Homeward Bound Analysis

The world has changed dramatically in the last century, especially in terms of homosexuality and its acceptance by society. In 2003, Massachusetts became the first state to allow gay marriage, followed slowly by others before becoming legal nationwide, June 26, 2015. Only five years ago the United States military repealed their nearly two decades old, “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” policy, allowing service members to openly express their sexuality. These changes would tend to indicate that Radclyffe Hall’s, The Well of Loneliness, would be an obsolete literary work, however, this is a highly inaccurate assumption. True, the aspects of gender roles have largely changed since 1928, women are no longer expected to remain at home, to tend to the children

In her essay “On Going Home,” author Joan Didion speaks to new parents about how the experience of “going home” after starting a new family can trigger feelings of disconnection between families, old and new. Written from Didion’s own experience returning to her childhood home for her daughter’s first birthday, the essay describes her nostalgia for her previous home and how she regrets being unable to, as a mother, provide the same familial experiences she had as a child. Using relatable invention, imagery-inducing arrangement, and syntax that inspires more deliberate reading by the audience, Didion effectively convinces her readers of the familial fragmentation that occurs with the creation of a nuclear family.

The government knew that such actions and the “Duck and Cover” methods recommended in schools would, in fact, provide absolutely no protection against exposure to fallout.  The government also promoted building a fallout shelter, stocked with supplies of canned goods, as a way to survive atomic war.  This was only a partial truth, since a shelter could protect from radiation, but not from fire storms.

(Rampell). Women who are married today have more freedom working, but women who were married in the 1950s did work during World War II. However when World War II ended, women had to returned home from their jobs because the men were coming home from the war. (Stoneham). This is when many women lost their sense of independence because they had to provide for their husband and children again and some women stayed at their jobs in the 1950s.

The connection between containment abroad and on the home front (domesticity) is that it was a reinforcement of the status quo previously held. Containment aptly describes the way in which public policy, personal behavior, and even political values were focused on in the home (). Men were expected to find stable jobs so they could provide for the family; and sometimes to go to war for our beloved country. Whereas, the women were expected to succumb to the man’s desires (sexually), procreation, and to tend to the home. Thus, containment at home (domesticity) was the maintenance of clearly defined gender roles in order to keep the family intact. Just like containment abroad was designed to maintain a balance of power globally,

‘"Americans turned to the family as a bastion of safety in an insecure world... cold war

There’s an old saying that goes, “Yesterday is history. Tomorrow is a mystery. Today is a gift. That’s why it’s called the present”, by Alice Morse Earle. The world has become a place taken for granted. Humans are beginning to wish they could live in the past, while others just want to skip over to the future but what ever happened to living right now? Or living in the moment? In the story, “The American Family”, by Stephanie Coontz, she discusses why so many individuals believe American families are facing worse issues now than in the past. She discusses how in the previous years, it was far worse and explains why those people are wrong to assume they are facing worse problems now. In addition, Robert Kuttner and his text, “The politics of family”, supports Coontz’ argument about the dilemmas facing the turn-of-the-century American families and gives the resolutions to those problems; such as talking out problems, women having the right to walk out of unsatisfactory marriages, and lastly, the emancipation for women.

First, in order to critically analyze May’s thoughts, one most first consider the foundation on which the book is built. Homeward Bound does a great job of initiating connections between Cold War politics and the American families that stood during the 1940s and 1950s. Throughout the book, subjects that May explore are feminism, consumerism, Cold War, suburbia and gender. After its release in 1988, the book altered what Americans believed the Cold war to be. The author vividly describes family life during the post-war era by giving detailed accounts of early marriages, baby booms, high values of premarital virtue

Confident that they would have enough warning time, most communities prepared evacuation plans” [...] “Public response to the report was an upsurge in interest about fallout shelters” [...] “promoted home shelters but also published a collection of manuals that showed Americans how to build home shelters” (u-s-history.com). This quote is significant because the ide of a nuclear bomb hitting the US sparked a whole new idea of surviving and changed the way people lived by people building shelters and prepping for a nuclear

The roles and expectations for women in the 1950s differed in many ways from today’s society. “Society placed high importance and many expectations on behavior at home as well as in public” (Colorado.edu). In the 1950s women were considered “housewives”. Women’s sole purpose was to maintain the home, take care of the children, provide meals, and be obedient wives. “Good wives” listened to their

During WWII, the two-breadwinner vision of the family suffered further setbacks. As May puts it, women entered war production, but they did not give up on reproduction..Economic hardship was no longer a barrier to marriage, as it had been in the 1930s, and dependents' allowances eased the burdens of families if the breadwinners were drafted. But perhaps most important was the desire to solidify relationships and establish connections to the future when war made life so uncertain. (May p.59-60) While the culture venerated female workers, it also promoted a return to domesticity after the war, a return encouraged by the gender bias of the GI Bill. Meanwhile, men were encouraged through pin-ups and propaganda to believe they were fighting for their own slice of the domestic, consumerist good life.

Another hardship of the war was the strain it placed on married life. Men and women alike faced troubles with their significant others during wartimes because of the lack of intimacy, heavy turmoil, and a burdening depression overlaying the nation. Consequently, however, the expression of emotions previously overlooked before the outbreak of conflict between spouses was encouraged through martial separations caused by the war. Husbands and wives faced loneliness on a daily basis, which in effect led them to display compassion and caring towards each other as they witnessed the dreadfulness of war. This separation also caused a growth in feminine education and style, further forging the foundations for a new, individual American woman.

Times have changed; the nuclear family is no longer the American ideal because family needs have changed since the 1950's. This American convention of a mother and father and their two children, were a template of films and early television as a depiction of the American family life. Now seen as archaic and cliché by today’s standards, but the idea is common throughout many of the first world nations in the world. This ideal was a vast departure from the past agrarian and pre industrial families, and was modeled and structured as the ‘American dream’ father working, mother maintaining the household and children molded to be simulacra of the parents. This portrayal was not the standard; many communities throughout America had a different

This paper will discuss the differences between families from the 1960’s and the families of today. There are many differences between the different times. I have focused on the parentage portion of the families. I explained what the ideal family is and how it is different today. I’ve also included ways that will help these families of today become stronger as a family.

The ideal American family was transformed in the 19th century in large part due to the great changes taking place in the American society. Many family groups fit this changing mold while some did not. In this essay I will show how this concept of the ideal American family changed. I will also try to explain which groups of Americans followed this concept and why.