Plot
Seven young siblings are orphaned when their bedridden mother dies, having converted to fundamentalist religion and refused medical help. Not wanting to be taken to an orphanage, they bury her in the backyard and go on with their daily routines as if she were still alive. The eldest child, a young teenage girl, takes charge. They make excuses for their mother's absence to their neighbours and teachers, one of the boys forges the mother's signature on cheques that arrive for her each month, and they periodically hold séances to communicate with her.
One of the boys writes to their mother's no-good estranged husband, who is their legal father, hoping he will help them, but when he moves in, he spends their money, drinks regularly, entertains loose women, and begins the process of selling the house. When they confront him, he explains that their mother was even more irresponsible than he is before she turned to religion, and that they are all bastards. One of the girls is so shocked by this revelation that she kills him with a fire iron. Finally accepting the seriousness of their situation, the children turn themselves in to the authorities.
Read more about this topic: Our Mother's House
Famous quotes containing the word plot:
“We have defined a story as a narrative of events arranged in their time-sequence. A plot is also a narrative of events, the emphasis falling on causality. “The king died and then the queen died” is a story. “The king died, and then the queen died of grief” is a plot. The time sequence is preserved, but the sense of causality overshadows it.”
—E.M. (Edward Morgan)
“But, when to Sin our byast Nature leans,
The careful Devil is still at hand with means;
And providently Pimps for ill desires:
The Good Old Cause, reviv’d, a Plot requires,
Plots, true or false, are necessary things,
To raise up Common-wealths and ruine Kings.”
—John Dryden (1631–1700)
“Persons attempting to find a motive in this narrative will be prosecuted; persons attempting to find a moral in it will be banished; persons attempting to find a plot in it will be shot.”
—Mark Twain [Samuel Langhorne Clemens] (1835–1910)