Mother and Son (Cyclopedia of Literary Characters)
At a glance:
- Author: Ivy Compton-Burnett
- First Published: 1955
- Type of Work: Novel
- Type of Plot: Satire
- Time of Work: End of the nineteenth century
- Setting: An English country house
- Genres: Long fiction, Family literature, Satire
- Subjects: Values, Children, Family or family life, Mothers, Parents and children, Power, personal or social, Nineteenth century, Marriage, Mistaken or secret identity, Rural or country life, England or English people, Adultery, Revenge, Illegitimacy, Servants, Pretensions, Victorian era or Victorianism
- Locales: England
Characters Discussed
Miranda Hume, the iron-willed matriarch of the Hume family. She bullies and intimidates her husband and children, all of whom she appears to dislike, except for her son Rosebery, on whom she dotes in a possessive and needy way. She poses as a standard of rectitude and domestic order but is in fact driven by passions of which she appears largely unconscious and over which she has little control. The fact that her eldest son is illegitimate is something she hides beneath a façade of rigid Victorian propriety. Because she has deluded herself into thinking...
[The entire page is 1072 words long]
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