Divorce and the Daughter

Summary

In an era where social mobility was often a precursor to moral decay, 'Divorce and the Daughter' presents a chillingly sophisticated anatomy of a family’s dissolution. When a modest patriarch is suddenly unburdened by the constraints of poverty through a windfall inheritance, he doesn't just buy a house; he purchases a new, 'bohemian' identity that requires the excision of his past responsibilities. This metamorphosis into a self-styled artist leads to a decadent betrayal, fracturing the domestic sphere and propelling his daughter, Alicia, into a radicalized existential vacuum. Abandoning the stability of a conventional marriage to a physician, Alicia gravitates toward the seductive, albeit predatory, orbit of Herbert Rawlins—a charlatan of the 'free love' movement. The narrative evolves into a high-stakes psychological thriller where the rhetoric of liberation is unmasked as a veneer for possessive tyranny, forcing a confrontation between the hollow promises of modernity and the enduring scars of familial abandonment.

Synopsis

A married man suddenly inherits a fortune and finally has enough money to live his dream of becoming an artist. He moves his wife and daughter to a big expensive house and starts living the life of a "bohemian" artist. When he begins an affair with another woman, his wife leaves him and his daughter Alicia breaks off her engagement to a wealthy doctor and becomes involved in the "free love" movement espoused by one Herbert Rawlins. Rawlins, however, has his own plans for Alicia, and they don't involve "sharing" her with anyone else. Complications ensue.