Winter Garden

Another of the novel’s themes is how familial context and influences shape identity. Each one of the protagonists must learn to confront the issues in their familial connections in order to become more confident and settled in who they are as individuals.

The character whose identity shifts most significantly due to familial contexts is Vera, especially in response to family traumas. With Leo and Anya, Vera is a vibrant mother who shows her children love in every word and action. However, Vera loses her identity when Leo, Anya, and Sasha die. When they meet, Vera tells Evan her name is Anya and goes to America with him. This name change and erasure of original identity symbolize the character’s transition from the kind and loving Vera to the stoic and cold Anya. When Anya has Meredith and Nina, she remains cold and distant out of shame for her lost children, blaming herself for what happened to them. By sharing her story and accepting her experience in Leningrad, Anya reclaims her old identity and opens herself up to living in a more genuine and emotionally open manner once again. Anya’s restored identity strengthens further when she discovers Stacey, the daughter Anya thought was dead. Thus, Anya’s and Vera’s identities converge when Stacey meets her half sisters, showing that Anya’s identity depends on both halves of her family.

Meredith and Nina struggle to find their identity because of their broken relationship with Anya. Her mother’s rejection deeply hurts Meredith; as a balm for that hurt, she becomes a devoted mother. However, with both daughters away at college, Meredith questions who she is. She asks herself, “What if [I] hadn’t come home to run the orchard and raise [my] children? What if [I] hadn’t gotten married so young? What kind of woman could [I] have become?” (17). Meredith struggles with her identity because she defines herself through family connections—her children, her running of the family business—and yet she senses that there is something inadequate about those bonds. She questions her identity further when her father dies, leaving her to wonder what type of family they will be without him. Meredith finds her identity again once her relationship with Anya heals. By learning about her mother’s background, Meredith realizes that “[i]t was all connected […] Her life and her mother’s. They were joined, and not only by blood. By inclination, perhaps even by temperament. She was more and more sure that whatever loss had finally broken her mother—turned Vera into Anya—would have ruined Meredith, too” (323). This realization that Meredith shares much of her personality with Anya allows Meredith to understand that she, too, can be strong. Once Meredith makes this connection, she ceases to question who she is, her marriage heals, and her family comes together like never before.

Finally, Nina struggles with who she is because she refuses to understand the strength within her family. She travels the world to find a replacement for this strength, yet she can’t be truly happy and confident in her identity until she learns who her mother is and who, in turn, she is. Like Meredith, Nina is overcome by her mother’s strength. Both daughters thought Anya was cold and unfeeling, yet they learn the opposite is true. When Nina learns this, she regains her confidence and returns to photojournalism with a new perspective of the world and her family’s place within it. She photographs her mother, and that photo becomes a famous symbol of courage and loss. Nina’s ability to capture this aspect of her mother demonstrates that she acknowledges her mother’s strength and the strength she sees within herself. Thus, all three women use each other to better understand who they are, how their family fits together, and what they can gain when they love and forgive each other.