Mildred Pierce

Fiction | Novel | Adult | Published in 1941

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Summary

Background

Chapter Summaries & Analyses

Chapters 1-3

Chapters 4-7

Chapters 8-10

Chapters 11-13

Chapters 14-17

Character Analysis

Themes

Symbols & Motifs

Important Quotes

Essay Topics

Themes

The Pursuit of Unattainable Filial Love

The dynamic between Mildred and her daughter Veda is a one-sided chase: Veda pushes Mildred away, while Mildred does whatever is necessary to draw Veda back into her life. Even when Veda goes far enough to get her mother to eject her from the house, it is clear that Mildred will never really let her daughter go. Cain complicates this already dysfunctional maternal love by injecting into it a sexual note—one that plays on the sexual competitiveness between Mildred and Veda. When Mildred ejects Veda from her home for blackmailing a wealthy family with a fake pregnancy, “It didn't occur to [Mildred] that she was acting less like a mother than like a lover who has unexpectedly discovered an act of faithlessness, and avenged it” (240).

To lure Veda back, Mildred undertakes an increasingly wild series of machinations: trying to pay for Veda’s voice lessons, or marrying an ex that Veda likes just to prop him up in his old life of luxury to entice Veda back to his elite circles. Throughout, their unequal levels of affection make the reader wonder why Mildred imagines that any amount of love or money will get Veda to respond with genuine warmth when it clearly is not going to happen. Cain never fully answers this question. His novel is a study in the psychology of two extremes: Veda’s extreme narcissism and maybe sociopathy, and Mildred’s extreme neediness and obsession with one daughter. What Veda and Mildred have in common is their reaction to freely given love. Veda’s personality makes her reject out of hand anyone who displays what she considers weakness (i.e., emotional vulnerability). Mildred also single-mindedly spurns everyone except Veda until the end of the novel. Even when Mildred’s daughter Ray dies, she is filled with guilty gratitude that it was Ray rather than Veda. Cain points out the irony that people turn their backs on those who love them to pursue the love of those who do not.

The American Capitalist Dream

Cain criticizes the way the business world and society pigeonholes and disempowers women in Depression-Era California by reframing the prototypical rags-to-riches narrative as the story of a divorced mother rather than an adolescent boy. Mildred begins her meteoric ascent into capitalism with an unpleasant slog through a menial and exploitative job market. Some men who advertise jobs are just looking to proposition women, while the wealthy who need servants expect to demean and dehumanize them. Her first paying job in a restaurant involves dodging male customers grabbing her legs when she takes orders.

The only people willing to advise and educate Mildred about business are women—in fact, Cain is quite progressive for his portrayal of a workplace where women help women get ahead. A department store personnel manager offers her a job out of pity; a staffer at a career agency explains the challenges of finding a job during the Depression; and Mildred’s friend Lucy Gessler successfully counsels Mildred to manipulate men to get what she needs from them.

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The canny Mildred manages to grab her opportunities as soon as they present themselves: She overhears waitresses being fired and immediately gets a job as their replacement; she convinces her restaurant manager to order pies from her instead of their original supplier; she studies how the restaurant is run to open several of her own, and she parlays the end of Prohibition to populate her establishments with a higher social clientele. Mildred also proves to be an excellent manager: A surly former superior becomes her right-hand assistant and later a partner; her best friend becomes her liquor supplier; and Mildred makes sure not just to pay employees fairly, but to reward them with gratitude and holiday parties.

Cain’s critique lies in the fact that this narrative is not the core of the novel’s plot, as it would be were the main character male. Instead, because Mildred is a woman, the primary focus of the story is her tortured family life. A high-flying entrepreneur in her professional career, Mildred cannot get her personal relationships in any semblance of normality. Her husbands and boyfriends are financially dependent on her, her daughter is an abusive criminal, and her obsession with making her daughter part of her life results in violence, emotional trauma, sexual depravity, and bankruptcy.

Classism

Class distinctions are abundant in Mildred Pierce. The novel offers a detailed exploration of different social classes and their prejudices. At the pinnacle of social hierarchy is Monty’s social circle: old money families that own valuable properties and inherit their dependable, sizable incomes rather than working for a living. The next stratum is new money. Bert falls into this category before losing his business, while Mildred ascends to this rank when she runs three successful restaurants and is earning enough money to renovate Monty’s family mansion and hire multiple servants. Working-class people like Mildred’s employees or Letty are the next tier down—their respectability is defined by their willingness to work. On the margins are criminals like Ike Gessler or ne’er-do-wells like Veda’s scummy actor friends, who are either outside the legal financial system, or refuse to participate in it.

One example of these social distinctions is Mildred’s two encounters with Mrs. Forrester (later Mrs. Lenhardt). In their first meeting, Mildred is applying to be Mrs. Forrester’s housekeeper. Mrs. Forrester sweeps into her library in a negligee, dressed extremely casually because she doesn’t respect Mildred enough to bother changing out of pajamas. Mrs. Forrester forbids Mildred to sit or leave without permission; she makes it clear that were Mildred to get the job, she would have to keep her own children away from Mrs. Forrester’s children. This last directive finalizes Mildred’s decision to forget the job. Ironically, Mildred’s daughter Veda does indeed end up fraternizing with Mrs. Forrester’s son Sam, blackmailing Mrs. Forrester with a fake pregnancy—however biased and unfair Mrs. Forrester was in the interview, she apparently had reason to worry. In their second meeting, the same woman, now Mrs. Lenhardt, comes to see Mildred about Veda’s relationship with Sam. Not recognizing Mildred from their earlier interaction, Mrs. Lenhardt sees only a successful entrepreneur, treating her as completely respectable, if still somewhat less socially desirable. Her former dismissive scorn is nowhere to be found, as the class dynamic between the two women has changed.