56 pages • 1 hour read
Holly RinglandThe Lost Flowers of Alice Hart
Fiction | Novel | Adult | Published in 2018A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Character Analysis
Alice Hart
Content Warning: This section of the guide references family trauma and grief, child abuse, domestic violence, and suicidal ideation.
Alice is the story’s protagonist. Throughout the novel, she grows from a shy, vigilant, and fearful girl into an independent and creative woman who knows her worth. She’s thoughtful, studious, emotional, and artistic. More than any other character, Alice develops The Long Process of Overcoming Trauma and Grief due to the hardships she endures, including abuse, the loss of most of her family, and the guilt she bears due to mistakenly believing much of her misfortune is her fault.
As a child, Alice lives in fear of her father’s abuse, so she’s shown as timid and careful, trying to appease Clem so that he doesn’t attack her or Agnes. Her childhood terror is shown in her unease around Clem, her protectiveness over Agnes and Toby, and her desire to set Clem on fire to make him better, like a phoenix. Alice’s mistake with the lantern throws her life into disarray, a guilt and loss she takes years to process and let go of, as the beginning chapter details: “Alice would always remember this day as the one that changed her life irrevocably, even though it would take her the next twenty years to understand” (10). Alice experiences a zigzagging arc of ups and downs as she comes of age and enters adulthood with the trauma of her past clinging to her.
Taking control and finding her worth is Alice’s main conflict. When she lives with June, Alice is at first too affected by trauma to function, not even able to speak. The symbolic flowers give her communication instead: “She wanted to wear this secret language of flowers, to say for her all the things her voice wouldn’t” (105). Alice’s loss of voice in periods of stress symbolizes her lack of voice in both her relationship with her father and later with June. As a child and teenager, Alice’s decisions regarding school, her living situation, and her career are made for her, creating a wound of low self-esteem. Alice is not yet confident or brave enough to tell June she wishes to start a life with Oggi, not work at the farm forever. June’s domineering attitude ultimately pushes Alice to leave.
Similarly, Alice doesn’t stand up to Dylan. Rather than taking control, she accepts a toxic form of love because she learned from her parents that abuse is tolerable. Only later does Alice find the courage to speak up to people for their controlling ways. She stands up to June about Oggi and runs away to find freedom, chooses to leave Dylan behind, and finds her own voice doing what she wants: finding Charlie and writing.
June Hart
A guardian, mentor, and mother figure for Alice, June is depicted as creative and hardworking, but also withholding and stubborn. June shows her love through protection and control. She cares for the Flowers like her own family, letting them live and work on her farm as a place of safety, and even having Harry as a trained therapy dog. Due to her family’s history, such as Ruth’s husband killing her lover and developing a mental condition, her own heartbreak over Clem’s father, and Clem becoming obsessed with Agnes, she doesn’t trust love. Thus, she believes people like Oggi will break Alice’s heart. Instead of trusting Alice and Oggi’s romance, June chooses to end it without telling Alice the truth—a sign that June believes her opinions and actions are the only right ones. June’s clinging to control is her character’s primary flaw, which pushes her avoid taking in a premature Charlie to spare Alice from his possible death and her assuming that Alice will take over the flower farm without complaint. Ironically, her “protective” actions and secrecy ultimately push Alice away from the flower farm.
As the primary representation of the theme of The Impact of Secrets, June causes conflict and heartache for herself and Alice by refusing to reveal the whole truth of her family’s past. Because June loves Alice but doesn’t know how to grapple with the discomfort and trauma of opening up, Alice receives the flower dictionary and Charlie’s letters and photos only upon June’s death. However, June bequeathing Alice with the book of all their family history and secrets shows that she believes Alice—unlike herself—is strong enough to survive the truth. Unlike when she wrongfully broke Oggi and Alice apart, June realizes she can’t control Alice’s life or protect her forever. Her posthumous gift reflects her faith in Alice and valuation of her granddaughter’s free will.
Like Agnes, June is present in Alice’s thoughts and feelings well after her death. Alice honors not only herself, but June and all of Thornfield’s stories, by writing her book about the language of flowers and her own journey. Without June, she never would have gone to the desert to find herself or written her flower book that healed her. Because of June’s influence, Alice gives her share of Thornfield to Charlie, who she feels is the most “deserving” choice to bring honor to the Hart family business. Since Charlie is the opposite of his father—gentle, giving, respectful, and obsessed with gardening—Alice believes June would approve of the flower farm’s legacy continuing through Charlie.
Agnes Hart
Agnes is Alice’s beloved mother, mentor, and inspiration. Agnes is depicted as a selfless, imaginative, and moody person who puts motherhood and marriage above all else. Happiest in her garden, Agnes is often lost in her thoughts there. She teaches Alice about flowers and their language, sharing fairy tales and enjoying her daughter’s company. When Agnes has her most “fire,” she is peaceful in their garden, representing Relationships with the Natural World. However, Agnes also falls into bouts of depression: “The anxiety of waking up every morning and not knowing who [Alice] would find in the house with her: her spirited mother full of stories or the ghostly heap that couldn’t get out of bed” (84). Agnes’s mood swings reflect the trauma and toll of her abusive marriage to Clem.
Showing the underlying theme of cyclical trauma, Agnes accepts Clem’s abuse because she believes he is more worthy of love than herself and because she wants to protect Alice. In Agnes’s view, Clem and Alice matter more than her. During her pregnancy, a bruised Agnes tries to drown herself in the sea. Alice brings her mom back to reality and functions as Agnes’s reason to survive. Alice’s later relationship with Dylan will later parallel the dysfunction of Agnes’s marriage to Clem, though unlike Agnes, Alice has a network of support outside her relationship that will help her escape Dylan’s abuse.
Alice remembers her mother often and feels guilty over her death, making Agnes an important character even after her death; Alice keeps her alive through her writing and her shared connection to flowers, especially the desert pea: “Her thoughts turned to Twig, Candy and June. Then, her mother. Always her mother. Always” (337). Agnes taught Alice about the language of flowers, inspired her appreciation for the land and sea, and instilled her love of stories and, but also modeled that a man’s love requires a woman’s constant sacrifice.
Dylan Rivers
Dylan functions as Alice’s main love interest and becomes a significant antagonist. At first, Dylan is depicted as handsome and charming, and Alice finds him magnetic. Alice can’t resist or suppress her feelings toward him, and Dylan compounds this by asking her to adjust her work schedule to match his, thus ensuring they spend all of their time together. As Alice’s life begins to revolve around Dylan, he becomes an important part of Alice’s interiority and a driving force for her plotline. As Dylan becomes controlling and emotionally abusive, Alice blames herself for his behavior. Dylan hides—or attempts to make up for—his violent side with occasional romantic gestures and fanatical love for Alice, and even after his abuse becomes physical, Alice has a difficult time seeing the hypocrisy within his proclamations of love, even after he kicks Pip and chokes Alice:
‘I’ve only ever wanted to impress you,’ he cried. […] ‘I would never hit you, you know that, right?’ […]
It was true, she reasoned. He hadn’t hit her. His fear had just got way out of control. [...]
She sat in the warm water as he washed her skin with slow, gentle strokes. […] Alice relaxed in his arms, almost renewed, almost able to forget that he had caused the very harm he was trying to heal (306-07).
This passage displays the cycle of abuse Dylan perpetuates and how he uses remorse to regain Alice’s trust, paralleling Clem and Agnes’s relationship. This cycle makes Alice vigilant and fearful, convincing her to believe he’s worthy of her love.
Because he’s so obsessive and paranoid Alice may cheat on him, it’s implied that Dylan has been hurt in the past. Unlike Clem’s backstory—which was more developed with the flower farm betrayal and Gillian’s death—Dylan’s history is never explicitly stated. Readers are left with clues but no answers about why Dylan is manipulative, controlling, and hot-tempered. Only through his final betrayal of lying to Sarah about Alice hitting him—as well as the support Alice finds unexpectedly through Sally, Candy, and Twig—can Alice finally move on, though she grieves Dylan for months.
