“There was a near-constant bloodstream from these women—noses, knees, and elsewhere—and Bud wondered how they had any left.”

The comically hyperbolic description of Bud’s experience with the women and girls in his family emphasizes the way he tends to objectify women rather than understand them. In one moment, he thinks of women as “ethereal” creatures; in the next, he thinks of them as nearly bloodless due to their incessant bleeding. In either description, they become “other” to him—something he could not possibly understand, he thinks, so he simply gives up trying. The imagery also foreshadows Paul Alabaster’s harvesting of blood from trafficked girls and thus draws an implicit parallel between the two men’s misogyny.

“‘When you wear that much makeup, it tells men that you’re only interested in one thing,’ said Catherine.”

Catherine’s belief that beauty is her most important quality stems from internalized misogyny. She tells Abigail that wearing a certain amount of make-up will make men believe that she only wants sex, casually referencing adult men’s sexual interest in minors as well as the idea that a woman is somehow responsible for men’s sexual impulses. Both highlight latent misogyny and the sexualization of minors.

“‘Why don’t you feed the girls dinner, William?’

‘Why doesn’t Jim Doherty feed the girls dinner!’”

The rancor that suffuses the Flynns’ marriage after Catherine decides that it should be “opened” up develops the theme of Open Marriage as Liberation and Engine of Domestic Collapse. The decision is based on a lack of security and feelings of resentment, both of which it exacerbates. This exchange between Catherine and Bud demonstrates the burdens Catherine feels as a woman and mother as well as Bud’s anger toward her due to her incipient relationship with Jim Doherty.

“Catherine had briefly wondered, as all women do their first time alone with a man, if he was going to murder her.”

When Catherine follows Jim into his home for the first time, her concern that he might kill her reveals the pervasiveness of misogyny. The prevalence of violence against women highlights a general lack of respect for female autonomy and personhood, and Catherine’s tacit acknowledgment indicates just how commonplace it is for women to fear men as a result.

“Catherine felt the youthful comfort of being understood. Jim Doherty got her. She was seen.”

Catherine wants to open her marriage because of everything she feels it’s lacking. She doesn’t think that Bud understands her, and this is what initially drives her interest in Jim. The fact that he apparently offers her something Bud can’t threatens to destroy the relationship rather than augment it, thus highlighting Open Marriage as Liberation and Engine of Domestic Collapse. Catherine’s association of “being understood” with “youth” is also highly ironic given how misunderstood her own daughters feel, and this gap in perception reinforces Catherine’s self-absorbed characterization.

“Having been made to take Latin himself as a boy, and retaining almost no Latin as an adult, Bud figured this task would keep his little genius occupied for a while.”

After a child psychiatrist tells Bud that Harper is understimulated, he tells her to learn Latin. She does so, and then she proceeds to learn several additional languages. When she stops going to class so that she can pursue these subjects, she is suspended, precisely the punitive consequence Bud hoped to avoid. Harper’s response to his lazy parenting highlights the theme of Adolescent Agency Under Institutional and Parental Failure.

“Bud enjoyed the rare moments in which he was still able to impart wisdom. His daughter would always be smarter, but he would always be older.”

Bud enjoys besting his daughter intellectually because it rarely happens, but it also allows him to feel that he is parenting Harper without doing the real emotional work. He often fails to understand Harper’s way of seeing the world, leading her to find new ways to circumvent his seemingly arbitrary parenting decisions. This highlights Adolescent Agency Under Institutional and Parental Failure.

“The hickeys were bestowed by Abigail’s first boyfriend, an adjunct art teacher at Sacred Daughters. It wasn’t unethical, Abigail insisted, because she took fencing that semester. Art wasn’t even her elective. Nevertheless, their relationship ended in disaster: a disgruntled PTA meeting followed by the teacher’s dismissal, a small lawsuit, and a long summer of sobbing for Abigail.”

The discussion of Abigail’s “first boyfriend” is filtered through her perspective and language. She sees nothing wrong with dating a teacher, even though she is a minor and he is an adult in a position of power. She doesn’t pick up on how predatory this man’s behavior was, a predation that emphasizes society’s Latent Misogyny and the Sexualization of Minors. The irony of the school’s name, which presents an idealized and desexualized image of femininity, underscores the societal hypocrisy surrounding this issue while hinting at the role institutional religion plays in it.

“Some said the girls went missing at the parties—assistants or cleaning staff or an unknown plus-one—returning to the world only under strict NDAs and with large sums of untaxed income. No one knew for certain.”

That these rumors of the parties at Alabaster Manor exist without legal follow-up highlights the intersection of class privilege with systemic misogyny. Girls can go “missing” and then return without explanation and with a new bank account because women—particularly the working-class women listed here—are undervalued.

“I’ve been called an animal in the bedroom.”

“Dolt,” Alabaster’s personal doctor, introduces himself to Abigail after she sneaks into a party at Alabaster Manor. Only after he learns that she’s a minor does he brag to her about his sexual prowess, revealing his explicit sexualization of the underage Abigail. His metaphor is colloquial, but in context, it also highlights his character’s inhumanity; he literally compares himself to an animal.

“She checked on Louise in Louise’s room. She checked on Harper in Harper’s room.”

In the absence of parental authority, Abigail assumes some responsibility for her sisters’ safety and well-being. The maturity she develops at a young age underscores the development of Adolescent Agency Under Institutional and Parental Failure.

“‘Are you sure a beauty pageant is right for you, dear?’ Miss Winkle interjected. ‘There are harsh realities us women have to face, one being that we’re not all beauty queens.’”

Many female characters have internalized societal gender norms, including misogynistic definitions of beauty. This prompts Miss Winkle to suggest that a “beauty” pageant isn’t right for Louise, which strikes even the misogynist Father Andrew as harsh and inappropriate, especially because this pageant purports to reward “inner beauty.”

“The parish shrink had likened the ocean to a woman—mysterious, fickle, and governed by the moon—deducing that Father Andrew’s loathsome attitude toward the tide was a form of misogyny. The parish shrink really took any opportunity, thought Father Andrew, to explore his repressed sexism.”

Ironically, the psychiatrist who identifies Father Andrew’s misogyny uses a metaphor that highlights his own. The comparison both implies that all women are the same and suggests that they are fundamentally unknowable and enigmatic, implying that there is simply no way to understand them and giving men an excuse not to try.

“Catherine tried to internalize some of that new feminist rhetoric—you’re enough, you’re beautiful the way you are, the way God made you, and being beautiful means being yourself, something like that—but it was to no avail.”

Catherine doesn’t want to hate what she sees when she looks in the mirror, but she cannot help evaluating herself based on patriarchal beauty standards. Catherine’s inability to escape the limiting view that women are supposed to be conventionally beautiful highlights the culture’s latent misogyny.

“The ‘arrangement’ allowed her this very indulgence. Sure, Bud had not agreed to the ‘arrangement’ in so many words, but it had been discussed at length. Killing was permitted in battle even if the opponent didn’t agree to the war in the first place, thought Catherine.”

Catherine tacitly acknowledges that Bud never agreed to open their marriage; it was her idea, and he opposed it from the beginning. Her analogy compares their situation to a “battle” in which “killing” might happen, suggesting how desperately she wants the emotional fulfillment that she is not getting from Bud. She conceives of her liberation—and her ability to sleep with Jim—as the death of Bud’s influence over her or the death of their relationship in general, highlighting Open Marriage as Liberation and Engine of Domestic Collapse.

“‘The beginning of life. And the end of fun,’ Jim Doherty said cheekily.”

When Jim proudly shows Catherine his collection of “masterpussies,” he makes this joke about the vulva—the implication being that he finds relationships with women to be restrictive. This further highlights the misogyny evidenced by his art.

“My house is next to the Alabaster Oil Refinery. Lived there all my life. When they built the refinery ten years ago, they said it wouldn’t have any impact on the area. But they lied. The air is toxic. The water is toxic. I have lung cancer, stage four, never smoked a day in my life. I won’t ever see my baby grow up. She won’t ever see nothing, was born blind, a birth defect from sulfuric acid exposure […] We don’t have no money, can’t move. That house is all I have.”

The protestor’s complaints to Wes about Alabaster emphasize how much his wealth has allowed him to get away with: He has been allowed to quietly poison the environment, breaking his promises in the process, because he is rich. By contrast, those impacted by his actions have little recourse. This woman cannot afford to move and must therefore continue to live in the place that made her sick, potentially hastening her own death.

“‘They can’t get away with it,’ said Wes.

‘Don’t be naïve. Course they can.’”

Wes’s private investigator is certain that Alabaster and his cronies will absolutely get away with trafficking girls. Their wealth insulates them from being prosecuted or even investigated for their crimes. Just as Alabaster expects Bud to look the other way and ignore the inconsistencies he identified in the paperwork, Alabaster relies on law enforcement agencies to look the other way.

“‘I don’t really know what to do in this situation,’ he said. ‘They don’t cover this sort of thing in parenting books.’ Or maybe they did. He’d never read a parenting book.”

When Bud finds out that Louise has been groomed to make bombs by a terrorist, he is caught unawares. Initially, he blames the bizarreness of the situation for his lack of insight regarding how to manage it, but he then tacitly admits that he is unprepared for even the most typical of parenting situations. His growing recognition of his responsibility for his daughter’s activities demonstrates his character growth while highlighting the theme of Adolescent Agency Under Institutional and Parental Failure.

“It seemed that the Flynns had been on a downward spiral since the dawn of the ‘arrangement.’ Now the house fell into an even greater state of disarray.”

After learning of Louise’s presence on the no-fly list, Bud and Catherine feel everything begin to snowball. However, they are still not fully accepting of their own culpability. The family’s “downward spiral” did not begin with the “arrangement”; rather, the arrangement exacerbated the existing problems within Bud and Catherine’s marriage. The house’s state of disrepair symbolizes the domestic crisis unfolding within it, which is not fully resolved until Abigail’s abduction by Alabaster, which forces Bud and Catherine to reckon with their failures.

“What kind of mother was she? Raising her children in filth like piglets. No wonder they were all so odd. Their unformed brains were subject to spores from unknown mosses and molds, and that was just the downstairs bathroom.”

This rhetorical question highlights Catherine’s growing understanding of her failures as a mother. When faced with the mold in the slimy, water-logged bathroom, she can no longer overlook the consequences of her and Bud’s negligence. Catherine becomes a dynamic character when she finally takes responsibility for this.

“I know, without a shadow of a doubt, that I will get out of here unscathed. I’ve never been scathed in my life. You forget, Mr. Flynn: my family made this harbor.”

Alabaster highlights his privilege and power in his final interaction with Bud. Bud wants to believe that his boss will be prosecuted for his crimes against the girls, but Alabaster is quite secure in the knowledge that he will get away with trafficking girls and drinking their blood, just as he has gotten away with poisoning the environment with toxins that kill people and installing “art” that is really designed to spy on the town.

“A cop pulls over two priests one night. Cop says, ‘Hey, I’m looking for a child molester.’ The priests look at each other and then say, ‘Okay, we’ll do it […] It is funny! Why? What’s funny? There’s truth: the joke speaks to police inefficacy and corruption in the Catholic church. The truth is funny!”

Alabaster finds his “joke” humorous because, as he says, it emphasizes the hypocrisy and corruption of two institutions that are supposed to be based on integrity and ethical behavior. Meanwhile, he can bribe law enforcement to look the other way when he commits crimes and blackmail the clergy to work for him. He knows better than most how corrupt even the most apparently upright people can be because he is part of the system that corrupts them.