Mimi refuses Papanek’s deal (Chapter 48). Do you think she made the right choice? What choice would you have made?
I would have been very disappointed if Mimi had taken Papanek’s deal. She did make the right decision. Why would she have turned against her friends. I hope I would have had the same courage to do the same.
Yes she made the right choice. She could not betray her friends. Plus working at the clinic was her own choice and she knew that she was helping women. The clinic was clean and had excellent doctors.
I agree with both Anna and Paula. I would have been extremely disappointed in Mimi if she had.
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Yes because of her moral relationship Mimi could not turn her back on her co-workers I think it would have haunted her for the rest of her life.
I agree with the answers above, but I think it’s interesting that elsewhere, people have said that family should always be the priority. Yet here, she’s actually not putting her family first. It’s a lose-lose situation for sure.
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I actually thought she was going to take the deal. To Kim’s point, there was so much attention given to putting family first, I didn’t see Mimi doing the opposite.
I was glad she didn’t take the deal. She gained strength throughout the novel and accepting her fate was the ultimate way for her to show that.
Emily_Bahhar, I agree, I thought with all the emphasis on family she would put her family first and take the deal. And, then I rethought it, and I wonder if her co-workers had become her found family, so she was putting her family first? I certainly believe that for some of us, our friends become stronger relationships and a better support system than family.
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It would have been a tough choice for anyone but based on the person Mimi had grown to be throughout the book, I thought refusing the deal was the only choice she could have made.
This aspect of the book bugged me from a technical standpoint.
Mimi was represented by counsel and Papanek was ethically barred from going directly to her to pitch that deal. That’s simply not how it works. Papanek was required to communicate that deal to Mimi’s lawyer. She never even told her lawyer about it. Didn’t seek his advice & counsel. So it wasn’t realistic and I was pretty disappointed that the author didn’t get this part of the story right. (Yes, I am a lawyer.)
Putting that aside, yes. She made the right choice. I like to think it’s the choice I would have made. But I’ve spent a lot of time in prison (professionally). I’ve seen the cells and how inmates live. Yikes. Like I said, I hope it’s the choice I would have the strength to make.
I do think she made the right choice. I think she would have made a different choice had she not worked with these people for over a year, but I agree with Dee-Driscole, those people had become her family. And after seeing the women, and girls that had come thru the clinic in need of help, I think she felt a strong sense of dedication to the cause she was working for.
I think Mimi made the right decision. After all what is a family, it can be a group of people, not related by blood, that care and nourish each other, young and old alike. These woman at the clinic became a part of her family and so she did what was best for ALL of her family. I would like to think that I, too, would be brave and make the same one.
I can’t imagine having to make a choice like that. I wasn’t sure what Mimi would decide to do, but ultimately I feel it was the right choice for her. It took a lot of courage, but I think she would have regretted it had she chosen to take the deal.
She matured from an uncertain young woman into someone guided by her own moral code. She recognizes that situations are more complicated than the law suggests. She cannot bring herself to betray people she believes were trying, in their own way, to help desperate women who had few options.
Mimi made the right choice for her character. She demonstrates integrity and loyalty, even though it comes at a personal cost. Her decision is neither easy nor practical, but it is consistent with the values she developed throughout the story.