The Flower Sisters

Violet and Rose Flowers are twin sisters and the eponymous siblings to which the book’s title refers. Violet is one the central characters, and while her story is heavily featured, the story of Rose is equally significant to the plot.

Violet and Rose were identical twins with just one distinguishing mark between them—the violet birthmark at the base of Violet’s neck. Despite their identical appearances, the sisters were worlds apart in character and temperament. By her own description, Violet was wild and whimsical, whereas Rose was always more principled and reserved. Violet is the one whom the entire town believes to have died in the dance hall explosion for most of the story, but the narrative eventually reveals that Rose, who took Violet’s place at the dance that night, is the sister who died, while Violet adopted Rose’s identity for the remainder of her life, marrying a local boy in an attempt to hide the circumstances surrounding her pregnancy.

Because Violet is believed to be dead throughout much of the story, the idea of her is largely based on memory and social perception. For instance, she is consistently described as having been headstrong and rebellious, and people remember her flouting social norms without a second thought. Violet, in the guise of “Rose,” conveys this common view of her younger self to Daisy when she reveals Violet’s secret pregnancy; similarly, when she later recounts her story to Daisy, she remembers her desire to explore sex, while Rose demurred from the idea.

When Daisy’s grandmother is finally revealed to be Violet, not Rose, her life and choices retrospectively affirm her inherently fiery nature even as they illustrate her innate strength and resilience. Despite the burden of guilt that she feels over the circumstances that led to her sister’s death, the young Violet overcomes the cultural strictures that would otherwise condemn her pregnancy and resolves to persevere for the sake of her child. She engages in pretense, lies, and manipulation to ensure that her child will not suffer any ignominy because of her choices, and she suffers through a loveless marriage and a lonely existence to see this plan through.

For these reasons, Violet’s character arc is closely related to The Traumatic Effects of Shame and Secrecy. With the impetus of Daisy’s investigations into the explosion, Violet’s lifelong journey finally allows her to confront her past and be fully honest with her loved ones, and she reaps unexpected benefits from this development. Violet’s life story ultimately helps to drive the plot, and her secret past feeds into the central conflict, reinforcing the novel’s emphasis on the importance of banishing shame and secrecy in order to come to terms with past mistakes and find healing.

Paul “Dash” Emmonds is a reformed playboy-turned-preacher in Possum Flats. His reputation for seducing women was well established before the night of the dance hall explosion. Around this time, he was romantically involved with Violet, and the narrative eventually reveals that he is the biological father of Violet’s child. Following the tragedy and his traumatic encounter with death, Dash turns to religion and God, becoming a preacher like his own father was.

Like Violet, Dash is another character through whom Anderson explores the traumatic effects of shame and secrecy. By virtue of his profession, Dash becomes an extremely moralistic man in his later years; however, his moralizing is harsh and judgmental toward others, and he even condemns the victims of the explosion as sinners who received what they deserved on that night. However, Dash’s extreme beliefs are rooted in shame; he feels shame and guilt for having survived, and he also regrets the kind of life that he lived before the tragedy. His refusal to give space to these feelings compels him to turn to religion to repress these latent tendencies in himself, and he also projects his condemnation of his own past actions onto others whenever he sees behavior that reminds him of his former self. Becoming vitriolic whenever his current worldview is challenged, he labels Daisy as “Satan incarnate” because she reminds him of his past, and he blames her for Jimmy’s death because he cannot accept the idea that the tragedy may have impacted Jimmy so deeply that he would choose to end his own life.

However, Dash’s shame is not limited to the tragedy alone. As his private recollections of his past show, the feeling of shame has been deeply ingrained in him from a very young age. From the guilt he feels upon mistakenly holding himself responsible for his sister’s death to the shame he feels at his father’s inability to provide for the family, it is clear that these negative emotions direct every aspect of Dash’s life. His initial wild years are born from his desire to reject his father’s approach to life, while his later years become an attempt to escape the shame he feels about who he used to be. It is only when Dash is able to shed the emotion entirely that he eventually finds resolution. When he is forced to acknowledge Lettie as his biological daughter, he finally asks for and receives Violet’s forgiveness. His untroubled death shortly thereafter suggests that his soul has finally attained the peace that has evaded him for so many years.