The Good Sister

Novelist Sally Hepworth says a key inspiration for The Good Sister was the play between her two young daughters. The children would be hugging one moment and physically attacking each other the next. When Hepworth scolded the younger girl for biting her older sister, the older girl asked her to leave her baby sister alone, as she loved her. “If there isn’t a book in that kind of relationship, I thought, my name isn’t Sally Hepworth.” The Good Sister takes the idea of the fascinating, complex relationship between sisters and adds another dimension to it by making one of the sisters a little too manipulative for comfort. Though Rose is the obvious villain of the piece, Fern continues to feel a pull toward her. It is difficult for Fern to say with surety that she and Rose do not love each other despite everything that has transpired between them. In a twisted way, the reason Rose feels she can do whatever she wants where Fern is concerned is because she doesn’t feel separation from her. As Wally astutely notes, Rose often behaves as if Fern is her possession or an extension of her ego. If Fern is Rose, or the more inferior part of Rose (as Rose sees it), Rose has the discretion to punish this part. The mixture of possessiveness, jealousy, love, and revenge is a hallmark of Rose’s feelings for Fern.

For Fern, Rose is the lens through which she largely views the world at the beginning of the novel. Fern believes Rose is the reason she has survived her childhood and trusts her blindly. Her feelings of indebtedness toward Rose are so intense that when she learns Rose cannot have children, her first thought is “if my eggs do turn out to be youthful … maybe there could be a use for them after all?” (28). Fern too sees little separation with Rose at the novel’s start, behaving almost as if she and Rose share a body. Its not a great leap of thought for Fern to think of her eggs as Rose’s babies. The Fern-Rose relationship may seem a safe, warm bubble, but the moment Fern tries to outgrow Rose’s influence, Rose begins to reveal a different side. This is not uncommon in the relationship between siblings, where one sibling gaining a partner may make the other feel left out and jealous. What makes Rose’s underlying jealousy about Fern and Wally unhealthy is her refusal to let go of her childish feelings.

Another aspect the novel touches upon is the depiction of the relationship between sisters in books and movies. Fern notes that “on television and movies, sisters always talk about boys … confiding secrets” (106). Fern would like this sort of a relationship with Rose but can hardly imagine Rose teasing her about a boy. Fern expects a relationship between equals, whereas Rose cannot be playful with Fern because she sees her as a child. When Fern begins to realize the mismatch between Rose and her idea of sisterhood, she begins to grow more critical of Rose. She tries setting boundaries with Rose but observes she herself violates these boundaries, such as when she calls Rose for help from the restaurant. “Blurred boundaries, I think, are what sisters do best” (214). It is significant that by the end of the novel Fern begins making healthier choices when it comes to Rose. She doesn’t go to see Rose with the baby even though she feels the pull of love because she is starting to trust her instinct. Thus, the novel suggests that though the boundaries between sisters are often blurry, growing up means setting healthy boundaries any way.