Zelie (Hazel) Chapel: Character Analysis in The Cherry Robbers

Overview: The Youngest Chapel Sister and Her Doomed Escape AttemptnZelie (Hazel) Chapel is the youngest of the six Chapel sisters, born in 1939, nine years after her eldest sister Aster. She is the last to die, and her death is the final blow that shatters her sister Iris’s resolve and drives Iris to flee the family home. Zelie is introduced as a round, peony-like girl whose given name, Hazel, never seemed to fit her; she became Zelie almost immediately after birth. She is the most romantic and socially eager of the remaining sisters, and her story is one of desperate longing for a life beyond the wedding-cake house in Bellflower Village. Unlike Iris, who finds solace in art and plans a quiet future, Zelie craves romance, adventure, and escape—and she is willing to lie, sneak, and risk everything to get it. Her tragic arc ends in a hotel room in New York City, where she dies under circumstances that the novel leaves deliberately ambiguous, but which Iris interprets as murder by her lover, Samuel Colt IV.nn## Plot Role: The Catalyst for Iris’s Final BreaknZelie’s role in the novel is twofold. On the surface, she is the youngest sister who, after graduating high school, becomes despondent about her future and secretly plans to run away with Sam Colt, a scion of the firearms family. Her secret romance and planned elopement to Rome are the central conflict of the latter half of the book, as Iris discovers the truth and tries desperately to stop her. But Zelie’s death is the event that finally breaks Iris. After the car accident that follows Zelie’s departure, Iris is hospitalized and, in her psychiatric assessment, recounts the deaths of all her sisters, culminating in Zelie’s. It is Zelie’s death that Iris cannot distance herself from, and it is the reason Iris ultimately escapes to New Mexico and reinvents herself as Sylvia Wren. In this way, Zelie is not just a victim of the family curse but the final push that allows Iris to break free—though at a terrible cost.nn## Motivations and Traits: Romantic, Stubborn, and Desperate for EscapeZelie is defined by her yearning for a life outside the confines of her family. Iris describes her as “immature in many ways and unhappy with her lot in life,” and this unhappiness is the engine of her actions. She is a natural flirt—Iris notes that “the one thing Zelie was truly good at had been taken away from her” when their father restricted their social calendar. Zelie’s romanticism is evident in her secret romance at fifteen with Jørgen Gundersen, a Norwegian boy she met through her friend Florence. That romance, which consisted of shared milkshakes, hand-holding, and love notes, ended when her father discovered it and burned the letters. Zelie was devastated but also “glad to have had a romance; she hadn’t been sure she ever would.” This early experience shows her hunger for affection and her willingness to defy her father’s rules, traits that later lead her to Sam Colt.Zelie is also stubborn and deceptive when she feels cornered. After she begins seeing Sam, she lies to Iris about her whereabouts, claiming to spend days with Florence planning a wedding. Iris notes that Zelie is “gullible enough to believe” that Iris accepts her stories, but Zelie’s deception is not born of malice—it is born of desperation. She knows that her family would never approve of a relationship with Sam, given the fate of her older sisters, but she cannot give him up. Her stubbornness is a double-edged sword: it allows her to pursue what she wants, but it also blinds her to the danger.nn## Chronological Arc: From Confined Childhood to Fatal FlightZelie’s arc spans her entire life, but the novel focuses on the final months. As a child, she shares a bedroom with Iris in the girls’ wing, where their mother painted witch-hazel blooms on the wall—flowers that Iris describes as “spidery yellow” and “not at all beautiful.” This detail suggests that even from birth, Zelie was marked as different, perhaps less favored. In the summer of 1954, when she is fifteen, she has her secret romance with Jørgen, which ends in humiliation when he is discovered outside her window. After that, she has no other suitors until Sam Colt appears.The turning point comes after her graduation from high school. Iris recounts that “everything changed when she graduated.” At a picnic, Florence reveals her engagement, and Zelie becomes depressed, facing a future that is “the opposite of what she wanted.” Iris had planned for them to live together as “two old maids,” but Zelie sees that as “a fate worse than death.” When Sam Colt arrives for dinner, Zelie immediately launches into flirtation, and soon after, she begins sneaking around with him. Iris discovers that Zelie has booked a flight to Rome with Sam, and she confronts her sister, but Zelie is determined. On the morning she leaves, she drives to Sam’s sister’s house in Greenwich, then to a hotel in New York City. By early evening, she is dead. The newspaper reports that Sam Colt died of a self-inflicted gunshot wound two days later, and that Hazel Chapel, 18, had died two days before that. Iris believes Sam killed Zelie, but the novel leaves the exact circumstances ambiguous.nn## Relationships: The Bonds That Shape Her FateZelie’s most significant relationship is with her sister Iris. They share a bedroom and a deep bond, but that bond is strained by Zelie’s secrets. Iris feels responsible for Zelie, saying, “It was my job to take care of her and I failed.” Zelie, for her part, loves Iris but cannot accept the future Iris envisions for them. Their relationship is a tragic mirror of the family’s curse: Iris tries to protect Zelie by keeping her close, but Zelie sees that protection as imprisonment.Zelie’s relationship with her mother, Belinda, is more distant. Belinda is haunted by premonitions of her daughters’ deaths, and she warns Iris about Rosalind, but she does not seem to have a direct warning about Zelie. Zelie is present during the family discussions about the curse, but she often seems confused, as when she asks, “Did Mother really poison us?” She is less attuned to the family’s dark history than Iris, which makes her more vulnerable.Her relationship with Sam Colt is the central romance of her arc. Sam is a wealthy heir to a firearms fortune, and he is drawn to Zelie’s charm and beauty. He calls her “doll” and laughs at her naivety, but he also seems genuinely interested. Zelie is infatuated, and she believes he offers her an escape from her family. The novel does not give us Sam’s perspective, so we cannot know his true intentions, but Iris is convinced he killed Zelie. The relationship is a classic example of the novel’s theme that marriage—or even romance—is a death sentence for the Chapel women.nn## Key Decisions and Consequences: The Choice to Run AwayZelie’s pivotal decision is to run away with Sam Colt. She makes this choice secretly, lying to Iris and planning a trip to Rome. The consequences are immediate and fatal. Her decision to leave triggers Iris’s desperate attempt to stop her, which leads to the car accident that injures Iris and sends her to the hospital. Zelie’s death, whether at Sam’s hands or by her own, is the final tragedy in a series that has already claimed four of her sisters. The novel suggests that Zelie’s decision was not a free choice but a desperate attempt to escape a fate she saw as worse than death. Iris reflects that Zelie “chose him over me,” but she also acknowledges that Zelie was not entirely rational. The consequence of Zelie’s choice is not just her own death but the dissolution of the Chapel family: Iris leaves, Belinda is left alone, and the house becomes a shell.nn## Theme and Symbol Connections: The Witch-Hazel and the CurseZelie is deeply connected to the novel’s central themes. Her nickname, Zelie, is a rejection of her given name, Hazel, which Iris associates with the “spidery yellow” witch-hazel flowers that their mother painted on her wall. This suggests that Zelie is not comfortable with her identity as a Chapel daughter, and she tries to reinvent herself through romance. Her story embodies the theme of marriage as a death sentence: she sees marriage to Sam as her only escape, but it leads to her death. She also illustrates the fatalistic family curse, as she is unable to break free from the pattern that has claimed her sisters. Her death is a direct result of her attempt to defy that curse, and it reinforces the idea that the Chapel women are doomed. Finally, Zelie’s story touches on institutional silencing of women: her death is reported in the newspaper as a footnote to Sam’s suicide, and the inquest focuses on him, not on her. She is silenced even in death, her story told only through Iris’s testimony.nn## Five Book-Specific Questions and Answersn1. Why does Zelie decide to run away with Sam Colt?

nZelie runs away because she sees no future for herself in Bellflower Village. After graduating high school, she becomes depressed when her friend Florence gets engaged, and she realizes that her own prospects are limited to living as an “old maid” with Iris. Sam offers her romance, adventure, and a trip to Rome, which she believes is her only chance at a real life. She is willing to risk everything because she considers staying home to be “a fate worse than death.”n2. How does Zelie’s relationship with Iris change over the course of the novel?

nInitially, Zelie and Iris are close, sharing a bedroom and a bond. But after Zelie meets Sam, she begins lying to Iris about her whereabouts, and Iris becomes suspicious and hurt. Iris tries to protect Zelie by keeping her close, but Zelie sees that as confinement. Their relationship deteriorates into a series of pleasantries and deceptions, and ultimately Zelie chooses Sam over Iris, leaving Iris feeling betrayed and guilty.n3. What role does Zelie’s secret romance with Jørgen Gundersen play in her story?

nThe romance with Jørgen is Zelie’s first taste of love, and it shows her willingness to defy her father’s rules. It ends when her father discovers them and burns Zelie’s love notes. This early experience teaches Zelie that romance is forbidden and must be kept secret, which foreshadows her later relationship with Sam. It also reveals her desperation for affection, as she is “glad to have had a romance” even though it ended painfully.n4. How does Zelie’s death affect Iris?

nZelie’s death is the final blow for Iris. It happens immediately after Iris’s car accident, and Iris is hospitalized and placed in a psychiatric unit. During her assessment, she recounts Zelie’s death and expresses guilt for failing to protect her. Zelie’s death is what pushes Iris to finally leave the family and move to New Mexico, where she reinvents herself as Sylvia Wren. In that sense, Zelie’s death is the catalyst for Iris’s escape.n5. Is Zelie a victim of the family curse, or does she make her own choices?

nThe novel leaves this ambiguous. On one hand, Zelie makes a conscious choice to run away with Sam, and she lies to Iris to do so. On the other hand, she is trapped in a family where every sister who marries or falls in love dies, and she sees no other way out. Iris believes that Sam killed Zelie, but the novel does not confirm this. Zelie’s death can be seen as both a result of her own decisions and as an inevitable consequence of the curse that has haunted her family for generations.