The themes of family and responsibility can be found in both All My Sons and What’s Eating Gilbert Grape. However, while All My Sons show the dark, selfish side of humanity through portraying these themes, What’s Eating Gilbert Grape shows the glory of human nature. The theme of family portrayed in the two texts can be further divided into two parts: filial love and family conflict. Filial love in All My Sons can be shown by Joe Keller and Chris Keller’s attempts of getting Kate Keller to forget about her dead son, Larry, so that she can move on and lead a new life. Joe and Chris also display immense care towards Kate and comfort her when she has a nightmare about Larry, which shows how much of a close-knit family they are. However, Joe and Chris’s concern about Kate’s inability to move on from …show more content…
In All My Sons, Joe Keller lack social responsibility as he knowingly ships out faulty parts knowing full well that his actions could lead to the deaths of the pilots. Additionally, he fails to take responsibility for his mistake by framing Steve Deever. The guilt that is a result of his irresponsible actions s borne by him and his wife, Kate Keller. Kate knows about Joe’s mistake but keeps it a secret to keep her family together, so in a way she just just as responsible as Joe Keller for the deaths of those twenty one pilots and her son. Joe starts to feel ashamed of his despicable actions after the truth is revealed to his son, Chris, and he is devastated after finding out that he was partly, if not directly, responsible for Larry’s suicide. Joe is too afraid to face reality and take responsibility for what he had done by going to jail, so he decides to kill himself. The Kellers’ lack of social responsibility show how deluded and selfish they are, and they ultimately pay the price with their
In addition to his loving home life, Joe also experiences the dark side of toxic and abusive families. Family is the group of people closest to the individual. This can be beneficial if the family members harmonize, but it can also foster abuse if the family members do not respect each other. One example of this is how Linda’s mother acts when Linda is born. Mrs. Lark saves Linden, Linda’s twin brother, but the doctor “ask[s] if he should use extraordinary means to salvage it [Linda], the answer was no. No, let it die” (115). Linda’s mother disregards Linda’s rights as a human and her place as a daughter in the family. This scars Linda for life and ruins any chance of Linda and mother building a healthy relationship in the future. When Linda tells him her story, Joe realizes that he
Parenting played a big role in shaping the two boys lives. Having a parental mentor is important because they assist and guide children to take the right decisions about their lives. The author had his two parents at the beginning of his life. Also, the author’s parents, especially his mother, tried to raise him in an effective way wanting him to know the right from wrong at an early age. “No mommy loves you, like I love you, she just wants you to do the right thing” (Moore 11). This quote was a live example of the author’s life with his parents. It reflected the different ways his parents used to teach him “the right thing.” Though his mother was upset from his action toward his sister, his father
The relationship between the two fathers and the two sons is a very important theme in this book. Because of their different backgrounds, Reb Saunders and David Malters approached raising a child from two totally different perspectives.
My family is from Mexico, a place where there is no prospect, and they have given up their most important wishes for mine. Being a Hispanic doesn’t make me feel inferior, but it makes me diligent. I have observed the way my parents worked throughout their years. The way they managed to survive and pleasure us, my brother and I, with our wants or needs. It is important to love who I am, my heritage and background, because it is not about how much money I have in my wallet but it is about the lesson or motivation I cultivated. The most amazing part about my heritage is knowing how strongly and intensely we believe in ourselves. When we set a belief, it is rare for someone to destroy the significance of it so easily. We have strong morals and that is what makes my background/heritage so important to me. We never give up.
As well as the final example in The Other Wes Moore, is how both Wes Moore mothers gave up large sacrifices for Wes because they were fatherless growing up. The authors mom Joy, strongly encouraged education, having good morals, and safe
At first, I saw this as equality in the boy’s lives. Yet as I read on and listened to more of their stories I realized how different the situations were. The first difference I realized was the reason why each of the fathers weren’t present. As the other Wes states, “Your father wasn’t there because he couldn’t be, my father wasn’t there because he chose not to be” (1). Though both boys grew up without fathers, how each boy’s family reacted made the huge difference. Wes’s older brother, Tony, appeared as a great role model. He was always encouraging his younger brother to continue on his education and avoid the path in life that he took. But as most say, actions speak louder than words. And with Tony being “a veteran of the drug game at eighteen”, he didn’t provide the best example for his little brother (57). On the other hand, the other Wes found his need for a male figure in his grandfather. What Wes didn’t realize was that he grandfather’s “strict” rules would ultimately pave the right path for
“In the long run, we shape our lives, and we shape ourselves. The process never ends until we die. And the choices we make as ultimately our own responsibility” (Eleanor Roosevelt). Two boys with almost identical childhoods have made decisions in their lives that have changed them forever. Both named Wes Moore, the men lead polar opposite lives now because of the choices made as teens. While the mothers of the two, Joy and Mary, struggled to support their family and make the right decisions, the Wes Moores had extremely contrasting educations, and their family life and support was somewhat similar, but had many stark differences.
In 1971, New York Times columnist Fred Ferretti wrote an article about a new television series called All in the Family. Ferretti asked, whether or not if racism and bigotry were considered funny and he concluded that it was not and as a result believed that the show was lacking good taste. Apparently, the television viewers of America disagreed. Running from 1971 to 1979, All In The Family wasn’t the first television series to tackle major issues on a major network, but what was innovative about the series, was that is that it hewed its situational comedy from topical issues, and it explored them through characters we got to know and cared about every week. Simply put, All in the Family wasn’t just a great situational comedy; it as was an ongoing national conversation rooted in well-written, well-acted and multifaceted characters.
Similarly, Peter Houghton’s home life also displays parental neglect. Growing up believing that his older brother, Joey, is the favorite, Peter feels as an outcast at home. When Joey suddenly dies in a car accident, Peter’s relationship with his parents continues to worsen. His parents are too depressed to pay any attention to Peter (“Nineteen Minutes”).
in families, there are clashes and rivalry between members–most provoked by the values of society– in strife to be the perfect family. In Salinger’s The Catcher in the Rye, Holden Caulfield, the main protagonist, comes from a high socioeconomic family with an unhealable wound that Holden’s dead brother, Allie Caulfield causes. In order to look acceptable in society, the parents send Holden away to different schools instead of healing together as a family. In Krakauer’s Into the wild, Chris Mccandless father, Walt Mccandless’s betrayal and infidelity is the root his family’s unhealable wound. They try to cover as much as they can, to be adequate in society. In both boy’s stories, they distrust society and seek a purpose to their lives after traumatic events but,
In the eyes of children, their parents are saviors; are heroes; are the best thing that has ever happened to them. In the eyes of parents, their children are perfect; are leaders; are the best thing that has ever happened to them. The interactions between a child and his parents over the course of a lifetime remain eternal: especially between a father and son. Li-Young Lee elucidates this relationship between a father and a son in “A Story.” He presents an affectionate relationship between the two of them; however, simultaneously portrays complexity in this relationship as the father struggles to share a “new story” with his son. Worried about his son giving up on him, the father becomes frantic while envisioning a fantasized
In the novel Little Women by: Louisa May Alcott, a common theme is expressed throughout. To the family in this story, each other is the only thing that matters, therefore, displaying the message family is the most important thing you can have in your life. The four sisters, Jo, Meg, Beth, and Amy, belong to a very poor family in which the father is away at the military, leaving their mother alone to care for the children. The mother works very hard, but still can not manage to create a solid income for their family. The four sisters understand how hard their mother works
Those two were my most inspirational for this play because they would do anything in the world for this family and they do have their arguments here and there but mama would always step in to help them resolve the problem so the point being is that this play is so powerful with family and what they were going through back then because now it’s really different compared to our well
Life is full of many hard decisions that people have to take, often on the spur of the moment. Some we get right others turn horribly wrong. Joe Keller, the tragic hero of Arthur Miller's play All My Sons, was no different. His whole life was dedicated to his family and their well being but all his plans were undone by one fatally flawed decision.
I think Helen is more made at her father and is taking this out on her mother, maybe she feels like the mother should have demand her father be there for the family. I think Helen is reflecting anger towards her mother but she is really upset with her father, it seems like she is upset that her father has a good relationship with her siblings and the grandchildren when he wasn’t there for her and her siblings she feels he doesn’t deserve to have the good relationship with everyone when he wasn’t there when they was coming up in their childhood. Helen she feels the mother was there for her and her sibling but everyone thinks the mother is the one with the issues but she was the one that was there for them and the father wasn’t. I think she is having problems with the choice she chose to be angry with the mother but I think she is angry with the mother because she feels the mother should of made a better choice to make her father be in their lives more coming up but she seems like she is placing blame on her mother for her past when she is really is upset with her father.