Annie’s tendency to misinterpret demonstrations of her mother’s love as evidence of her mother’s duplicity and meanness is designed to represent conflicts that commonly occur in real life. There are many clues to suggest that Annie mistakes her mother’s attempts to teach Annie to be successful as deceitful or manipulative acts. Contrary to the girls’ convictions, it is an act of love for Annie’s mother to prepare the person with whom she feels she “could hardly live without” to leave the safety of the family home and begin a new life (133). Nonetheless, Annie misinterprets her mother’s love as hypocrisy, not realizing the emotional sacrifices involved in preparing a child to meet the challenges of the world.

Annie’s mother’s experiences have taught her to embody a decorous image both within and beyond the realm of marriage, and she is determined to teach Annie this lesson. For example, it is common, in Annie’s youth, for her mother to “suddenly grab [Annie] and […] and drag [her] along as if in a great hurry” as they pass the homes of the women with whom her father had children and did not marry (16). Her father ignores these women in public, and because he so thoroughly adheres to the standards of the English, others must do the same.