Marigold Pettyman Character Analysis

Marigold Pettyman Evan Pettyman’s wife and Stewart Pettyman’s mother. Marigold was swept off her feet by Evan as a young woman and is seemingly oblivious to the fact that Evan stole her inheritance money and has numerous affairs behind her back. Marigold is badly affected by her son’s death—Evan lies to her that Stewart fell out of a tree and died, but really he was killed in an accident that involved Tilly Dunnage. Due to Marigold’s grief and Evan’s mistreatment, Marigold is neurotic and dependent on several medications, which she uses to help her sleep and to calm her nerves. Evan uses this dependency against her, however, and convinces her to take more sleeping medication than she needs so that he can sexually assault her at night and so that she will not notice his womanizing. During her waking hours, Marigold is obsessed with cleanliness and fastidiously scrubs her house every day. This obsession is ironic because, no matter how much Marigold cleans, she cannot get rid of the real corruptive influence in her life: Evan. Marigold eventually gets revenge on Evan when Tilly reveals the truth about him to Marigold, and Marigold murders Evan and tries to kill herself. Marigold’s name reflects her incessant cleaning, as Marigold is also a brand of rubber gloves used for housework. Marigolds are also the plants which Tilly uses to drug Evan when she and Marigold take revenge on him.