Sybil

After the trip to Connecticut, Sybil becomes more open with Dr. Wilbur and begins describing some of her earlier memories. Sybil grew up in a small town in Wisconsin called Willow Corners, which was religious, puritanical and class-stratified. People from various churches–Methodists, Congregationalists, and Lutherans–looked askance at each other. They hated Catholics, Jews and African Americans.

Willard Dorsett was born in Willow Corners. Hattie Dorsett, born Henrietta Anderson and raised in Elderville, Illinois, married him in 1910, though she didn’t love him and mistrusted all men, who all had “only one thing on their minds” (127). Willard was willing to put up with Hattie’s eccentricities because he thought her intellectual, refined, and a talented pianist, and the first several years of their marriage were happy.

Sybil was born thirteen years after the Dorsetts were married, after four miscarriages. Willard chose Sybil’s name, a name that Hattie hated, and decided to use only when absolutely necessary. At other times, Hattie decided to call her daughter by the name she liked, Peggy Louisiana.

After Sybil’s birth, Hattie suffered severe post-partum depression. She began to care less and less about pleasing Willard. Willard forbade Hattie from feeding Sybil anywhere except in their bedroom, behind the closed doors, and never when anyone else was in the house.