A Closed Family In Anne Tyler's Dinner At The Homesick Restaraunt

For example, when Misses Hadley is talking about the house, she states,” "That's just it. I feel like I don't belong here. The house is wife and mother now, and nursemaid. Can I compete with an African veldt?” (Bradbury) This point of view from the mother exibits how she is being replaced and that the technology is beginning to be the mother she is not. This creates a rift between the kids and adults because now that the house is pretty much acting as parents, the kids are more and more prone to go against and not listen to their parents. Without the point of view, the rift would not have been created in the story and her point of view is important because it is her feelings and it adds emotion because people can relate to a mothers struggles. This viewpoint of a mother losing her motherhood is also symbolic because at the same time the parents are losing a piece of themselves, their kids are beginning to lose grip on their last bit of innocence. As a result, the point of view leads to a conflict where the parents begin to take back that piece of them, however because it had already been stripped away, they ended up losing their lives because of it. In addition, “Surely the Happylife Home keeps their house clean, feeds and cares for them in every way a full range of maids and butlers would, but the Happylife Home has also robbed

To get a full understanding of family theory one must first have the understanding of what is theory. Theory is a systematic collection of concepts and relations. Family however can mean a broad range of things to a person. One person may consider family to be father, mother, sister and brother; however, to someone else family could be just one parent with one child; and to another it could their friends. Family systems theory however defines the family as a system. Family consist of interrelated parts, each impacting the other and adding to each other’s growth (or detriment) of the other. And because family is always changing, growing, self-organizing, and becoming accustomed to each other and the exterior environment (White & Klein, 2008). Now let’s take a look at the

Lee’s essay “Magical Dinners” and Slater’s “Tripp Lake” are two stories that allows you to see different situations that involve a parent and a child. They both struggle with different things one being with dramatic life changes that come with being a foreigner moving to the united states and one being a childhood camp experience and the mothers maternal fear of the daughter.In Magical Dinners it showcases the story of the authors mother and the frustrations of living in a place with unfamiliar food,language and faces. In Tripp Lake the author is the narrator and you see the mothers feelings convey through her daughter being able to do things she wasn 't when she was younger. In these two stories we will look at the impact both mothers had on there child 's lives and trying to please them through the events , actions and motions involved.Based on reading the two stories Magical dinners and Tripp lake i found that they have similarities that produce two different results.

It comes down to focusing on what is the cause of the problem and what needs to be done to resolve it. Some assumptions that are related to this theory can include families normally related to one another in “patterned ways that are observable and predictable” (Linblad-Goldberg & Northey, 2013), most families have rules that each must follow and roles they are to play in the family unit, when they get off balance then dysfunction can and normally does occur. It is important that families have boundaries which include both inside and outside of the family. Families also have subsystems which can be based on either generation or genders.

There are various family backgrounds a child may come from. If they grow up in an extended family circle, in close relationship not only with their parents and siblings but also with their grandparents and cousins, they might feel more protected by the people who surround them and have more opportunities to develop socially through frequent interactions with their relatives. A bigger family tend to give moral values and education to the child that also supports their social and cognitive progress. However, coming from a smaller, nuclear family does not mean that the child is not provided with the same values, and vice versa a child can have negative experiences, e.g. feeling of being lost in a house crowded with their family members. Reconstructed or one-parent families also have the potential to work well if the child is able to accept the changes and see that e.g. their parents are happier separated or with their new partner. Still teaching staff has to give closer attention to those children coming from broken up families because if they are unhappy or cannot deal with the changed circumstances, their academic and social development will be affected negatively.

One of Pearl’s many trials is the torment from her peers and elders simply for being the daughter of an adulteress, which she was completely out of control of. Peers bullying her is not uncommon throughout the story, “the little Puritans… scorned them [Pearl] in their hearts, and not infrequently reviled them with their tongues”(Hawthorne, 109). Their lack of respect towards her, and willingness to act upon those feelings puts Pearl in constant danger of harassment and shame from every child around her. However, peer harassment is not the only danger Pearl has to worry about, adults are quick to shame her as well, “the talk of neighboring townspeople… had given out that poor little Pearl was a demon offspring” (Hawthorne, 114). While it’s not uncommon for someone to be bullied by a peer, the degradation forced on her by adults was something Pearl had to deal with everyday, on top of her peers. Interactions that should have been benign and helped her feel normal only tore her down.

Family dynamics and relationships in our younger years help shape our view of the world and how we fit into it. Whether you agree with Sigmund Freud, Alfred Adler, or Erik Erickson,

For example, each family member goes into Susie’s old room alone to grieve her death .They finally seem to realize that they need each other to get through this terrible time and accept that even though they will never have Susie back but can hope and try together to figure out what happened to Susie and who did it. Throughout the book they must learn to love each other again.The theme of grief is the most important theme in the novel. The Salmon family must learn to overcome the loss of Susie. Everyone grieves in their own way and finds a way to blame themselves or feel like its their own fault that the situation happened. Susie's family feels a sense of guilt for not being there for her. For example, Susie's father, Jack grieves for Susie.He feels like he wasn't there when his daughter needed him most which leads him to becomes obsessed with feeling responsible for finding the killer. Lindsey, Susie’s sister grieves over her sister by becoming a stronger person and not to talking about it. Susie’s also mourns her own death and the missed opportunity of getting to grow up, but more significantly, Susie grieves over the loss of living people. This theme allows us to understand the characters better.

The Hicks/Hull family was the second family that I interviewed. The family consists of three members. Samantha Hicks, the mother, is 19 years old. She is a sales associate at David’s Bridal and is considering attending a cosmetology school. Tarnche Hull, the father, is 19 years old. He works at a local jewelry store in Evansville, and Buffalo Wild Wings. Tarnche dropped out college to work. Kai Lindell Hull is their son, he is 10 months old. Samantha and Tarnche got married in April, separated in July, and divorced in October of 2014. Samantha is Caucasian and Tarnche is African-American, which causes Kai to be a mix of both races.

In Alice Sebold’s novel, The Lovely Bones, the Salmon family learns that their fourteen year old daughter, Susie Salmon, has been raped and murdered. Because of this her father, Jack, sister, Lindsey, and mother, Abigail, all go through their own respective journeys in order to accept this ordeal. During this time of grievance for Susie’s family, her father, Jack, believes that the person responsible for the murder of his daughter is his neighbour, a man named George Harvey, and reports this to detective Len Fenerman. However, Len Fenerman becomes too preoccupied with his affair with Abigail to aid Jack with his suspicions. Meanwhile, Susie’s younger siblings Lindsey and Buckley, try to learn how to cope with the loss of one of their very own, without their parent’s attention to aid them. In The Lovely Bones, Susie’s father, mother, and sister, all explore the theme of grief by going on their own pathways through the five stages of grief; denial, anger, bargaining, depression, and acceptance, in order to come to terms with the brutal murder of their beloved Susie.

As Lyndon Baines Johnson says, “The family is the corner stone of our society. More than any other force it shapes the attitude, the hopes, the ambitions, and the values of the child. And when the family collapses it is the children that are usually damaged. When it happens on a massive scale the community itself is crippled. So, unless we work to strengthen the family, to create conditions under which most parents will stay together, all the rest — schools, playgrounds, and public assistance, and private concern — will never be enough” (Danes). He believed that family is the base of the society. The way that family is set up affects children in all ways. Family structure is very important and that no matter what we do,

Cody’s actions drove him even further away from Pearl. Cody’s animosity for Ezra is what drove him and Ruth’s marriage, and it was inevitable that their marriage would fall apart. Cody’s recklessness and hatred for Ezra is demonstrated in the beginning of the book when the whole family took a trip. Beck was trying to teach Cody how to shoot a arrow but Cody was not listening to his father and kept making mistakes. Pearl told Ezra to try to shoot the arrow on the target and he was able to get the target.

In Dinner at the Homesick Restaurant by Anne Tyler, Pearl a mother of three kids, Ezra, Cody and Jenny try to navigate through life without her husband who left her. Cody the eldest of the children is reckless and short tempered. Ezra the youngest has a likeable personality that everyone enjoys and he constantly attempts to keep his family together. Cody being the eldest always felt that he should have been given more or the same amount of attention than his siblings. Pearl makes efforts to try to be the best mother that she can but she blames herself for her kids relationships with one another. Pearl loves all her kids but her actions tells her kids otherwise which creates ill will between her kids. The decision for Pearl to love Ezra more than Cody drove them apart causing Cody to attempt to destroy Ezra instead of being a older brother to him.

My family has always been very close. We spend a great deal of time together and express our deep feelings and emotions with one another. If one of us has an issue, every member of the family is aware of it and shares the burden. When a person in the family does not share significant information about one’s life with the rest of the members, there is hurt feelings. Also, if a member cannot attend a family event, the family feels disappointed and misses the absent member. It is evident that connectedness is held as extremely valuable.

My own personal experience plays a part here as I don’t believe my family was ever “fully actualized.” Independence and autonomy was stressed, however, warmth and connectedness between members was not. Feelings were definitely suppressed in my household growing up, and even today sharing openly feels awkward. Whitaker, as well as Satir, has inspired my theoretical framework because I see the importance of the affective or emotional layer of family interactions.