Betrayal and abandonment
The theme of betrayal is essential of the story and it is reflected in the title. She has experienced an event not every woman would be able to deal with – she has been abandoned on the day of her wadding by a person she was supposed to spend her entire life with. Being betrayed made her a strong personality, which is good in some way, she did not let it break her down. But still such a wound is not so easily to be healed, and even on her deathbed this painful memory haunts her and cannot let her go.
Losses
All Ellen’s life has been filled with losses, and started it more than 60 years ago. When she was supposed to become a wife of a man called George, he did not show up. With her fiancé and love she also lost at that time a good measure of self-esteem. She has changed since then, became harsher. But nevertheless she did marry a person called John, had four children with him, but he died young – one more loss. Ellen was left alone with four children to bring up. All these hardships made her a strong personality. Next her loss must have been the bitterest among all – the loss of her daughter Hapsy, who she seems to love the most. Hapsy had dies when delivering a baby on her own, so this fact even doubles the bitterness of this loss. In one of her flashbacks she says: “Don’t let things get lost. It’s bitter to lose thing”. But she faced up all the troubles and managed to get through them.
