What This Theme Explores
Female Empowerment and Perseverance in The Secret Life of Sunflowers asks what it costs—and what it transforms—to keep going when power structures, grief, and doubt press in. Through the intertwined lives of Johanna Bonger and Emsley Wilson, the novel explores how women claim authority not through sudden triumphs but through repeated acts of resolve. It interrogates how purpose emerges from loss, how agency is built by resisting dismissal, and how one woman’s courage seeds another’s. The dedication, “to all the women who keep on fighting,” frames perseverance not as stoic endurance, but as an active, legacy-making choice.
How It Develops
The novel begins with constraint and disorientation. In Chapter 2, Johanna articulates a desire to live beyond marriage scripts, voicing a wish to be an “independent woman” even as late-19th-century convention hems her in. In New York, Emsley starts out stalled at the threshold of a male-dominated auction world; reduced to “golf-course” optics and backroom bias in Chapter 1, she’s further entangled by a toxic personal and business tie to her ex, Trey. The openings establish a shared question: when the gate won’t open, who—and what—will you become to move through anyway?
Midway, crisis becomes catalyst. Johanna’s world collapses; widowed and nearly penniless, she inherits a child and stacks of “worthless” canvases in Chapter 22. Emsley loses her grandmother, Violet Velar, confronts her company’s collapse, and uncovers a generational wound in Chapter 7 and Chapter 13. These blows don’t simply test endurance; they demand redefinition. Both women pivot from asking permission to authorizing themselves.
By the end, empowerment is both inward and institutional. Johanna refuses the art world’s dismissal and becomes the strategic architect of Vincent van Gogh’s posthumous reputation in Chapter 30, turning grief into curatorial vision. Emsley, galvanized by Johanna’s letters and Violet’s example, wrests control of her company, confronts her grandmother’s abuser, and publicly embodies her reclaimed voice through a raw, self-chosen performance in Strena’s show in Chapter 29. The parallel arcs argue that perseverance is not passive survival; it is strategy, reinvention, and the courage to be seen.
Key Examples
Persistence in the novel is not abstract; it’s staged in clashes, decisions, and vows that shift a life’s trajectory.
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Emsley’s defiance in the face of sexism:
“Expensive pieces of art are bought by the rich as an investment. A star auctioneer must be a person the CEO of a hedge fund would find trustworthy at a glance. Someone they could see themselves golfing with on a Sunday.” Hearing her old boss’s logic clarifies the rigged optics against her and converts frustration into entrepreneurial resolve. Instead of seeking approval, Emsley builds a space where she sets the criteria for authority.
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Violet’s core philosophy in Chapter 3:
“You succeed by not failing.” Stripped of glamour, the mantra reframes success as accumulation of refusals to quit—an ethic Emsley operationalizes when her business teeters. Violet turns endurance into method, making perseverance teachable and repeatable across generations.
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Johanna’s stand against her brother Dries:
“I must remain in Paris,” I told my brother. “Theo’s friends will help me finish his work.” Rejecting “practical” advice to burn the canvases, Johanna chooses purpose over security. This decision anchors her identity as a steward, not a victim, and redirects her life toward advocacy.
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Johanna becoming Vincent’s agent in Chapter 28:
“I will be Vincent’s agent.” An unheard of audacity from a woman. “I can’t wait to see how the gatekeepers of the art world will respond to that.” By naming her role, Johanna claims institutional power usually denied to women and meets gatekeeping with overt challenge. The declaration converts private conviction into public action.
Character Connections
Johanna Bonger embodies perseverance as vocation. She transmutes bereavement into a decades-long, strategic campaign to elevate neglected genius, showing that empowerment can be quiet, persistent, and relentlessly procedural. Her strength lies not in one dramatic stand but in meticulous, sustained labor that outlasts the era’s contempt.
Emsley Wilson models contemporary empowerment as self-authorship. Pressed by sexism and betrayal, she refuses both invisibility and bitterness, synthesizing inherited wisdom with present courage. Her arc underscores that empowerment today entails both structural pushback (owning and steering a company) and somatic reclamation (performing her story on her terms).
Violet Velar represents unapologetic female autonomy. A rule-breaking artist, she transforms her life into evidence that excellence and audacity can coexist for women without apology. As mentor and myth, she equips Emsley with a praxis—keep going, and make the going the point.
Strena channels modern, unapologetic force. She reframes fear as performance material, insisting that Emsley’s voice has artistic and political weight. By staging Emsley’s liberation in public, she converts private empowerment into cultural statement.
Anna functions as a foil, revealing the cost of choosing safety within prescriptive norms. Her resentment toward Violet’s nonconformity highlights the pressure to trade desire for security—and, by contrast, the courage it takes to refuse that bargain.
Symbolic Elements
Sunflowers crystallize the book’s thesis: “adaptable,” “scrappy as hell,” thriving in “arid, poor dirt,” they tilt toward light until they look like stars. The flower’s ordinary toughness—not its beauty—becomes the measure of worth, mirroring how Johanna, Violet, and Emsley survive, then bloom, in hostile soil.
Excalibur, Violet’s painting, is reinterpreted by Strena in Chapter 19: Violet is the sword, not the hand that wields it. Power is intrinsic, not conferred—an insight that shifts Emsley from seeking external validation to activating inner authority.
The Little Green Diary and letters operate as an heirloom of courage. They materialize women’s hidden labor and pain, transforming private testimony into a roadmap. For Emsley, they are proof that perseverance is inherited knowledge—and a charge to extend the lineage.
Contemporary Relevance
The novel’s portrait of gatekeeping and “golf-course” authority speaks directly to ongoing battles over pay equity, promotion optics, and credibility tests women still face. Johanna’s archival advocacy mirrors current efforts to recover erased contributions in art and history, while Emsley’s confrontation of abuse echoes movements insisting survivors shape the narrative. Most crucially, the story models intergenerational solidarity: empowerment scales when women share tools, name obstacles, and refuse isolation.
Essential Quote
“You succeed by not failing.”
As Violet reframes success as the stubborn practice of not stopping, the novel relocates heroism from spectacle to steadiness. This line becomes the motor of both timelines, converting setbacks into steps and turning perseverance itself into a radical, repeatable craft.