Flowers in the Attic
Flowers
in the Attic is a 1979 Gothic
novel by V.
C. Andrews. It is the first book in the Dollanganger Series,
and was followed by Petals on the Wind, If There Be Thorns, Seeds of Yesterday, Garden
of Shadows, Christopher's Diary:
Secrets of Foxworth, Christopher's Diary:
Echoes of Dollanganger and Christopher's Diary:
Secret Brother. The novel is written in the
first-person, from the point of view of Cathy Dollanganger. It was twice
adapted into films in 1987 and 2014. The book was extremely popular, selling over forty million
copies world-wide.[citation needed][1]
Plot
In
1957, the Dollanganger family lives an idyllic life in Gladstone, Pennsylvania until Mr. Dollanganger dies in a car accident, leaving his
wife Corinne deep in debt with four children and no professional skills. The
family is forced to move in with Corinne's wealthy parents, from whom she is
estranged. Upon arrival at Corinne's ancestral home, Foxworth Hall, the family
is greeted coldly by Corinne's mother Olivia, who sneaks them into a small
bedroom connected to the attic.
The children are told they must remain hidden from their grandfather, Malcolm,
and can never leave this room.
The
older children, Cathy and Chris, attempt to make the best of the situation for
their younger siblings, twins Carrie and Cory, by turning the attic into an
imaginary garden. They are dismayed when Corinne returns after meeting with her
parents and they see she has been savagely whipped. Corinne confesses that the
children's dead father was her father's half-brother, and this incest is the cause of her and her parents' estrangement. Corinne
plans to win back her father's love, and hopes to introduce the children once
this has been accomplished.
At
first, Corinne visits her children daily, sometimes bringing expensive gifts.
Meanwhile, Olivia emotionally and physically abuses the children, constantly threatening
to whip them for any acts she considers "sinful". At Christmas time,
Corinne allows Cathy and Chris to watch guests at Foxworth Hall from a hiding
spot, where they see their grandfather for the first time and also see their
mother with Bart Winslow, Malcolm's attorney. Their mother's visits then become
less frequent as her emotional bond with the children weakens, to the point
where she eventually slaps Chris and threatens to whip him.
A
year later, Cathy and Chris have both entered puberty and become surrogate
parents for Carrie and Cory, who no longer recognize Corinne when she
occasionally appears. While Cathy and Chris are both entering adulthood, the
twins' physical growth is stunted from a lack of adequate nutrition, sunlight
and fresh air. Despite personal shame, Cathy and Chris develop a physical
attraction toward each other. Olivia catches Chris staring at a half-dressed
Cathy and orders him to cut off Cathy's hair. Chris refuses, and Olivia
abandons them for three weeks, driving them to near-starvation. When Cathy cuts
her own hair, meals resume and now include sugared doughnuts as a surprise.
Corinne
visits the children for the first time in six months, explaining that she had
been on honeymoon with Bart in Europe. Cathy and Chris react angrily, but when
Corinne threatens to never visit again, they pretend to be happy for her.
Realising that they cannot rely on their mother any longer, Chris and Cathy
come up with an escape plan, sneaking into the house to steal money and
valuables from their mother's room. One night, Cathy discovers her sleeping
stepfather and kisses him. When Chris learns of the act, he is enraged and
rapes Cathy. Afterwards, he is overcome with remorse, and Cathy forgives him by
saying she wanted it too.
Cory
becomes very sick and Corinne agrees to take him to the hospital, though only
after Cathy tells her that if Cory dies, she will find a way to make Corinne
pay for it. The next day, Corinne returns and tells the children that Cory
died, allegedly from pneumonia. Without warning, their mother and Bart move
out. Eavesdropping on the servants, Chris learns that Malcolm died months ago
and Olivia is now leaving out doughnuts sprinkled with rat poison in an attempt
to clear the attic's "mouse" infestation. The three remaining
children finally flee, catching a train to Florida.
At
the train station, Chris reveals he discovered Corinne's inheritance is
conditional on her having no descendants from her first marriage, and she was
poisoning them to secure her father's wealth. Chris and Cathy decide against
contacting the police as their main concern is to stay together and protect
Carrie, who is still a minor. Chris assures Cathy that they can make a new life
without their mother, but Cathy swears to exact revenge one day.
Note:
An inconsistency - There is slight confusion as to when the children arrived at
Foxworth Hall. Cathy mentions that they had been in the attic 3 years, 4
months, 16 days (Petals on the Wind- p 18). They left 10 Nov 1960 meaning they
arrived about 24 June 1957. Yet in Flowers in the Attic chapters "Goodbye
Daddy" to "Roads to Riches", the father dies in early May and
it's implied that a few months passed before they abandoned the house in
Gladstone. Also on page 231 of Flowers in the Attic, it's mentioned that
"August had come and gone. We have been in this prison a full year."
Characters
- Catherine Leigh "Cathy" Dollanganger: The protagonist and narrator of the novel. Cathy is the second child and older daughter of Christopher and Corrine. She becomes an accomplished ballerina and later a novelist. During their time in the attic, she becomes romantically attracted to Chris, her brother.
- Christopher Garland "Chris" Dollanganger, Jr.: Older son and oldest child of Christopher and Corrine. Chris is the older brother of Cathy, Cory, and Carrie. He is an over-achiever and later becomes a doctor. During their time in the attic, he becomes sexually attracted to Cathy.
- Cory Dollanganger: Twin brother of Carrie and younger brother of Cathy and Chris. The "quiet one" of the twins, Cory is introverted but musically talented. He becomes ill during their time in the attic and dies from arsenic poisoning at the hands of his mother.
- Carrie Dollanganger: Twin sister to Cory and the younger sister of Cathy and Chris. Prior to Cory's death, she is an extraverted girly girl, but after Cory dies she refuses to speak for months.
- Corrine Dollanganger (née Foxworth): Mother of Chris, Cathy, Cory, and Carrie and widow of Christopher Dollanganger. Eventually becomes an antagonist in the story when she tries to kill her children in order to gain her father's inheritance. She marries her father's attorney, Bart Winslow, later on and loses interest in her children and late husband.
- Bartholomew "Bart" Winslow: Second husband of Corrine. He is a trophy husband and marries her thinking that she doesn't have any children. Cathy is shocked to discover that he is eight years younger than Corrine.
- Olivia Foxworth (née Winfield): Wife of Malcolm Foxworth. Grandmother of the Dollanganger children. Cousin of John Amos. Olivia and Malcolm are co-antagonists in this book.
- Malcolm Neal Foxworth: Father of Corrine and grandfather of the Dollanganger children. Husband of Olivia. He is described both as having a heart condition and as heartless, a symbolic paradox. He dies during the story, though Chris and Cathy do not learn this until the end. He was also the older half-brother of the children's father.
- Christopher Dollanganger, Sr.: Corrine's first husband; father of the children. He was Malcolm's younger half-brother, making him Corrine's half-uncle. He is described as a wonderful father who couldn't bear to be separated from his children for longer than five days. He is killed in a car accident on his birthday at the beginning of the book.
- John Amos: A butler to the Foxworth family. Chris overhears very horrible information from him during one of Chris' expeditions to steal from his mother.
Awards
In
1993, Flowers in the Attic was awarded the Secondary BILBY
Award.[2] In 2003 the book was listed on the BBC's The
Big Read poll of the UK's 200
"best-loved novels."[3]
Adaptations
In
1987, the book was adapted into a film of the same
name starring Louise
Fletcher, Victoria
Tennant, Kristy
Swanson, and Jeb
Stuart Adams and directed by Jeffrey
Bloom.
A second adaptation was released on January 18, 2014, on the Lifetime network
starring Heather Graham
as Corrine and Ellen Burstyn
as the Grandmother, with Kiernan
Shipka as Cathy, Mason
Dye as Christopher, and directed by Deborah
Chow.[4] The film received mixed reviews, but critics praised Ellen
Burstyn's performance.
The
book was adapted into a stage play by V. C. Andrews's ghost
writer, Andrew
Neiderman, in the form of an e-book and was
published by Pocket Star. The stage play was released in October 2014 and is 80
pages in length. In August 2015 the stage play received its world premiere
production in New Orleans, Louisiana. The play, which received positive reviews,[5] was produced by See
'Em On Stage: A Production Company
and was directed by Christopher Bentivegna.
Controversy
The
book's success was not without controversy. The depiction of incest between an
adolescent brother and sister in the novel has led to its being banned in certain areas at different times. Chariho High School
in Rhode Island
removed it because it contained "offensive passages concerning incest and
sexual intercourse." In 1994, it was removed from the Oconee County, Georgia school libraries due to "the filthiness of the
material."[6]
Claims
that the novel is based on a true story have been disputed.[citation needed] For many years,
there was no evidence to support this claim, and the book was passed off as
fiction. Nonetheless, the official V. C. Andrews website claims to have
contacted one of Andrews' relatives. This unidentified relative claimed Flowers
in the Attic was loosely based on a faintly similar account. While at the
"University of Virginia hospital for treatment...she developed a crush on
her young doctor. He and his siblings had been locked away in the attic for
over 6 years to preserve the family wealth."[7]
References
· Flood, Alison (14 November 2019). "'Awful
and fabulous': the madness of Flowers in the Attic". The Guardian. Retrieved 17 November 2019.
· · "Previous
Winners of the BILBY Awards: 1990 – 96" (PDF). www.cbcaqld.org. The Children's Book Council of
Australia Queensland Branch. Archived from the
original (PDF) on 19 November 2015.
Retrieved 4 November 2015.
· · "V.C.
Andrews' 'Flowers in the Attic' to Premiere on Lifetime January 18 – Starring
Heather Graham, Ellen Burstyn & Kiernan Shipka". 14 November 2013.
· · Doyle, Robert
(1998). Banned Books Resource Guide. The American Library Association.
·
F., Jennifer. "Biography: Based on a True Story". The Complete V.C. Andrews.
Retrieved 2010-01-09. It has been widely speculated that Flowers in the Attic
was based on a true story. But there has been no physical or historical
evidence to support that claim. Virginia herself has admitted that a few
incidents are autobiographical, and she has also stated that her stories have
been influenced by experiences of friends and family, her own dreams and
memories, and even popular and literary fiction.
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