June Hart was one of the most complicated and best written character that we come across in The Lost Flowers of Alice Hart. While we see her as a protagonist, the shades of gray within her character are so beautifully brought out as the result of her fears and precautions that she takes. She was given a past and we were told how all of her choices in the present day were influenced by the things she had faced in life. While Alice and Agnes were the victims and Clem and Dylan were the perpetrators, June went beyond being a protector and was the only character shown with all of her complexities and fallacies, which makes her the best thing about this very mid-show.
Spoiler Alert
The thing about her role as protector was that everything June did came under that umbrella. We only came to know in episode 6 of the series what had happened to June in the past. But it was at the end of episode 7 that we realized the aftermath of it. After episode 6, we assumed that June had never said anything about what she had gone through because of the trauma of the incident. But the finale of the show made us realize that there had been people in her life who had silenced her. It could have been friends or family, or maybe some of the more insensitive sections of law enforcement, but it looks like June’s voice had been subdued by others as well as herself. It could be one of the reasons June did not want to see Roberta, the girl she was with when this incident took place.
Initially, it may have been anger at what she had to go through, but if that wasn’t the case, it was probably a desire to avoid reminders of what she had gone through. But June was already pregnant, and she gave birth to Clem. We got the impression that June did not have any family around when she was pregnant. That could mean that her parents had already passed away, leaving June in charge of Thornfield. June says that Twig was the one who saved her and Clem. We can imagine her situation. A young mother dealing with guilt, shame, and anger but remembering that her child has nothing to do with it all while still trying to heal herself. If Twig hadn’t come to Thornfield when she did, maybe June and Clem wouldn’t have survived.
We are not sure whether June was already taking in flowers at this point, as in whether she had already started helping the women. Maybe Twig was the first, or maybe June had started her organization, but we get the sense that it really took off after that point. We don’t believe that June ever took therapy, but she tried to do well for her son. She saw his talent for wood carving and knew that it must have come from his father, who had been one of the people to assault her. June tried to separate this reminder from Clem’s art and talent, but one day she knew that she couldn’t.
Clem had the audacity to claim that what he did to Candy, then just a child, was out of love. In his mind, the problem was that she was his adopted sister, but the real problem was that she was a child. We did not get to see the full confrontation between June and Clem at this point, but from what we saw in the flashback in episode 7, we suppose he ended up accepting the true nature of his act, likely not in direct terms, but he did it anyway. We have to consider why June did not send him away at that point, either to another place or to juvenile prison. Maybe she thought she could keep an eye on him if he stayed at Thornfield, or she did not want to attract attention to the flower farm because there was no telling what Clem might do for revenge if sent out.
It is also possible that her reasons were not so technical, and as a mother, she was not ready to let her child go. This proved to be her biggest mistake because, even though June instantly recognized that Clem was the same as his father, she couldn’t turn away from him. But June had to protect Candy, and Agnes became her shield. This was a huge mistake because protecting one man (Clem) ended up with the sacrifice of another woman (Agnes). Clem should have been sent away instead of being tethered to another woman. Throughout this time, we don’t think that June recognized Clem’s violent tendencies. It was only when she let him know that he wouldn’t inherit Thornfield that she saw his dark side. Clem was mad at his mother, not just because she denied him the estate but because she threatened to reveal his past to Agnes. It just showed that not only was he capable of great violence, but he had an awareness of his actions and did not feel the guilt of them, which put Agnes in great danger. June had encouraged Clem and Agnes’ relationship, but at that moment, she asked Twig to stop Agnes from leaving with Clem. Sadly, that did not happen, and she lost touch with them.
June finally found Alice after many years, and we believe she was determined to protect her. Considering the life that June had lived, she was naturally wary of men, but especially of the Hart men. Clem and his father had proved the kind of people that they were, and June perhaps thought that Charlie might be the same. She had once tried to believe that Clem would be different, but when that had not happened, June probably did not want to repeat the risk with Charlie and prevent similar tragedies. It is still not a good enough excuse, especially in light of how June drove Oggi away from Alice’s life. Her protectiveness had become unreasonable and controlling, confining Alice’s life within a very small boundary. June was wrong on every front, but her fear and trauma left her with no choice. But as June’s last days were approaching, she knew she had to toughen up her granddaughter. She couldn’t shelter her from the world like she had been doing so far because that would leave Alice defenseless against men like Dylan. That is why she decided to lead Alice to the Journal of the Lost Flowers.
In a lot of ways, June lived a tough but grand life, and she was the savior of so many women. In her last days, she also managed to save her granddaughter by finally telling her the truth and empowering her as only a complete picture of reality can.
