How Can You Describe Marilyn

Marilyn is James’s wife and the mother of Lydia, Nath and Hannah in the story. She is not a great parent or wife throughout the entire story and she despises the thought of being like her mother. She has a favorite child and she’ll do anything to not be like her mother, even if that means leaving her family for her own desires. Marilyn went as far as to not cook healthy meals for her family at one point because she was afraid that she would be too much like her mother. There are many words to describe Marilyn but the words that stick out the most to me that would describe her are selfish, irrational and unfair.
Marilyn is definitely a selfish person. There are a few situations in the story where you can see this, but the most selfish thing
“Shut up about that nonsense,” he said. “How can you think about things like that when…” He had never hit Nath before, and he never would again, (134).
The reason why James had struck Nath was because Nath had unintentionally reminded him of Marilyn leaving. He had never hit him before. All the stress that Marilyn caused, made him snap on his son. All Nath was trying to do was talk to James about his interest with astronauts. But James thought he was talking about his mother not coming back. I believe this event in the story was created just to show the reader how badly Marilyn had affected her family by not being there. To make your own family feel this way, you would definitely have to be selfish and only care about yourself and your own needs rather than the family and their needs.
Marilyn’s character is portrayed as unfair, especially when it comes to her own children. Any mother that picks a favorite and treats that kid better than the other kids is definitely unfair. I believe that this favoritism does make her parenting skills look poor she doesn’t equally care about her own children. In the book, the author tells