62 pages • 2 hours read
Nita ProseThe Maid
Fiction | Novel | AdultA modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Themes
Coming of Age
This is a coming-of-age story in which a child or childlike protagonist makes the leap into the adult world. In archetypal terms, The Maid uses the maiden’s journey canonized in fairytales like Cinderella, Snow White, and Sleeping Beauty. In Molly’s case, she experiences a delayed coming of age. Molly needs a prolonged period of security and protection for her unique personality to reach maturity.
Molly is thrust into the adult world with the theft of her money for school and the death of her grandmother, who plays the role of both mother and wise woman (Crone) in Molly’s life. Bereft of adult protection, Molly grows out of the rules and constraints of childhood to achieve adult understanding and authority in the world.
Giselle seems to recognize that Molly is in the role of the sleeping princess. When she gives Molly a makeover, she references the ugly duckling and Cinderella, which are both coming-of-age stories. She also describes Molly as speaking like Eliza in My Fair Lady—another example of the maiden archetype.
My Fair Lady is a forced or false coming of age in which a “rescuer” attempts to press the maiden into an adulthood that doesn’t fit her. The maiden then takes control of her transformation and assumes adulthood on her terms. When Molly looks at her reflection after the makeover, she finds the result off-putting. She is pushed into the wrong adult role for her. It is not an adult role at all but a shadow of the maiden, the vixen, who defines herself in relation to others, mainly men.
Finally, Molly takes moral authority into her hands, determining right and wrong and issuing judgment on her terms. In the process, she takes some of the world’s darkness into herself, blending black and white, evil and good, into a complexly mature self. The Molly who sleeps with a clean conscience feels no compunction about punishing Rodney for a crime he didn’t commit to shield Mrs. Black. She has become her own judge and acts in accordance with her values.
Vigilante Justice
Molly begins in a state of childlike naiveté that enables people like Rodney to take advantage of her. She is undeniably good; she feels other people’s pain, and she tries to protect the people she cares about as when she tries to hide the bullying she experiences in school so that her grandmother need not share that pain.
Molly’s desire to help and protect comes in conflict with other values. For example, when her grandmother needs Molly’s help to die. Molly must weigh an evil (murder) against a good (protecting her grandmother from pain).
Initially, Molly has a rigid sense of right and wrong. She dutifully reports to Mr. Snow any trivial infraction of hotel rules, yet when she learns about Rodney “allowing” Juan Manuel to sleep in empty hotel rooms, she perceives a higher moral good in helping a friend in need. Her feelings for Rodney and sympathy for Juan Manuel justify in her mind the serious violation of hotel policy. She sees it as vigilante justice, like Robin Hood taking from the rich and giving to the needy.
Molly’s sense of justice involves vengeance. When Wilbur steals from her, her affection for him instantly turned to hatred. When she thinks about people like Cheryl and Wilbur who have cheated and stolen from her, she loses all sympathy for them and desires retribution.
After the death of her grandmother, Molly faced increasingly complex moral challenges. With each new test, her choices become more difficult. Her confusion manifests when she takes Mr. Black’s discarded ring and pawns it. As she explains it later to Detective Stark, she applied the wrong rule: finders-keepers rather than do-unto-others. As black-and-white scenarios grow ever grayer, she finds it harder to make the right choice.
When the first Mrs. Black kills Mr. Black, Molly must choose whether to expose her. Molly has no sympathy for Mr. Black, who is a cheater and an abuser, and Mrs. Black acted to protect her daughter, the company, and Giselle. Molly cannot change the past, so she accepts it and moves on to change the things she can.
Molly finally takes full moral authority by manipulating the truth so that Rodney is convicted of the murder; not only does Molly protect Mrs. Black, but she also punishes Rodney for what is, in her mind at least, as great a crime—cruelty to other people, especially Molly herself. Molly concludes by saying that she sleeps with a clear conscience. She has established an internal system of justice that she is comfortable imposing on others even when it defies the law.
We Are the Same in Different Ways
Both Gran and Juan Manuel tell Molly that people are the same in different ways. Molly knows too much about what it’s like to be different. Her differences are significant enough to isolate her from her peers. She learned that many people will reject her, use her, or even maliciously hurt her because of her difference, so she withdraws even from people who would like her if they knew her better.
In the course of the story, Molly learns that she is more similar to other people than she is different. She learns this from Giselle who, although she seems different from Molly, grew up in a similar neighborhood and economic class. As Molly interacts with more people, she finds that they too are like her. Juan Manuel is isolated from his family and has been used and abused by ruthless people. He shares Molly’s love of cleaning. Molly’s sense of justice is similar to that of the first Mrs. Black. Most importantly, Molly recognizes that everyone feels pain and loneliness and that the world is full of people who will love her and care for her the way she cares for the people she loves.
Giselle is a pivotal friendship because she recognizes Molly’s differences and loves her for them. At the same time, she lets Molly know, without judgment, when she does something odd. She shows Molly how to seem more normal without losing the qualities that make her charming. Molly’s difference gives her a unique perspective that forces change. For example, Molly’s friendship changes Giselle and pushes her toward a more authentic life. Molly learns that in the most important ways, the people around her are struggling just as she is to find their way in a complicated world.
