Family plays a very significant role in the life of an individual. Each author represents family and relationships in his/her own unique way as people see things from a different perspective. Some writers represent a loving, caring and supportive family in their literary works. However, some writers show the negative side of the family to the readers such as conflicts between parents and siblings. The way the three novels represent family and relationships is fascinating but sad and emotional at the same time. The family members are not together in many ways. There is love in the relationships and still there are many issues with the family. The contemporary families are perfect from the outside but disturbed from the inside. The central theme in all the three literary works is family and relationships.
We Need to Talk About Kevin is a famous novel written by Margaret Ann Shriver. This novel shows a very disturbed family. The relations between the family members are very complicated especially between mother and son. Throughout the story, the author focuses on Kevin’s relationship with his mother Eva. Both the mother and son hate each other but still Eva tries to be a good mother in some parts of the story. For instance, she reads a parenting book to be nice to her son and understand him. She says, “Before you condemn me utterly, I beg you to understand just how hard I’d been trying to be a good mother” (Shriver, 195). She is trying to show a mother’s love towards her son even though she hates him. Kevin, on the other hand, creates problems for his mother throughout the story. This also affected Eva’s relationship with her husband [Franklin]. She loves her husband more than her own son. Franklin, on the other hand always blames Eva for Kevin’s monstrous nature. He shows his superiority to Eva by saying that, “But I for one didn’t have a kid in order to get away from him as often as possible” (Shriver, 208). Franklin does not want to listen the truth from his wife even though he knows that it is the truth. There is love in their relationship but with a lack of understanding. Franklin is always nice to his son and has a good bonding with him.
Franklin always thinks of his family as a happy and perfect American family. The family looks perfect from the outside but, in reality, they are not together in many ways. The whole story revolves around the conflicts between mother and son, husband and wife, and brother and sister. Eva thinks of her family as a war zone as Kevin always tries to create problems for everyone. In contrast, Franklin lives far away from the reality and he believes there is nothing wrong with his family. Kevin is emotionless and he hates everyone in his family. When his sister [Celia] was born, the parents ask him to see her but Kevin says, “Why Should I meet it?” (Shriver, 221). He did not even consider her as a human being. Throughout the story, he shows no affection and love especially to his mother. But in the end, he kills everyone except his mother even though he hates her and he knows that she hates him too.
Maus 1 is a comic book by Art Spiegelman. The author describes his own life in this story. He also describes the problems that his family faced during the holocaust. Spiegelman shows a very supportive, loving and traditional family in his literary work. There is love of husband and wife, father-in-law and son-in-law, father and daughter, mother and daughter, and mother and son. Moreover, the family sticks together through all the hard times because of the love and understanding between the family members. For instance, Anja’s father [Mr. Spiegelman] always helps Vladek and his family especially during the holocaust. When Vladek’s factory is robbed, Mr. Spiegelman says, “Well, at least I can help you build it up again” (Spiegelman, 36). He is a wealthy man who always supports his family. The holocaust challenges the family several times but the love and bond between the family members becomes their strength and it helps them to survive the period of difficulties.
The novel mainly focuses on father’s relationship with his son and the way the holocaust affects their relationship. Vladek is a holocaust survivor and he want his son [Artie] to see the harsh reality of life. When Artie cries because his friends leave him and go for skating, he says, “Friends? Your friends? ...if you lock them together in a room with no food for a week then you could see what it is, friends!” (Spiegelman, 5). He wants his son to be strong and independent. He wants him to face the cruel world and its reality alone.
On the one hand, Vladek’s relationship with his wife Anja is perfect and full of love. They both understand each other very well. There is compassion and intimacy in their relationship. Also, they are very kind towards each other. However, Vladek’s relationship with his second wife [Mala] is very disturbing as well as stubborn. One day, Artie visits his father for the interview and he thanks Mala for the delicious dinner but Vladek says, “The chicken was, I thought, too dry” (Spiegelman, 44). There is lack of love and understanding in their relationship. He thinks that Mala married him just for his money.
The Last Report on the Miracles at Little No Horse is a novel by Louise Erdrich. The main character in this novel is Agnes De Witt. She has no family except her lover Berndt Vogel. But he gets killed during a robbery, and after the death of her lover, she changes her identity into a priest [Father Damien]. Father Damien is a very lonely character in the story. He has no family so he devotes his whole life to his people. He serves them as a priest for more than a half century. The main focus of Erdrich’s novel is Father Damien’s relationship with other priests and nuns. Friends are often considered as a part of the family and this novel is more about friendship and humanity rather than the family relations. For instance, Nanapush is a stranger in the beginning but soon he becomes the closest friend of Father Damien. When Agnes misses him, she says, “The old man was my teacher, my confidant, my priest’s priest, my confessor, my friend” (Erdrich, 310). Agnes is very close to Nanapush and they remain best friends throughout the story.
However, there are some family relationships in the story too. There are mother and daughter relationships, for instance, Puyat mothers and daughters, Fleur and Lulu, and Leopolda and Marie. These relationships are very tense, deep and dark. There are many characters in the story that have lost their families. The story revolves around the memory of the past relationships of these characters. For instance, Nanapush’s family. Nanapush tells about the disturbing relationship with his mother to Lulu. He says, “especially my mother, because in the beginning my skin ached for my mother’s touch and my ears kept straining” (Erdrich, 248). He loves his mother in the beginning but later, he hates her. There are memories of relationships in the story and the past keeps on resurrecting.
Family is all about sacrifice and having faith in each other through the hard times as depicted in the three literary works. Family plays a significant role in the life of an individual. In these novels, the writers show both the positive and negative sides of the families. There are many issues with the family members despite the love and understanding between them. The families are not perfect in many ways and the relationships are complicated as well. The way the authors represent the contemporary families is very fascinating as the families look perfect from the outside but in reality, they are not. The mystery in the relationships and the families attract the attention of the readers in many ways.