Daffy and Feely's animosity

[mountaingoat]

Is the reason for them acting so horridly towards Flavia ever explained?

[Nadine]

Well, they don't act so kindly towards each other, either. I think sibling rivalry has run amuck in this family because of an emotionally distant father and lost mother.

There's probably a little jealousy involved as well. Flavia does have other adults looking out for her, and she doesn't let the customs of the time hold her back.

These three are very lost little girls, each coping as best they can with the amount of uncertainty they have in their lives.

[Rebecca]

Flavia is also very much like her mother was, in looks and in intelligence as Flavia is just discovering from things others outside of the family have said to her in this installment. Remember Jocelyn and mistook her for Harriet. And another character commented on it as well as her father in this installment, too. Jealousy of the fact and probably the fact that Harriet disappeared not long after Flavias birth explains a good deal of it. Jealousy and blame.

[Inga]

I think jealousy is the crux of it, they somehow feel Flavia gets more, advantage, intelligence, she gets away with things. I understand Ophelia better than Daphne. Ophelia is the oldest she had so much more time with Harriet than Daphne and especially Flavia. I don't really understand Daphne that well, her dislike of Flavia, unless she's mostly just following her older sister. I did feel sorry for Daphne (view spoiler)[at the end of this novel where Ophelia is bound to marry and has a job as an organist and Flavia is going to Canada but Daphne gets left behind with her father and the little pest, Undine. Why doesn't their father send Daphne to school as well? She's only fourteen, surely she can benefit from that, reading every book in the library can't be enough for her future. (hide spoiler)]

[Meganlil]

Rain wrote: "Is the reason for them acting so horridly towards Flavia ever explained?"

Yes, at the very end of "The Dead in Their Vaulted Arches" we finally learn why the older sisters resent Flavia so much. Great read!

[Ellen]

I may have found it a bit overdone if it wasn't for the animosity 2 of my mother's sisters always have had for the youngest sister. This went on throughout their lives. Possibly it was due to the fact that the sister they vented their anger towards was the youngest like Flavia and took attention away from the others.