because she is all too real, and I would bet that some mothers would also have made the same choice if given the circumstances.
It is ultimately, in my opinion, a channel for Andrews to cope with the unresolved issues with her draconic mother, who it seems, is represented by the mother and grandmother combined in the story. Her mother, disinterested with her work, never had read any of her daughter’s works. But whether Andrews managed to resolve this relationship is anybody’s guess, especially when her mother mentioned that she was proud of her daughter’s achievements. But perhaps this is also part of the double act, as she shared with her biographer who met her mother and thought her a docile old lady — that her mother wears two faces, as Corrine Foxworth would in front of her children.
Are we any better than Corrine Foxworth?
The question in the end isn’t only whether we should ask that someone like Corrine is possible, but whether we can also be Corrine Foxworth. In literature, characters such as Corrine may be shocking, but she is familiar. Think Madame Bovary, or even closer, Ibsen’s Nora Helmer in A Doll’s House. In the play, Nora took decisions which we deem selfish at the end of the play, abandoning her husband and family so she can claim her own person. The audience may see this as the liberation of Nora, but isn’t this the exact same act committed by Corrine?
In A Doll’s House, the silence of the children is deafening. Nora would play with her children when she does not have any care in the world, when she can put aside her problems in her mind, but in an instant would not think of them when problems arise. In effect, they become inconveniences, as much as the Dollenganger children was a major inconvenience for Corrine. In a way, we can interpret Nora Helmer as the villain in the play, in a play with no heroes. She is a heroine of her own life, escaping her doll status, escaping away from her doll children and the illusion of the dollhouse she was living in.
In the same way, Corrine was also a doll living under her husband’s shadows. The two women have no skills to sustain a family of their own and had to rely on the husband as a breadwinner while they take care of the household. They are as pretty as dolls and equally as useless. This trait is also inherited in the children, who must also rely on the goodwill of the parents (and grandparent) for their sustenance. The Dollenganger children were known as the Dresden Dolls and the older siblings would replace their name to a more endearing Doll, just as Cathy would call her brother Chris Doll in a playful way.
But we’re not dealing with dolls here, but our own families and their lives. The question remain whether we are capable of doing the same thing. Personally, I fear that I could do the same. When I decided to live my life away from Australia, my country of upbringing, I had to leave my grandmother. When Covid came, her isolation and loneliness took away her mind. She lives in the nursing home now along with other dementia patients. Though this may not constitute a crime to the level that Corrine would poison her children, it is in a way an act of abandonment.
When I visit my grandmother in the home, there would barely be any visitors. The visitors parking, though abundant, are often empty even during the weekends. It seems that the offsprings had also taken the same route. But I am not blaming them, as each has their own lives and problems to deal with. But I think that we are all capable of this same crime if push comes to shove. I personally don’t believe that the average person has a steel-clad moral fibre. It is what it is, and it is sad.
— -
If you come to this book blind, I’d guarantee that it will either disgust you or devastate you. I was taken aback by the number of reviewers in Goodreads who despised the book because of its extremes. This is understandable, but below the surface is a deep and violent yearning by the author to fight her own deficiencies and inner trauma. The prose is easy to digest and Andrews writes well. Yet, for the subject matter it is a tremendously difficult read. For all this, the moment I finished this book I almost immediately bought the sequel, Petals on the Wind. This is admittedly rare for me.
But it is a worthwhile read. I feared that I would despise it, thinking that it would be another cheesy young adult novel. It is a far cry from that, and it forced me into introspection and to reflect on our inherent potential to commit the most heinous crimes. It is a book which will leave a mark, whether you love it or hate it, and you know what? That’s not a bad thing.
Further reading
On V.C. Andrews’s biography, which mentions her relationship with her mother: https://www.theguardian.com/books/2022/jan/30/out-of-sight-how-flowers-in-the-attic-mirrored-its-authors-captivity#:~:text=Andrews%20always%20maintained%20that%20the,when%20she%20was%20a%20teenager.
