58 pages • 1-hour read
Like Mother, Like Daughter
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Symbols & Motifs
The Swimming Lesson
Content Warning: This section of the guide includes discussion of rape.
One of Cleo’s core memories is of a time when her mother taught her to swim in the ocean at Jacob Riis Park the summer before fifth grade. This memory serves as a symbol of the underlying connection between them, developing the theme of The Bond Between Mothers and Daughters. Cleo’s changing understanding of this memory over the course of the narrative reflects her changing appreciation.
Initially, Cleo feels that this memory represents the first moment she stood up and asserted her independence from her mother. Katrina was pressuring Cleo to swim in the ocean despite Cleo’s fear of doing so. In response, Cleo told her to stop “trying to control everything” (35). Cleo was disappointed that her mother was “always pushing [her] to be someone different” when she just wanted to be loved for who she was (35).
Later, Cleo recalls how later that same day, she agreed to at least try to swim in the ocean. While standing at the water’s edge, her mother revealed that she hadn’t learned to swim until she was in law school. This revelation highlights Cleo’s growing understanding of her mother as a complex person who struggled to succeed despite her difficult past. When her mother stayed with her until Cleo “finally” learned to swim in the ocean, instead of celebrating this moment with her mother, Cleo rushed back to the shore to share it with her father, Aidan. This additional information about the memory illustrates how, despite Cleo and Katrina finding moments of compromise and support, Cleo still prefers Aidan at this point in the story.
The final time that Cleo remembers the swimming lesson, she realizes that Aidan was not there to support her learning to swim because he preferred to spend his time with Janine, with whom he was having an affair, on the beach. She also recognizes that “so much of it had been [Katrina]. It always had been” (289). This final understanding of the memory reflects Cleo’s growing disenchantment with her selfish father and her growing appreciation for how much Katrina has done for her.
Caffe Reggio
Caffe Reggio is a trendy café in Greenwich Village, Manhattan, near the NYU campus. It is a “New York City institution” and has been featured in many films (46), including The Godfather II. In Like Mother, Like Daughter, Caffe Reggio is a symbol that serves as a point of unacknowledged connection between Cleo and Katrina. It connects to the theme of The Bond Between Mothers and Daughters.
The coffee shop first appears in the narrative as a location where Katrina meets with Aidan. While there, Katrina reflects on how she met Aidan at a “café similar to Caffe Reggio” when she was a law student at Columbia (49). It is a place where she feels comfortable, confident, and in control. Later, Cleo decides to go to Caffe Reggio to meet with a man that Katrina had been dating to try and learn more about her mother’s disappearance. Like Katrina, Cleo feels “a little better” inside the cozy, busy café (151).
This is a tangential connection between the mother and daughter. Although they feel like they have little in common, their common affection for this New York institution indicates that they have more similarities than they might realize.
Writing and Poetry
Both Cleo and Katrina share a passion for writing and poetry. Cleo’s love for the written word is overt and demonstrated in her decision to major in English. In contrast, Katrina has hidden her literary talents and interests from her daughter. In this way, it serves as a motif representing The Problem With Keeping Secrets. Rather than sharing this love with Cleo to reinforce their bond, Katrina hides it away and prevents them from having a closer relationship.
Cleo is shocked to learn from reading Katrina’s journal that her mother had a talent for writing. She is even more surprised to discover a copy of Walt Whitman’s Leaves of Grass, a classic collection of 19th-century American poetry, in her mother’s office. Cleo thinks to herself, “I’ve never known my mom to read poetry in her life” (72). It is the inscription in this book that leads Cleo to realize that her mother’s rapist, Reed, and her current boyfriend, Will, are the same person.
By the end of the novel, Katrina symbolically demonstrates her greater openness and honesty with Cleo by perusing Cleo’s book collection and taking the copy of Goodnight, Moon off her daughter’s bookshelf. While holding it, she reflects on how she would read it to Cleo every night. Cleo (lovingly) chides her mother to “be careful with it” (300), implying that these memories are important to Cleo as well, so she does not want the item damaged. This moment illustrates how Cleo and Katrina are bonded through their now openly shared love of books and the joy they find in them.
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