Chapter 5: Aster — Summary, Analysis, and Key Themes
⚠️ Spoiler Warning: This guide contains detailed spoilers for the entire novel. Proceed only if you've finished reading or are comfortable knowing the plot.
Spoiler warning: This chapter contains the death of a major character, graphic violence, and detailed depictions of grief and funeral preparations.
Summary
The morning after Aster’s wedding, Iris eats breakfast alone in the kitchen, deliberately separated from her sisters. Mrs. O’Connor and Dovey treat her with coldness, and Iris feels like a mouse scurrying through the house. The telephone rings: Matthew reports that Aster is sick with a low fever and wants to come home. Rosalind takes the call, and the sisters immediately connect Aster’s illness to Belinda’s earlier prediction that something terrible would happen.
Aster arrives half an hour later, barely conscious, supported by Matthew and her father. She wears a bathrobe and slippers, her hair still stiff with wedding spray, her makeup smeared. The sisters put her to bed in her old room. Dr. Green, the family physician, examines her briefly and pronounces it exhaustion, dismissing the family’s alarm. He advises rest and assures everyone she will be fit for the honeymoon voyage. Rosalind and Daphne push back, suggesting a hospital, but Dr. Green and the father override them.
While the sisters plan to take Aster to the hospital themselves, Aster suddenly begins to howl. She strikes Matthew with a Tiffany lamp, punches through a window, smears her blood over her body, and collapses dead. Dr. Green arrives too late. He suggests an autopsy, but the father refuses, and the doctor later attributes the death to influenza. Belinda is sedated with Veronal, and the older sisters are given pills to induce amnesia.
Over the next two days, the family fractures in grief. Rosalind argues with Matthew’s mother, Delyth, over whether Aster should be buried in the Moondream wedding dress. Matthew, drunk and bandaged, demands to speak to Belinda about her prediction, but she remains sedated. The father digs the grave himself. On the morning of the funeral, the sisters gather flowers from the meadow and view Aster in her casket, dressed in the hated Moondream gown. They place flowers in her hair, and the undertaker closes the lid.
Key Events
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Iris is isolated from her sisters the morning after the wedding, eating with servants.
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Matthew calls to say Aster is sick; she returns home in a liminal state between bride and wife.
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Dr. Green diagnoses exhaustion and dismisses the family’s concerns, refusing to examine Aster properly.
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The sisters plan to take Aster to the hospital themselves, but Aster’s violent episode intervenes.
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Aster strikes Matthew, breaks a window, smears blood over her body, and dies.
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Dr. Green attributes death to influenza; the father refuses an autopsy.
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Belinda is sedated, and the older sisters are given amnesia-inducing pills.
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Rosalind and Delyth argue over the burial dress; Matthew drunkenly demands to speak to Belinda.
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The father digs the grave; the sisters gather flowers and view Aster in the casket before the lid closes.
Character Development
Iris remains an outsider, burdened by guilt over her earlier betrayal of Aster. Her isolation at breakfast and her inability to act during the crisis highlight her powerlessness. She runs to the meadow after Aster’s death, overwhelmed by sobs, and later struggles to comfort Zelie. Her narrative voice carries the weight of foresight—she knows the howl from the previous night—but she cannot prevent the tragedy.
Rosalind emerges as the most assertive sister. She challenges Dr. Green, proposes taking Aster to the hospital, and later fights Delyth over the burial dress. Her grief manifests as righteous anger, but she also breaks down when she sees her father digging the grave. Her leadership fails because the patriarchal authority of the father and doctor overrides her.
Belinda is reduced to a silent, sedated figure. Her earlier prophecy is validated, but she is drugged into oblivion, unable to process her daughter’s death. Her stillness contrasts with her previous screaming visions, suggesting that the curse has silenced her.
Matthew deteriorates from a confident groom to a drunk, bandaged wreck. He tries to reach Belinda, desperate for an explanation, but is dismissed by the family. His grief is real but ineffective, and he is excluded from the funeral arrangements.
The father exerts control even in death: he refuses an autopsy, organizes the funeral without consulting the Maybricks, and digs the grave himself. His actions reinforce patriarchal authority, but they also reveal a man trying to reclaim his daughter from the marriage that killed her.
Themes, Symbols, or Motifs
Maternal prophecy is central. Belinda’s prediction of “something terrible” is fulfilled, and Matthew’s drunken demand to speak to her underscores that the prophecy was ignored. The chapter validates Belinda’s visions, even as the family tries to suppress them.
Medical dismissal of women is starkly portrayed. Dr. Green’s refusal to examine Aster, his diagnosis of “exhaustion,” and his condescending remarks about female fragility lead directly to her death. The sisters’ plan to take her to the hospital is thwarted by male authority.
Sisterhood solidarity appears in the sisters’ unified attempt to save Aster, but it fractures in grief. They gather flowers together at the funeral, yet each is isolated in her own sorrow.
Blood imagery is visceral: Aster’s bloodied hand, her smearing of blood over her body, and the maids scrubbing blood from the floorboards. Blood becomes a symbol of the bride’s curse and the violence of marriage.
The Moondream dress symbolizes the oppressive nature of the wedding and the bride’s loss of self. Aster hated the dress, and it is stuffed into her casket, trapping her like a wick in wax. The sisters’ placement of flowers in her hair reclaims her as their own, but the dress remains a marker of her fate.
Liminal bride-wife state is emphasized in Aster’s return: she is neither bride nor wife, caught between wedding and death. Her howling and animalistic behavior suggest a transformation that defies human understanding.
Sedation and amnesia are used by the family to cope, but they also erase agency. Belinda and the older sisters are drugged, while Iris and Zelie are left to witness the horror without escape.
Flowers as mourning tribute appear in the meadow gathering and the placement of blooms in Aster’s hair. The daisy crown Calla braids echoes the earlier meadow scene, linking Aster’s death to her lost innocence.
Foreshadowing of further deaths is explicit: the narrative notes that the sisters “didn’t know then that five would become four, then three, and so on,” signaling that Aster’s death is only the first.
Why This Chapter Matters
This chapter is the turning point of the novel. It confirms the maternal prophecy and establishes the pattern of death after marriage that will haunt the remaining sisters. It exposes the systemic failure of male authority—both medical and paternal—to protect women, and it shows how grief fractures even the closest sibling bonds. Iris’s perspective becomes the lens through which the curse unfolds, and her guilt and helplessness set the stage for her own narrative arc. The chapter also introduces the funeral imagery and the Moondream dress as recurring symbols, while the explicit foreshadowing of future deaths creates a sense of inevitable tragedy.
Study Questions and Answers
1. How does Dr. Green’s dismissal of Aster’s condition reflect broader attitudes toward women’s health in the 1950s?
Dr. Green’s refusal to examine Aster, his diagnosis of “exhaustion,” and his condescending remarks about female fragility reflect a medical culture that trivializes women’s symptoms and defers to male authority. He never opens his medical bag, and he dismisses the sisters’ concerns with a reference to his Yale education. His failure to act directly contributes to Aster’s death, and the father’s refusal of an autopsy further suppresses the truth.
2. What role does Belinda’s prediction play in the chapter, and how do different characters respond to it?
Belinda’s prediction of “something terrible” is the lens through which the sisters interpret Aster’s illness. Calla explicitly recalls it, and Rosalind tries to rationalize it away. After Aster’s death, Matthew drunkenly demands to speak to Belinda, insisting she knew what was going to happen. The family’s response is to sedate Belinda, effectively silencing the prophecy. The chapter validates her vision while showing how the family suppresses it.
3. How does the Moondream dress function as a symbol in Aster’s death and funeral?
The Moondream dress, which Aster hated, becomes a symbol of her entrapment in marriage. It is stuffed into the casket, and Rosalind argues against burying her in it, but Delyth insists. The dress’s excessive fabric and cheap material contrast with the natural flowers the sisters place in Aster’s hair, suggesting that the wedding itself—and the patriarchal institution it represents—has consumed her. The dress is a physical manifestation of the curse that kills her.
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