Have you experienced a dysfunctional family or known someone in the like? See what it is like in the midst of it all in Anne Tyler's famous novel.
The theme of a suffocating home strongly runs throughout the novel. Cody, especially, desires to escape his childhood home and involve himself in the community with which he is forbidden to closely interact. Cody literally leaves his hometown Baltimore and is often reluctant to come back when invited by Ezra to the family dinners. Cody maintains this view throughout adulthood, until he reunites with his father. In this reunification, he satisfies his hunger for a fatherly figure, who can appreciate his accomplishments and provide his need for emotional connection. Cody also seems to hold the strongest views about the home; of the three children, he is seen as the most rebellious against his mother's rules. He continually brings home “outsiders” from the community, which is strongly forbidden by Pearl. Cody is arguably the most affected by his father's absence, which strips from him his need for appreciation; accordingly, he is also seen the most positively affected and cleansed by his reunification with his father.
The family's isolation from the community and a lack of healthy familial communication takes the form of a broken chain of marriages in Jenny's life. Jenny demonstrates confusion about true bonding. In fact, she does not allow herself to get too close; she sees self-revelation as destructive or unnatural. She remarks about marriage: “Wasn't that what a marriage ought to be? Like one of those movie-style disasters - shipwrecks or earthquakes or enemy prisons - where strangers, trapped in close quarters by circumstance, show their real strengths and weaknesses.” (89) Jenny continually attempts to run away from the home, as does Cody; she leaves Baltimore and adopts married life early in life. However, unlike Cody, Jenny seems to slowly reconcile her past, especially when she accepts a paediatrician opening in Baltimore instead of a better-paid position in Philadelphia.
The home also takes on a physical image, which mirrors its emotional impact in the children's lives. Cody and Jenny repeatedly describe Baltimore streets as dirty, dated and nostalgic, a reflection of their past. When Jenny visits the home of Josiah, a home similar in physical architecture as hers, she describes it as an ideal fairy-tale home, whereas her view of her own home is negative. This suggests that it is Jenny's emotional instincts from her overshadowing past that paint the picture of a physically nostalgic home from her childhood. However, it seems that these notions surfaced after Beth had left the family, providing evidence of both emotional and physical degeneration of the home.
The role of women during the 1960's America is also hinted. Pearl expects monetary provision from her husband, Beth, as well as from her sons. Her refusal to go to college suggests a financial dependence on her husband, which lends Pearl an educationally deprived background and low-paying wages for her children when Beth leaves. It could be said that society's gender expectations contributed to the financial poverty of the family. It is perhaps Jenny's realization of the perils of such dependence that she secures her financial future as a paediatrician. However, Pearls' inability to effectively communicate her feelings is absorbed by Jenny, who consequently faces a husband that leaves her, followed by a series of other unsuccessful marriages. Pearl prides herself in raising her children alone. Her determination to raise her children without hinting the slightest need for a father can be regarded as a form of rebellion against the gender expectations of society at the time. However, her failed relationship with Beck leaves her emotionally deprived; she does not remarry (perhaps mimicking expectations of married women at the time) and she cannot establish meaningful connection or bond with her children. This inability to communicate is literally represented by her blindness and delirium at the end of her life.
