The Importance of Love and Relationships

Love and relationships are shown to be incredibly important qualities in living a happy life for the characters in the novel. This is most clearly shown through the character of Vi. As the novel opens, Vi is not a happy person. She is clearly defined by her anger. She sees people as difficulties she has to work around, and she has no desire to change anything about herself in order to appease other people. She knows she has a reputation of being a "bitch," and she is fine with this term and her reputation because she refuses to make herself smaller simply to appease other people.

Vi erroneously picked up this message from her mother. Vi’s grandmother saw marriage as the primary means by which a woman could distinguish her success in life. Vi’s mother, on the other hand...