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There is, of course, another way in which Elly can deny any sort of responsibility for the problems that beset her. We're about to see this when she whines about not being able to stick to a diet. Rather than admit that she's not morbidly obese, she thought-bubbles about being weak enough to listen to a little voice inside of her head that commands her to eat. Just then, Lizzie comes into the room and says that she cannot finish her ice-cream cone. Since it's an established fact that Elly is compelled to eat her children's left-overs, the implication is that if Elly didn't have children, she wouldn't be fat and old and ugly and unloved and blah-blah-blah.
What we take away from this is that Elly tends to pin the blame for weaknesses in her own character on other people. Is it the kid's fault that Elly cooks too damned much food? No. They are not responsible for their mother mindlessly copying her own parent in her constant campaign to make children too weighed down by stodgy food to play and create CHAOS for mother. Is it their fault that Elly cannot bear to see a plate with food on it? No. They were not present when Marian was bellowing about children starving elsewhere who probably would have turned their noses up at the indigestible slop English Canadians refer to as good food. (Seriously. I had to start preparing my own food before I could tolerate onions. Mom, God bless her, never cut them fine enough to cook them properly; it was like biting into an eraser.) Is it their fault that their insane mother's distorted body image makes her stint herself? Nope. They didn't make her a crazy person who bitterly regrets no longer being her birth weight.
Not, of course, that you can tell Elly this. She doesn't want to believe that the small voice telling her to eat is coming from a body designed to never really lose weight. It's like telling her that it's not a small child's fault that she thinks that 'somebody' means 'anybody' instead of 'Mommy'; this oversight leads her to think that it's somehow April's fault for getting out to topple in a river.
What we take away from this is that Elly tends to pin the blame for weaknesses in her own character on other people. Is it the kid's fault that Elly cooks too damned much food? No. They are not responsible for their mother mindlessly copying her own parent in her constant campaign to make children too weighed down by stodgy food to play and create CHAOS for mother. Is it their fault that Elly cannot bear to see a plate with food on it? No. They were not present when Marian was bellowing about children starving elsewhere who probably would have turned their noses up at the indigestible slop English Canadians refer to as good food. (Seriously. I had to start preparing my own food before I could tolerate onions. Mom, God bless her, never cut them fine enough to cook them properly; it was like biting into an eraser.) Is it their fault that their insane mother's distorted body image makes her stint herself? Nope. They didn't make her a crazy person who bitterly regrets no longer being her birth weight.
Not, of course, that you can tell Elly this. She doesn't want to believe that the small voice telling her to eat is coming from a body designed to never really lose weight. It's like telling her that it's not a small child's fault that she thinks that 'somebody' means 'anybody' instead of 'Mommy'; this oversight leads her to think that it's somehow April's fault for getting out to topple in a river.
