Throughout the story, Annie struggles with the difficult relationship she has with her mother. Although her parents discipline her, and give her the best education possible, a hatred toward her mother grows throughout the story. She begins to realize the differences between her and her mother, and does not see her as a perfect loving human being. In her early childhood, she saw her mother as her own personal savior when times were bad. She saw her mother as an angel. After Annie came home from school one day, and witnessed her mother engaging in sexual activity, she began to realize the differences between them. She began to see faults and impurities daily in her mother. Nothing Annie seemed to do pleased her mother. She made friends with people who were of lower social status, which also displeased her mother, and caused her to try to change Annie's prospective of what a real friend is.
Annie was walking home from school one day, and she looked in the reflection of a store window, and realized how long it had been since she had seen herself. She began to realize she was growing and maturing, and began to believe she was "smarter and cleaner" than her mother. When she began to be ridiculed and was called