Summary
In the shadow of a harrowing indigence that scarred her psyche, Grace navigates the sudden windfall of her husband Jim’s prosperity not with joy, but with a defensive, almost pathological obsession with status. This atavistic terror of the gutter dictates the trajectory of her daughter Florence’s existence, transforming the girl into a curated vessel for high-society aspirations. Florence, stifled by the velvet-lined walls of her upbringing, is coerced into eschewing the authentic, albeit impoverished, affections of the artist Durland in favor of the gilded hollow promise of Alfred Griffin. Griffin, a man whose character is as eroded as his pedigree is pristine, descends into a spiral of infidelity and fiscal recklessness, turning the marital home into a theater of mutual loathing. The narrative reaches a fever pitch of gothic malice when Griffin, in a final act of spiteful self-obliteration, orchestrates his own suicide to resemble a homicide perpetrated by his wife. Only the silent vigilance of a domestic servant prevents a judicial tragedy, ultimately liberating Florence from her mother's materialistic prison and allowing her to find sanctuary in the arms of her discarded bohemian lover.
Synopsis
When her husband Jim strikes it rich, Grace, who has had a lifelong fear of poverty, strictly raises her daughter Florence to accept only luxury. When Florence is old enough to have suitors, she quickly rejects penniless artist Durland and marries rich playboy Alfred Griffin, but soon learns that he is an unfaithful spendthrift, so they soon become bitter enemies. In a final effort to ruin Florence's life, Alfred neatly arranges evidence to make her look like his murderer, then commits suicide, but the butler saw everything and is able to clear Florence of this charge; afterward she rushes to Durland and they plan to get married.
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