The Memory Keeper's Daughter

Caroline has “large blue eyes in a pale face that might have been forty or twenty-five[...] She was tall, so thin and angular it seemed the bones might poke from beneath her skin at any moment” (12). She falls in love with David at first sight when he comes to work at the clinic where she is a nurse. As a result, she is jealous of Norah, who she believes has attained the dream that Caroline always wanted for herself, that she has spent her life waiting for: a family with a man who loves her unconditionally. As the nurse who helps David deliver Paul and Phoebe, Caroline is catapulted into emotion-driven action when she sees the institution where David intends to send Phoebe, making a decision that will alter the trajectory of her life forever.

However, Caroline never looks back on this decision: “She had faith in herself and her own abilities. She was not a person who ever got halfway to a destination and paused, wondering if she’d left the iron on” (25). Caroline does not seem to possess a shred of self-doubt, confident in the morality of her own decisions. In this way, she represents a kind of foil for Norah, who does not seem to know what to do with herself. However, the two women grow to be similar in nature, perhaps as a result of their experience as mothers.

Although Caroline has always been decisive in her actions, she still evolves as a character throughout the story. Instead of waiting for other people to change her life—essentially waiting for other people’s actions in order to make decisions—Caroline takes it upon herself to change the thoughts and actions of other people: “She was Caroline Simpson, mother of Phoebe, wife of Al, organizer of protests—a different person altogether from the timid woman who had stood in a silent snow-swept office thirteen years ago with an infant in her arms” (224-25). Perhaps as a result of motherhood, Caroline loses all timidity and becomes a formidable force who works to promote educational equality for Phoebe. She loses all her passivity, realizing that society does not reflect the things she wants for her daughter. However, she also treats Phoebe as a child, even after Phoebe matures into a young woman. Caroline’s fierce loyalty and protective nature actually inhibit her from seeing her daughter as a full-grown woman, limiting her daughter’s ability to be independent. By the end of the novel, Caroline realizes this mistake and works to distance herself from Phoebe, mostly at the advice of her husband, Al.

Beautiful and green-eyed, Norah grew up as the responsible young lady who always obeyed the rules and did what she was told, such as having perfect cursive handwriting, even if she secretly wanted to rebel against them. Implicit within the novel lies the idea that Norah married David, who was 11 years her senior, and had children shortly thereafter because being a good housewife was all that was expected of her. However, after Phoebe’s alleged death, she finds herself conflicted and often at odds with societal norms. While she strives to be a good housewife, she finds herself alternately desiring Kay’s normalized glamor and Bree’s freedom, feeling torn between the two diametrically opposing female representations of the 1960s. Similarly, she feels torn between her happiness with Paul’s life and her deep sorrow at Phoebe’s alleged death: “Since Paul was born, since Phoebe had died, she’d felt the need to keep a constant vigil, as if a second’s inattention would open the door for disaster” (77). As a character, Norah becomes the embodiment of conflict, feeling trapped within her social position as David Henry’s life.

As a result, she often empathize with the unrest of the 1960s and 1970s, as she embodies the conflict occurring within the nation:“To her the unrest seemed deeply personal, a reflection of what had been going on in her heart for years. [...] Norah’s world had changed when Phoebe died. All her joys were set into stark relief” (127). Norah sees the political become the personal, internalizing the tension of both her house and of society at large. As a result, she becomes incredibly destructive: she drives drunk and has several affairs. Norah seems so beset by the idea of loss that she tries to force it to happen. Only when she does lose David does she realize that this phantom of loss was a result of his actions, eventually finding peace by being reunited with her daughter and finding happiness in Frederic’s arms.

Bree is Norah’s rebellious younger sister who runs away with and marries an older man when she is young. The marriage ends quickly and painfully, so she enrolls in college and changes her name. At the outset of the novel, Bree is “only twenty, but headstrong and so sure of herself that she seemed to Norah, often, the elder” (40). Bree’s love life is fairly harrowed; she seems to be looking for companionship and partnership within the free-love movement of the 1960s and 1970s, only to find that the men she is involved with have a tendency to cheat on her.

In many ways, Bree represents everything Norah wishes she could be. She is presented as being incredibly free, both in her pursuit of love and in her ideals and reticence to settle down:“Everyone liked Bree: her sense of adventure, her exuberance” (278). Norah envies Bree’s freedom and perceived happiness, even though Bree readily admits that her life has not been without its share of depression. More than anything, Bree is free in her speech; she criticizes the government and society at large, as well as the actions of individual people, like David. Bree is incredibly blunt in her criticism of David as well as Norah’s inability to live her life, often saying things that Norah herself wishes she could verbalize. If Norah’s life is beset by David’s encompassing silence, Bree’s life is beset by communication. In this way, she represents not only a foil for Norah but also one for David. However, as Bree ages, the two sisters grow more to resemble each other: Norah becomes more free,and Bree turns to the solace she finds in organized religion, especially after suffering from breast cancer.

Paul is Phoebe’s fraternal twin brother and the son of David and Norah. Paul is caught in the middle of many things, including his father’s expectations of him. David tries to press him into sports, specifically basketball, but Paul has no interest in anything apart from music. As a result, he often feels at odds with his father’s desire for his future. However, Paul seems most frequently to be caught in the middle of the animosity that exists as a kind of physical presence between Norah and David. Even from a young age, Paul wants to escape from the tension of his house: “Tall and awkward, he ran every morning as if he might escape from his own life” (173). Paul exists as a constant reminder of the loss that his mother feels, and he feels partially responsible for the silence of his house, as his very existence is a reminder of David’s greatest regret as well. When David buys Paul his first guitar, Paul turns to music to ward off the hostile and oppressive silence of their family. Even as an adult, Paul uses music as an escape, traveling all over the word in order to get away from his family. However, once he is reunited with Phoebe, he realizes his desire to settle down and decides to move to Pittsburgh permanently, no longer bent on escaping the pain and grief of his past.