the father

I have been the result of, at times, horrible parenting that has taken many years and many tears to heal from. One doesn't have to be a Ruth Ann (Shelley Winters' character in "Patch of Blue") or the father of the girl who alleges rape in "To Kill A Mockingbird" to be cruel, damaging, and inflict great harm that can take decades to heal from. In the constant comparison of Catherine to her mother, Catherine's self-esteem was blunted each and every time. Austin Sloper was so exacting a man that no one can measure up to his ideals. His sisters told him so at his niece's wedding. The old expression of "Sticks and stones may break my bones but names can never hurt me" is not true. Names hurt, damage, and leave scars, sometimes longer than physical ones.

While Austin Sloper was right about Morris Townsend and he might have, once, been concerned for Catherine's welfare but that one time does not correct a lifetime of emotional abuse that Catherine suffered from her father. As Catherine tells her aunt, she's learned cruelty from "the masters", aka her father. So true and Sloper realized what he had done when he told Catherine he was dying.

@kurtm7-586: "and love her unconditionally"? Dr. Sloper did not love Catherine at all. "Speaking the truth in love" goes a long way. But Dr. Sloper had no love for his daughter. Dr. Sloper despised Catherine. To him, his daughter had committed murder: her mother--Dr. Sloper's beloved and idolized wife--died during childbirth w/Catherine. Catherine had none of the graces of her mother. Catherine was her father's child. He created the woman she eventually became: uncaring, cruel.
@kurtm7-586: "Austin gets three cheers from me when he tells her off about her boyfriend in the scene right before she tries to run away. You know the "I've tried now to be unkind but not it's time for you to know the truth" speech" And so it's okay for Dr. Sloper to tell Catherine that she's pretty much a POS and destroy her soul? Did you really watch the movie? Did you see that it was her father's emotional abuse and uncaring behavior toward her and contempt for whom Catherine was NOT (her perfect mother) that caused Catherine to break down? Pay attention to the dialogue when you rewatch the movie. "Morris must love me. For those who did not." Catherine is clearly speaking about her father. He's never loved Catherine, regrets the fact that she lived while her mother died giving birth to her, thinks she's got nothing to offer any man. Dr. Sloper simply didn't want Catherine to bring scandal on HIS "good name."

I'm on Dr. Sloper's side, in seeing that Morris Townsend was a fortune hunter. Catherine tells her father that she would be willing to live with Townsend knowing that he didn't love her, because she had been living with him all her life without love. That's typical of people whose emotions get in the way of logic. Also, blaming her father for Morris standing her up on the night they were to elope, when it was obvious that he was a fortune hunter. Her aunt even tried to tell her, and she was all for the courtship. I like the way Sloper saw through Townsend's insincere flattery, too bad Catherine who was desperate for attention from a man, she didn't.