What do Alcohol and cigarettes represent?

Both alcohol and cigarettes represent numbness and allow for the absence of pain. Evelyn uses alcohol to get through her life, following her sexual assault and then Eloise leaving the convent. To survive the loneliness and post-traumatic anguish, Evelyn relies on alcohol. Josephine uses cigarettes in a similar but less intense way. Evelyn says that “whereas once the habit of smoking lent [Josephine] an elegance, now she looked dependent, desperate” (135). Before getting the ultimatum from the sisters, Lucia tries to leave the house to get cigarettes, to help blot out her pain and confusion. The morning Evelyn leaves Mercy House she sees Joylette smoking a cigarette out on the balcony. She is taking the edge off her life’s hardships, while also giving her a reason to get out of the space she shares with her three sons.