Tear Jerker / Ethel Cain

• Preacher's Daughter as a whole is the tragic story of the character of Ethel Cain, whose abuse from her family, namely her father, spirals into her becoming involved with bad men and eventually leads to her horrific, violent end.
  • "A House In Nebraska" revolves around Ethel mourning the loss of her past lover Willoughby Tucker, who broke up with her and left to someplace unknown due to circumstances that she blames herself for. All she wants is to reunite with him and find the titular house that they once dreamed about, but all she can do now is pray that Willoughby is alright wherever he is, while she's all alone.
  • "Western Nights" has Ethel find a new boyfriend named Logan who is a violent delinquent that frequently gets into trouble and is implied to even abuse Ethel herself. She remains with him and prays that one day they'll "be okay," but by the time of "Family Tree", Logan's been shot down by the cops during an armed robbery and Ethel, who was there as an accomplice, goes on the run to avoid capture.
  • "Hard Times" subtly reveals that Ethel's father sexually abused her from a young age, particularly during the night when she was too tired to resist or run away. She mentions how she should have known that not all "love" from a parent is good and that she's sick of the ties that she has to her father.
  • The absolutely brutal Hope Spot that "Thoroughfare" provides. It seems that after all the abuse she went through, as well as escaping from the authorities, that Ethel finally found her true love in a man named Isaiah and is now happily traveling the west with him, but then "Gibson Girl" comes along and it's revealed that was all a lie and that she's really Isaiah's captive forced into prostitution.
  • While predominantly Nightmare Fuel, the overall themes of female victimization in "Ptolemaea" count. Bonus in that it's also implied that Ethel attempted to escape from Isaiah but was sadly unsuccessful.
  • "August Underground" and "Televangelism" are somber instrumentals that represent Ethel's murder at Isaiah's hands and her soul leaving her body, respectively. Both overlap (the former especially) with Nightmare Fuel.
  • The end of "Sun Bleached Flies" has Ethel, now in the afterlife, once again longing to be with Willoughby at the house in Nebraska.
  • "Strangers"...dear goodness, "Strangers". Even after everything Isaiah did to her and watching as he eats her corpse, Ethel asks him if she wasn't any good when she tried to be and claims that she only wanted to be his. Lastly, she turns her attention to her mother who she forgives for the rough upbringing, tells her mother not to worry and that she loves her, and says that when her mother dies, they'll see each other again. One interpretation of the song further overlaps it with Nightmare Fuel; some fans have interpreted that Ethel actually found and talked to her father (who died before the start of the story) first before speaking to her mother. Given what he did to her (which Ethel forgives and even absolves of blame in this case), it implies that Ethel may not have made it to Heaven after all, and that her mother probably won't, either...