“Mrs. Hopewell had no bad qualities of her own but she was able to use other people’s in such a constructive way that she never felt the lack. She had hired the Freemans and she had kept them four years.” 

The narrator frequently relies on these statements of ironic criticism to show each character’s hypocrisy. Mrs. Hopewell’s belief in her own perfection (in the same moment that it’s revealed that she manipulates people to her advantage) sets her up to be the one to fall from grace by the end of the story, so it’s a surprise that Hulga is the one who is scammed by Manley Pointer.

“When Mrs. Hopewell said to Mrs. Freeman that life was like that, Mrs. Freeman would say, ‘I always said so myself.’ Nothing had been arrived at by anyone that had not first been arrived at by her.”

Mrs. Freeman and Mrs. Hopewell share the belief that the world functions according to their understanding, so it’s ironic that Mrs. Hopewell finds Mrs. Freeman so annoying. The narrator’s frequent editorializing on the characters in the story helps ground the reader in the story’s point of view that all of these people are fools in their own way.

“When Mrs. Hopewell thought the name, Hulga, she thought of the broad blank hull of a battleship. She would not use it. She continued to call her Joy to which the girl responded but in a purely mechanical way.”

This quote sets up Hulga’s chosen identity (as exemplified by her choice of name) and her relationship with her mother, which is defined by their inability to empathize with one another. Hulga wants to be imposing, serious, and ugly, and her mother longs for her to be happy; this disconnect is at the core of their relationship.