Sarah's illegitimate status and social stigma

Sarah’s nonmarital birth is more than a disputed family status: it becomes a source of rejection, public shame, and lasting assumptions about who is entitled to belong. Her father, Alex Stafford, calls her existence a mistake, while her mother, Mae, describes the isolation that their relationship has brought upon both herself and her daughter. Years later, Angel’s anguish over infertility shows how the story’s early stigma persists in a changed form: she treats her own body as a reason to surrender the family life she believes Michael deserves.

Identity and Family Rejection

Sarah is Alex Stafford’s daughter with Mae, who is his mistress rather than his wife. When Mae insists that Sarah is his child and a person he cannot ignore, Alex answers that he already has legitimate children with his wife and did not want another. He says Sarah should never have been born, making his rejection explicit rather than merely withholding acknowledgment.

Alex places responsibility on Mae, accusing her of insisting on having her own way. His response turns Sarah’s birth into a reproach against her mother and denies the child’s claim to recognition. Mae, by contrast, appeals to Sarah’s character and individuality, describing her as beautiful, quick, charming, and unafraid. The conflict is therefore not only over whether Alex will accept paternity, but over whether Sarah will be treated as someone in her own right.

Social Ostracism and Its Effects

Mae tells Alex that she gave up her family, friends, self-respect, and hopes for him. Although Alex bought her a cottage and gives her money, material support does not undo the social cost of their arrangement. In their town, Mae says, people know who Alex is and what she is; they ignore her and do not speak to her. Alex can come and go freely, while Mae bears the public disgrace.

Sarah feels that exclusion too. When she asks her mother about it, Mae can only tell her that they are different from other people. The explanation reveals how adult stigma reaches the child before she can understand its terms: Sarah registers the community’s treatment, while her mother struggles to name it without transferring her own guilt to her daughter. Mae fears that what she has become will condemn her, and Alex complains that her guilt and talk about Sarah are ruining their relationship.

The Stigma’s Later Echo

The novel later connects the early family rejection to Angel’s distress about motherhood. When Elizabeth is pregnant, Angel watches her friend’s changing body and grows wistful as Elizabeth says that Angel’s time will come. The moment sharpens Angel’s awareness of what she believes she cannot have, rather than resolving it.

At Christmas, Angel asks Michael what she can give him when the thing he wants most is a child. She wishes that Duke had not ruined her and that she were like Miriam. Her words connect infertility to the sexual violence of her past, but also show how she has absorbed the idea that her body determines what she can offer in marriage.

When Angel prepares to leave, she tells Miriam that she does not belong with Michael and that she cannot have children. She believes he wants children and deserves them, and describes herself as ruined for that possibility long ago. She asks Miriam not to make leaving harder and insists that she is acting for Michael’s good. At the coach, Angel tells Miriam to love him and give him the children she cannot. Her departure turns an intimate conviction of unworthiness into a consequential sacrifice.

Significance

The stigma surrounding Sarah begins with Alex’s distinction between his legitimate children and the daughter he says should never have been born. The town reinforces that hierarchy by ostracizing Mae, and Sarah encounters its effects as a child through silence and exclusion. The later parallel is not identical: Angel’s infertility follows sexual abuse, not nonmarital birth. Yet her decision to leave Michael because she believes she cannot provide children echoes the earlier measure of a woman’s worth through socially recognized family status and reproductive capacity. The narrative thus traces how rejection can persist beyond its original circumstances, shaping what a person believes she is allowed to claim.