Lives of Girls and Women

Content Warning: This section of the guide includes references to murder, death by suicide and suicidal ideation, and sexual abuse, including sexual interactions between an adult and a young teenager. The source text also includes outdated and offensive language surrounding race and mental health conditions that are reproduced only via quotations.

In Lives of Girls and Women, Ada and Del’s relationship illustrates how much the two women not only learn from each other but also how their relationship affects Del’s coming-of-age process. In “Princess Ida,” Del learns a lot about her mother’s past, but it comes from a point of contention due to her mother’s new job. Del claims, “I felt the weight of my mother’s eccentricities, of something absurd and embarrassing about her […] land on my own coward’s shoulders” (72). At a young age, Del’s embarrassment toward her mother’s job as a traveling salesperson derives from her mother’s decision to reject societal expectations of women. However, Del also claims to want “to shield” Ada away from the scrutiny of others, such as her aunts. By describing these conflicting emotions, Del illustrates a misunderstanding of Ada as well as her love for her mother. Ada seemingly makes these decisions to better their social status, which is not only a goal for herself but her children as well. However, Del is too young to understand her mother’s motives for moving them to Jubilee and away from her father, creating tension between mother and daughter.

As the stories progress, Del begins to understand who her mother is and how she can learn from her. For example, when Del talks to Jerry Storey’s mother about sex in “Baptizing,” she claims that her mother is “so firmly convinced that was sex was something no woman—no intelligent woman—would ever submit to unless she had to” (222). Although Del may not fully agree with Ada, she finds validity in this belief and begins to live her own life without conforming to societal expectations. Ada shows Del that she can go through life without being dependent on a man, even if her mother’s words specifically describe sex. When Ada first shares this view with Del in “Lives of Girls and Women,” she utilizes a reference to Tennyson to speak the same language as Del, who views the world in terms of literature. Del appreciates her mother’s attempt to connect with her—particularly after her final encounter with Art Chamberlain—and they establish a deeper relationship with each other as Del continues her development into adulthood.

Although Del and Ada do not always get along or agree on everything, such as Del’s initial religious journey, they ultimately understand each other and learn from the other as they navigate life during the 1940s, and Del’s way of seeing the world aligns more with Ada’s as time goes on. In a time of enforced gender norms, Ada and Del both rebel against those expectations, allowing them to connect and build a bond as Del discovers her own identity.