The Need for Motherhood

Multiple characters display a need for motherhood, both in the sense of a child in need of a mother for support, and a mother in need of a child to care for. This need is dynamic in the bohemian setting of Hydra; it allows some characters to create their art and inhibits others. This theme manifests most clearly in the relationship between Erica and Charmian.

Erica yearns for a mother through the novel. She plainly says, “I long for my mother to come back and haunt me” (174). From the first moment Erica and Charmian meet, though, Erica finds a surrogate mother in her. They embrace with hugs, kisses, and tears as soon as Erica enters Charmian’s home. Erica recognizes at the end of the novel that “Charmian really had been the mother [she] needed” (315). Charmian, too, finds a sense of maternal fulfillment...