Flowers In The Attic

Christopher and Cathy spy on the party from inside an oblong black table with a mesh peephole. It is a scene of lavish splendor, and their mother is the most beautiful woman there. A tall, dark-haired man called Bartholomew (Bart) Winslow accompanies Corrine. He cannot stop touching her, and they overhear a gossiping couple say that he is due to marry her. They also spot their grandfather, who resembles their father, and is “unnaturally handsome” despite being in a wheelchair (198). He appears to look right up at them, with a smile on his face, and the children wonder whether he is indeed a fabled tyrant. Chris and Cathy discuss how it is impossible to choose who you fall in love with.

Later, back in the room, Chris points out the unlocked door, and says that he will go out and explore, but not before he looks admiringly at Cathy in her new nightgown. Cathy is excited to see the power she might have over men.  

Cathy is awoken by her mother violently shaking her, because Chris has still not returned from his expedition. When Chris returns, Corrine slaps him in the face, saying that if he repeats the expedition, she will slap Cathy, too. Corrine says that they will never be allowed out again for their misdemeanor, and the children see a side of their mother that “seemed exactly like our grandmother” (210), and observe how her number of visits have diminished over time.

Cathy charges Chris to tell her all about his expedition. He saw the house with its accoutrements of a trophy room, where a portrait of their grandfather as a fierce hunter hangs alongside the heads of the beasts he has decapitated. Chris reports that he followed their mother, whom Bart Winslow was imploring to show him the famous swan bed. Chris saw some activity between Corrine and Bart that he is too coy to report to Cathy, and overheard a conversation about whether the swan bed belonged to a famous French courtesan. Corrine confirmed that the bed belonged to a grandmother of dubious repute, and now that Corrine has fallen from grace, she has inherited it. Chris, who eventually finds Corrine’s suite of rooms, reports that the swan bed is magnificent.

As the twins grow content with the television and dollhouse their mother has brought them, the older children endure the tribulations of puberty. Cathy gets her period, and experiences “strange achings, longings” (222), while Christopher’s own longings cause him to have wet dreams. Cathy worries over the messiness and pain of her period, and says that as a future dancer, she will not have children.

Cathy notices that her mother fondles Chris, and almost ignores the twins, who are themselves becoming more guarded with her and beginning to view their older siblings as their parents. Still, Corrine notices Cory’s musical inclinations, and says that he takes after her two older brothers, Malcolm and Joel, who left home to pursue their musical passions in secret. Each died in an accident, a fact which Cathy notes as strange, given the coincidence of her father’s accidental death.

Cathy asks Chris whether he doubts their mother’s motives, especially as she keeps her children locked up, while she appears to live a life of luxury. Chris, who views their mother as “his goddess of all female perfection” (233), admits that he sometimes has doubts, and that there must be a good reason for her strangeness. Cathy resents that Chris appears to love their mother more than her, and that by August they have been “in this prison a full year” (235).

A whole second year passes, in the manner of the first, and Cathy, who is growing, has the curiosity to see her naked body head to toe. She admires the changes, and so does Christopher, who is standing in the closet. He is overcome by her beauty. Their grandmother catches them and, pronouncing them sinners, announces that none of the four siblings will eat for a week unless Chris cuts off Cathy’s hair. They refuse.

The next morning, Cathy wakes up with her hair covered in tar. Chris goes up to the attic with his chemistry set, until he finds a solution that will wash the tar from Cathy’s hair. His hard work pays off, and Cathy emerges from the situation with most of her hair. Grandmother does not bring them food for the entire week, and the children become increasingly thin and weak. Their mother also does not visit them, and by this stage, her visits have become increasingly rare. Chris is more surprised and hurt by this than Cathy, and he no longer keeps Corrine’s picture by his bed.

Chris devises a plan, whereby he and Cathy will eat the four dead mice in the trap so that they will have the strength to carry the twins down and look for food. However, Chris re-enters the room with a picnic basket from grandmother, and this time it contains four powdered-sugar doughnuts. It is a surprising treat from grandmother, who has also smashed the mirrors in their bathroom to discourage vanity.

One hot summer evening, Chris invites Cathy to sneak out, use a rope ladder, and go for a swim. 

Chris and Cathy escape to the lake using the rope ladder. They find respite and joy in nature, and Cathy finds that she is attracted to Chris when they are lying on the grass after their swim; although she is “unable to feast my eyes on his beauty without feeling guilty and ashamed” (268). They talk about how they are missing out on the dates that would be normal for people of their age and contemplate where their mother has gone. On the way back to the house, Cathy’s arms are not strong enough to propel her up the rope ladder, and she almost does not make it. When she finally arrives, Chris judges that she is not strong enough for them to repeat the adventure. 

Chris is increasingly moody and jaded because his beloved mother has not visited in over two months. He and Cathy have an argument about how they will support themselves and the twins if they escape the house, and grandmother enters at that moment to chastise Chris for standing too near the window. When she calls him “boy,” and he insists on her calling him by his name, grandmother says that she despises his name because it was the same as that of the father who deceived the family by running off with Corrine. When Chris claims that the children are not to blame for their parents’ sins, and that grandmother has put him and Cathy in a set-up where they have no choice but to see each other’s naked bodies, grandmother forces him into the bathroom, where he must strip and then gets beaten with a willow switch. When Cathy cries out in pain for Chris, she is in turn stripped and beaten.

When grandmother leaves, Chris sends the twins to go upstairs and play in the attic, while he applies antiseptic to Cathy’s wounds. Then, while they are both naked from the waist up, he pulls her to him and kisses her. Cathy warns him to “stop” because their behavior is living up to grandmother’s expectations of them (284). Chris laughs at her and proclaims her ignorant, because all they have done is kiss. She does not want it to go further than kissing, although she feels “something sleeping deep inside of me awakened” by the half-naked kiss (284). 

Chris and Cathy hear screaming, and it is Cory, who is alarmed about seeing a mouse in a trap that is eating its own tail. He wants to keep the mouse as a pet, and so Chris and Cathy help to save its life. Grandmother enters, and icily permits Cory to keep the mouse, saying that such a choice of pet suits him. They make a cage for Mickey the mouse, and after a period of being suspicious of captivity, he finally acquiesces to being kept by humans. When the mouse shows a predilection for the dollhouse, and Carrie screams at Cory, Cory tells Mickey that “bad things happen in big houses. The lady who owns that house over there, she hits you for anything” (291).

Chris and Cathy worry that the twins are not growing, except for their heads, which are too large for their frail, stem-like bodies. When Corrine—who’d been away on a honeymoon—at last appears, bearing gifts, Chris admonishes her for not turning up for two months, and being responsible for the twins’ ill-health. He demands that she let them out of the room immediately. Corrine uses her old line about grandfather being at death’s door, and that if the children wait, they will have riches and freedom simultaneously. She calls her older children “heartless and ungrateful,” given that she has bought them so many gifts, and kept them in a warm room, and threatens to not return until they show some love and gratitude (301). However, in her guilt, Corrine ignores the frail twins.

The gifts for Cathy prove uninspired, as the books are ones she has already read, and the clothes are little-girl dresses that do not fit her growing bust. Cathy is furious and shouts in front of Chris and the twins that she wishes she was dead. She goes up to the attic, works at the barre and when she falls, contemplates suicide. She stays on the roof, until Chris joins her and admonishes her for her desperate speech. She knows that she loves him and asks whether there is any way they can leave, given that “Momma takes care of herself first, and us next” (312). He says to hold out, in case they come into the fortune that Corrine has promised.