So Big

Content Warning: This section of the guide includes discussion of death and gender discrimination.

As a child, Selina is greatly influenced by her father. He is a professional gambler, a man whose fortune depends on a large element of luck. Rather than cursing his luck, however, he teaches his daughter to pursue her passions. Selina is taught that life is an adventure, and she spends a large part of her life figuring out what this means. To the very young Selina, her father’s free-spirited nature is synonymous with happiness and contrasts sharply with the fusty, depressing lives of her aunts. Selina loathes the short time she spends with her aunts, and she is desperate to return to her more adventurous father. Selina believes that in her happiest future, she will be a novelist who travels the world and meets extraordinary people. As she grows older, however, and as she deals with her father’s death, she must reappraise this plan. She becomes a schoolteacher and, quite unexpectedly, she completely changes her plans when she falls in love with Pervus. The marriage makes Selina happy, even though her new future is very different from the one she imagined. Selina reflects on how to be happy in her new life in the rural community.