71 pages • 2-hour read
The Wrong Daughter
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Themes
Content Warning: This section of the guide includes discussion of physical abuse, emotional abuse, and death.
The Malleability of Identity in the Face of Trauma
In The Wrong Daughter, identity appears as a shifting construct that trauma and personal storytelling continually reshape. The novel shows how severe suffering breaks apart any sense of a stable self, leaving characters to rebuild their identities with intent or letting outside pressures distort them. Smith traces this instability through people who change their names to escape public tragedy, turn to old objects to reassemble a broken past, or lose their autonomy under a controlling figure. These constant adjustments present identity as a set of choices made to endure experiences that feel unbearable.
Caitlin offers the clearest example of this reconstruction when she takes her fiancé’s surname, Fairview, long before their marriage. She links the name “Arden” to public trauma and to being labeled “the sister of the missing Arden girl” (10). When she explains that changing her name feels like shaking a snow globe to create “neatly covered, untrodden ground. A fresh start” (18), she describes her attempt to separate her current life from the identity shaped by her sister’s abduction. By adopting a new name, Caitlin tries to regain control of her story and build a version of herself that her 16 years of public grief no longer defines.
When Olivia returns, her sense of self shows similar fragility, although her reconstruction looks murkier and often seems unintentional. Olivia can’t recall central details about the night she disappeared, such as the green-and-gold journal given to her by the “Boy on the Bus.” After Caitlin presses her for answers, Olivia first denies remembering the journal and then appears to build a memory from the details Caitlin supplies, which leads Caitlin to think, “She’s lying” (50). Olivia turns to her childhood diaries to fill the gaps in her memory, and her father retrieves them from the attic so she can remember who she once was. This dependence on old artifacts blurs the line between lived experience and reconstructed story, showing how trauma and captivity can leave a person relying on a curated past to rebuild a self.
Elinor’s storyline strengthens this pattern through a disturbing example of how isolation and another person’s will can shape identity. Her sense of self is bound to her brother: “Without Heath, where would she be? What would she be? This fear that he is gone forever may be irrational, but it is as real to her as the cold floor pressed against her hot cheek.” (23). Elinor’s rhetorical questions reveal that her identity is entirely contingent upon her brother, while the sensory detail of the “cold floor pressed against her hot cheek” grounds her abstract psychological fear in a tangible, physical sensation, highlighting the visceral reality of her isolation within Ledbury Hall. Their intense, codependent relationship darkly mirrors a healthy sibling bond. Heath’s influence defines her life, and her dependence on him erases an independent identity. Psychological control and the threat of abandonment have left her vulnerable to his imposing will. Together, these experiences show how the novel paints identity as a constantly shifting construct strained by trauma, memory loss, and controlling relationships.
The Corrosive Nature of Secrets and Deception
Deception runs like a toxin through every relationship in The Wrong Daughter. The novel frames secrets that people keep for personal gain, control, or misguided protection as forces that distort trust and alter how characters understand their lives. Layered lies, from a concealed book contract that undermines a five-year romance to an invented world used to imprison young women, show how deception ruins bonds and unravels a sense of stability.
Oscar’s hidden book project marks the most intimate betrayal. For five years, he built a relationship with Caitlin to gather material for a true-crime book about Olivia’s disappearance. When Caitlin reads the manuscript, she learns that their first meeting didn’t result from chance but was part of his careful plan. Oscar admits, “‘I knew who you were before we met’” (236), and his confession rewrites their shared history. The trust and affection that Caitlin believed in become tools that he uses in his work, which drains all sincerity from the memories she relied on. Oscar’s years-long deception shows how secrets within a partnership do more than break trust; they recast the past as hollow and meaningless.
Heath’s lies work on an even harsher scale. He uses deception as his main method to manipulate and control the young women he keeps captive. His barriers are physical, but his power rests on the stories he supplies to these women. When he tells Olivia that her parents planned to send her away to boarding school, or when he convinces Bryony that her family abandoned her and that she was an unhoused runaway, he casts himself as the person who “rescued” them. He builds in his captives a worldview that isolates them under the guise of protecting them. By limiting the information that they receive, Heath shapes how Olivia and Bryony understand their lives, creating dependence and fear. His manipulation shows how lies can dismantle a person’s sense of identity and trap them in a world that exists only because he says it does.
The novel leads readers to believe that Caitlin is the only one who sees the truth: that the woman who returns claiming to be her sister isn’t really Olivia. Therefore, the implication is that Elinor must be the impersonator. However, Caitlin’s perception is flawed because she is the target of a complex gaslighting scheme. The layered deceptions create a world where reality becomes fragile, and where trust becomes brittle under the weight of sustained falsehoods.
Sibling Relationships as Both Sanctuaries and Battlegrounds
In the novel’s world, sibling relationships carry immense emotional weight, offering refuge while creating conflict shaped by guilt, manipulation, and dominance. One way that the novel builds this tension is by contrasting Caitlin and Olivia’s lost bond of sisterhood against the consuming bond into which Heath forces Elinor. These contrasting relationships reveal how easily this connection can nurture or harm.
Caitlin’s memories of childhood with Olivia establish a picture of sisterhood grounded in ease and affection. The Prologue describes their “very last perfect afternoon” (2) in a wildflower meadow, a moment that conveys a lost idyll. Caitlin remembers living “contentedly in the long shadow of her sister” and feeling “safe in the shadow of her sister” (2). After Olivia’s abduction, this cherished past becomes the root of Caitlin’s enduring guilt. She blames herself for failing to protect Olivia, and that guilt shapes her adult life. The shelter she once found in her sister's presence becomes a private landscape filled with regret.
Heath’s gaslighting scheme leads Caitlin to believe that the Olivia who returns is an imposter who is leaning into the Arden family’s longing for reunion and subtly pushing Caitlin aside, edging her out of her closest relationships (for example, capturing Florence’s attention and taking Caitlin’s place as Florence’s sole maid of honor). In addition, the woman claiming to be Olivia needles Caitlin with comments disguised as sisterly closeness, as when she asks, “But aren’t sisters supposed to share?” (193), implying that Caitlin might share Oscar with Olivia. Caitlin feels isolated and undermined at every turn. Elinor’s story intensifies the tension. Her desire to live a normal life suggests to readers that she could be Oliva’s imposter.
Distortion pervades Elinor and Heath’s codependent and manipulative relationship. Elinor’s identity is rooted in her relationship with Heath, even though he expresses his love through control. When she tries to leave him, his possessiveness turns violent and ends in her death. Their bond shows how devotion mixed with control can become lethal. A visitor to their home conveys this danger when he tells Elinor, “You can love something so much that you hold onto it too tightly and crush it to death” (265). These intertwined relationships all show how the bonds between siblings, whether biological or chosen, carry enough power to protect, distort, or destroy.
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