Families in literature
Families in literature serve as a central theme across various genres, including novels, short stories, and poems. These familial relationships can be complex, often marked by both conflict and affection, reflecting the multifaceted nature of real-life family dynamics. Through shared experiences, such as the birth of a child or the loss of a loved one, characters often navigate their relationships in ways that resonate with readers, making these families relatable despite cultural or historical differences.
Literary depictions of families have evolved over time, mirroring societal changes. Historical families often exhibited distant relationships, with marriages based on economic or political arrangements rather than love, especially in earlier centuries. As society progressed, emotional connections within families became more prominent, influenced by shifts in gender roles and societal expectations.
Notable works, such as Louisa May Alcott's "Little Women" and Toni Morrison's "Beloved," exemplify the diverse portrayals of families, ranging from supportive sisterhoods to the struggles of mothers facing their pasts. Additionally, contemporary literature explores varied family structures, including single-parent households and blended families, reflecting the increasing diversity in modern society. Through these narratives, literature offers a window into the evolving concept of family, inviting readers to reflect on their own familial experiences.
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Families in literature
Families are an important part of many works of literature, including novels, novellas, short stories, and poems. The relationships among family members are often complex and make for a good story. For example, sisters and brothers may have disagreements and jealousies, yet their shared relationships unite them.
They live through both joyful and sad times together, such as the birth of a baby and the death of a grandparent. Writers of literature know that most families are recognizable, meaning that readers can relate to them even if the story takes place in another country in the past.
While some families in literature are happy and affectionate, others are dysfunctional, or rife with conflict, which often makes them unique and intriguing to readers. The narrator of Leo Tolstoy’s famous novel Anna Karenina (1897) begins the story by saying, “Happy families are all alike; every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way.”
Background
Families in the past starkly differ from those in the twenty-first century. Long ago, during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, relationships between spouses were distant. In wealthy families, husbands and wives lived in separate areas of the house, and it was not uncommon for husbands to be away for months or even years. Marriages during this time were often arranged for economic or political reasons, and roles were strictly delineated. Society was patriarchal, meaning men were in charge of important matters and financially provided for women. Men were the breadwinners, while women cared for the home and children. Historians believe that the high mortality rate among adults was a reason for the lack of love between spouses of all social classes. Life expectancy during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries was only forty years. Those who survived this long might have had several spouses over the course of their lives.
Long ago, relationships between parents and children were also remote. This may have been influenced by the high child mortality rate of the time, as half of all children died before the age of five. Parents also did not see their children regularly. In wealthy families, children were often raised by nurses, governesses, or tutors, who usually did not live in the family home. Poorer families also sent their children away. At the age of ten, children were often sent to live in other homes to work as domestic servants or laborers. They lived in their employers’ houses and seldom, if ever, returned home.
Infant mortality rates began to fall around 1750, and children became more likely to receive affection from their parents. Life began to change for women as well. During the eighteenth century, laws were passed to protect women’s property rights. Men and women began marrying because of affection in the second half of the century. However, these changes occurred slowly and affected only some families. It was still common for men to dominate and support the family. When the United States was founded in 1776, a family was defined as a husband, a wife, their children, and their extended family. Divorce was rare, as spouses stayed married until death. Women were still financially dependent on men. This was true in other countries as well. For example, in Jane Austen’s famous English novel Pride and Prejudice (1813), the Bennet daughters face dire financial problems after their father dies. Because of this, their mother desperately tries to find them suitable husbands to secure their future—and suitable, according to Mrs. Bennet, means wealthy.
It was not until the early twentieth century that most US states allowed women to own property. Around this time, attending school became compulsory for children and laws were passed regarding child labor. Most marriages at this time were based on choice, love, and companionship, which ultimately caused a surge in divorce rates.
The Great Depression, which affected the country from 1929 to 1939, forced American families to try to survive by relocating and separating. Marriage and birth rates declined during this time. To feed their families, parents sent their children out to beg for food at restaurants. Women and minorities struggled the most during this time because the few jobs that existed were given to White men. The effects of the Great Depression on families were depicted in the literature of this time. John Steinbeck’s novel The Grapes of Wrath (1939) takes place during the Dust Bowl, a devastating drought that occurred in the southern plains of the United States. When Tom Joad is released from prison for manslaughter, he returns to his parents’ farm in Oklahoma but discovers that the family has been evicted and is preparing to drive to California, where they hope to find a better life. However, many other poor farming families are also traveling to California, where the jobs they hope to find are nonexistent. When the Joads reach their destination, they learn that migrant families are living in makeshift camps and starving to death. The Joad family breaks up, with some family members believing they have a better chance of surviving on their own.
During World War II, from 1939 to 1945, many women joined the workforce, taking the place of men who were fighting overseas and changing the concept of family. Life improved after the war during the 1950s, a time in America when the nuclear family proliferated. People married younger, had more children, and divorced less often. While men were still considered to be the breadwinners, only 60 percent of children grew up in a household where their father worked, and their mother took care of the children and the house.
By the twenty-first century, women made up almost 50 percent of the paid labor force, and the concept of family had changed. Single-parent families headed by mothers or fathers, families formed through remarriage, and families headed by same-sex couples became more common than ever before. Families became more diverse in terms of race, ethnicity, and religion.
Overview
The following are some of the many famous novels about families:
Originally published in two volumes in 1868 and 1869, Little Women, by Louisa May Alcott, is an iconic novel about a family that is loosely based on Alcott’s childhood with her three sisters. In the novel, the March sisters—Meg, Jo, Beth, and Amy—have little money and decide to buy presents for their mother instead of one another while their father is serving as a Union chaplain in the American Civil War. As the girls mature, they embark on various adventures and support one another through difficult times, such as Beth’s death.
Anne of Greene Gables (1908), by Lucy Maud Montgomery, recounts the adventures of Anne Shirley, an eleven-year-old orphan, who is sent to live with siblings Matthew and Marilla Cuthbert. The Cuthberts had believed that they were being sent a boy to help them work on their farm. At first, Marilla wants to return Anne to the orphanage but, with Matthew’s encouragement, decides to let her stay.
In Toni Morrison’s Pulitzer-Prize-winning novel, Beloved (1987), Sethe lives with her eighteen-year-old daughter, Denver, in Cincinnati, Ohio. Sethe was born enslaved on a plantation in Kentucky. When she meets Paul D, who used to live on the same plantation, she recollects her past, including the African American mother she never knew. While living on the plantation, she married Halle, and they had two sons, Howard and Buglar and a baby daughter whose name is never given. When the owner of the plantation, Mr. Garner, died, his widow asked her cruel, racist brother-in-law to help her run the farm. Those who had been enslaved by Mr. Garner decide to run. In Cincinnati in the present, Howard and Buglar run away from Sethe’s home. She believes they have done this to escape an abusive ghost that haunts the house. Denver has befriended the ghost, whom everyone believes is the spirit of her dead sister.
The Joy Luck Club is a 1989 novel written by Amy Tan about disagreements between Chinese mothers and their American-born daughters. The novel’s plot revolves around Jing-mei’s visit to China to meet her half-sisters, Chwun Yu and Chwun Hwa. Jing-mei’s mother, Suyuan, was forced to leave them when she fled Japan during World War II. Her mother planned to return to China to get them but was unable to find them before her death.
He Gets That From Me (2022) is a novel by Jacqueline Friedland. The protagonist is Maggie Fisher, who is the mother of Wyatt, a toddler, and lives with her boyfriend, Nick. She works at a checkout counter in Phoenix, and money is tight. When she learns that women are being paid thousands of dollars to be surrogates for couples who cannot conceive, she decides to become one. She is chosen by Donovan, a New York real estate agent, and his husband, Chip. Two embryos are implanted in Maggie’s uterus, and she gives birth to two boys. Later, when the boys are ten, Chip tests their DNA for a genealogy project using an at-home testing kit. Teddy is biologically Chip’s son, but Kai is not biologically related to either of his dads. After Maggie’s DNA is tested, she learns that Kai is her son, and his father is Nick. After she comes to terms with having given away her own child, Maggie learns the true meaning of family.
Bibliography
Aleman, Daniel. “Four Tips to Writing About Family.” Writers’ Digest, 29 Mar. 2023, www.writersdigest.com/write-better-fiction/4-tips-to-write-about-family-in-fiction. Accessed 13 June 2024.
Casey, James. The History of the Family. Wiley-Blackwell, 1991.
Eliot, Henry. “Must-Read Classics About Dysfunctional Families.” Penguin Books Limited, 14 Dec. 2021, www.penguin.co.uk/articles/2021/12/classic-books-dysfunctional-families-relationships. Accessed 13 June 2024.
Fleur, Morrison. “Why Family Is the One Thing Authors Will Write About.” HuffPost, 3 Nov. 2017, www.huffpost.com/archive/au/entry/why-family-is-the-one-thing-authors-will-always-write-about‗au‗5cd3822ee4b0acea9501e594#. Accessed 13 June 2024.
Hertzel, Laurie. “What’s in a Name?—The Risks of Writing About Family.” The Brevity Blog, 2 May 2024, brevity.wordpress.com/2024/05/02/whats-in-a-name/. Accessed 13 June 2024.
Murray, Annie. “On Writing: Family Dynamics.” The Darley Anderson Blog, 6 Apr. 2018, darleyandersonblog.com/2018/04/06/on-writing-family-dynamics-with-annie-murray/. Accessed 13 June 2024.