When I started reading the last section of Not So Quiet ... I found Helen’s experience on leave very interesting. Prior to actually being home, she made it very clear that she would not return to war, “I have finished with the war for good” (167). After losing multiple people that were close to her and all the things that occurred while working, it is not shocking that she would want to never return. Helen’s family’s response to her not wanting to return to war is outrageous. We have talked about mother in our previous classes, but the way she immediately wants to show Helen off at a meeting is sad. She immediately questions, “What will Mrs. Evans-Mawnington say?” (182). Mother is not concern whether Helen is physically or mentally okay, she is more concern on what her rival will think. I believe Mother is so caught up in trying to keep this persona up that the actual danger her children are in does not matter.

Aunt Helen is so dramatic in my opinion. She really was going to rewrite her will if Helen did not enlist again, which is so sad. I am sure Aunt Helen, as well as mother, knows about the hardships that come with being in the war but obviously for them what is going on at the front lines is not as important as their reputations at the home front. Besides all that her family is saying and threatening to do, Helen still sticks her ground and refuses to go back to war. However, this changes when Trix is in need of help. When Helen helped Trix, that showed true family value. Helen was willing to do the one thing she did not want to do so then her sister could get help. When Helen returns to war, it shows that she has more value in her relationship with her sister then her reputation. Although this makes her aunt and mother happy, she did not do it for them. She did it for Trix, the one person who seems like true family to Helen.