Mrs. Everything

Every character is part of a family dynamic. Ken is an essential mentor and affectionate father for Jo and Bethie. Harold is a symbol of true love for Bethie and overcoming racism. Everyone is part of a family unit even when they try to escape it, as Bethie and Lila do through traveling. With such a large cast of family across time, from Sarah to her great-grandchildren, the unique relationships create complex ties among the characters. For instance, Kim and Jo are close, but Kim mistakenly chooses to leave work to give her daughters her full attention, believing staying home will make her a better mother. Jo offers to help Kim as often as possible, but Kim doesn’t accept her help until she divorces Matt, returns to work, and needs childcare. On the other hand, Jo and Lila are never as close as Jo is with her other two successful, academic daughters. Lila is angry and judges Jo for breaking apart their family (though Dave cheated) and marrying a woman. In contrast, Bethie and Lila have a solid connection due to their shared experience of being lost, feeling abandoned, and finding themselves after sexual traumas. Lila opens up to Bethie over anyone else. Bethie and Harold must face discrimination because they are an interracial couple, and Jo and Shelley confront discrimination for being lesbians. The layers of relationships expand and enrich the novel in intricate, realistic ways that create a believable family dynamic on both a smaller scale, such as between spouses, and a larger scale, such as between sisters, mothers, and grandparents. Family dynamics are often the catalyst for change because they prompt conflict, travel, and pain, but they also bring positive change as families reunite, form tight bonds, and support one another.

Jo embodies the theme of Sexual Orientation and Societal Pressure. When she’s younger, she wants to follow her heart, to love and be intimate with women. Though she keeps her teen relationship with Lynnette secret because she worries about her mother’s disapproval and others’ intolerance, Jo admits she is gay to her mother at Thanksgiving. She will never be the daughter Sarah wanted, never be “normal,” but she doesn’t hide her truth. In college with Shelley, she grows to want to be openly gay and spend her life with Shelley. Jo doesn’t want to live in secret any longer—but, just like Lynnette, Shelley isn’t as bold as Jo and doesn’t believe they will ever be accepted. Because she can’t publicly acknowledge her sexuality, Shelley marries a man. The reality of discrimination, of making a romantic life with a woman when many won’t tolerate her—especially her traditionalist mother Sarah—scares Jo off coming out before she’s much older. Still, before Shelley rejected her, Jo wanted to follow her heart and make a life with Shelley someplace where they’d be accepted. Only after Shelley gets married does Jo change her mind. She gives up, exhausted by never being chosen by the women she loves, and marries Dave. Her capitulation to a conventional life pleases her mother, and it takes many years before Jo can escape and live life on her terms.

Jo doesn’t officially come out until much later in the novel, showing a building conflict across time with this theme. Despite Dave’s charm and her connection with him, Jo only gives in to his advances because she’s tired of fighting against prejudice and trying to convince other women to be brave. She wants to be fully, openly gay and accepted with someone who isn’t afraid to be with her, rather than having to push and convince a woman to be with her, so Dave leading the way instead is appealing:

To not be the one making plans, to not be the one attempting to propel an unwilling partner forward, to not have to push through a hostile world. If she married a man, she could let him plan, let him push, let him maneuver; and the world they inhabited would welcome them. [...] It would be easy, and Jo was so tired. She closed her eyes, leaning into Dave, letting him take her weight (232-33).

Her reaction to Dave and subsequent marriage show that Jo loses herself and her will to fight against society’s pressure, though she learns to love Dave in a different way. She will never be a straight woman, but she can at least fake it and feels a special happiness raising children she loves. Interestingly, Bethie eventually convinces Jo to return to her truth; she finally gets through to Jo and urges her to realize Shelley was her true love. Without Bethie’s support, Jo wouldn’t have found the courage to find Shelley and spend the last decade of her life happy with her true love. Though they still face injustice, such as intolerance from people and Lila’s disgust and mockery, Jo and Shelley battle against the norm and choose to love whom they love without fear.