The nature of motherhood

As the book's title suggests, this is a novel that probes the nature of motherhood. Anna is much more than a mother. Miller gives us a thorough accounting of her childhood and adolescence, and the novel seems much more focused on Anna as an independent and emerging woman than as a mother per se. And yet, it is really in the way that Anna negotiates her own expectations and the expectations of others regarding her role as a mother that we come to understand Anna's central struggle as a woman. When Anna talks to Dr. Payne about the transformation that Leo effected in her life, she talks about being less focused on Molly, and she talks about this diminishment of focus as a positive thing for Molly. Prior to her love affair with Leo, Anna was perhaps unhealthily preoccupied with Molly as the only really...