A Northern Light

Minnie is Mattie's girl best friend. At the beginning of the novel, she is blissfully married to an adoring husband and is pregnant. However, after a traumatic experience giving birth to twin babies, she sinks into serious post-partum depression and is in a bad condition when Mattie went to visit her. She represents the path that Mattie could potentially take, which is to become a housewife and bear children. Despite envying her ideal marriage at the beginning, Mattie eventually decides that she does not want to make the same choice Minnie did.