75 pages 2 hours read

Flora Rheta Schreiber

Sybil

Nonfiction | Biography | Adult | Published in 1973

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Chapters 17-19

Chapter Summaries & Analyses

Chapter 17 Summary: “Willard”

All of the accumulated information Dr. Wilbur has received about the traumas being perpetrated in the Dorsett household came from one source: Sybil, and her alternate selves. In April 1957, Dr. Wilbur decides that she needs to substantiate the truth of the findings and brings Willard into the case. Sybil asks him to come to New York.

The doctor and Sybil know that Willard is unlikely to come willingly. Though Willard initially agreed to support Sybil’s analysis, he has since made it clear that he thinks she is too old to be supported by him. Sybil persistently feels that whatever her father has done for her has been out of duty, not because he cares for her. Over the years, Willard has sold Sybil’s furniture, piano, and some of her paintings without consulting her, keeping the money for himself. He has also demanded that she pay half of her mother’s funeral expenses. In his letters, he is careful to always mention his reliance on his social security checks, even though Sybil knows he earned a good income, his wife earned a good income, and they owned several properties.

Willard Dorsett was the product of an unhappy marriage between Aubrey and Mary Dorsett.