Childlessness
Mazie writes, “Now Rosie was sobbing, and then we held her. So our poor Rosie can’t have babies. I never knew, but how could I? We were hear babies all along, I thought we were enough for her. I didn’t know she wanted anyone but us. She watched over us better than our own mother ever did. She’s our sister and our mother. Oh, all this time her heart was breaking and we didn’t even know.” Rosie’s reality about her infertility is heart-breaking considering that her supreme end is to be a mother. Mothering her young sisters is not satisfactory because it does not substantially make her their mother. Her tears are an signal of the sorrowfulness she weathers as a result of not being childless.
Superstition
They gypsy is emblematic of superstition. George Flicker elucidates, “ Oh you want to know about the gypsies? What do you think you know about the gypsies. That they’re a bunch of criminals, probably. That’s what people always thought about them. My mother swore they spoke the truth. My friends from Little Italy, they wouldn’t go anywhere near them. They’re superstitious, and they were afraid of curses.” The gypsies are commonplace people whose approach of operation is founded on superstitious philosophies. Individuals such as George Flicker’s mother are superstitious; hence, would be straightforwardly convinced by the gypsies’ prophecies. However, Mazie regards the gypsy a fraud who would not make a precise diagnosis of her sister’s barrenness. Accordingly, an individual’s perception of the gypsies is reliant on whether he or she is superstitious or not.
