She attributed Lovecraft's passive nature to a stultifying upbringing by his mother. Modern society had left this man hollow due to a stultifying lack of aspiration. These works all contained allusions to her stultifying marriage. The radical potential of the suffrage movement was crushed by "stultifying definitions of motherhood". In the book, an isolated Ellie seeks to escape a stultifying mother. She later described the atmosphere in the family as "stultifying". The heat was stultifying and few duties were required of an officer. He found the work stultifying and came home after a foot inflammation.