Silver Spoon Parable

The parable that Molly presents in the novel's prologue symbolizes the folly of making assumptions about people. In the parable (a brief story that illustrates a moral point), a silver spoon goes missing from a Lord and Lady's table. The wealthy landowners blame their maid for the theft and fire her on the spot, frog-marching her out of the castle despite the maid's profuse apologies for failing to locate the spoon. The maid is not exonerated until years later, when builders renovate the castle and pull up the floorboards to discover the spoon in a rat's nest. While the parable is ostensibly about the tendency of powerful people to abuse their authority over others, the story also speaks to Molly's inclination to jump to conclusions about people. For instance, potentially incriminating coincidences prompt Molly to at different points wonder whether Lily, Cheryl, Serena, and...