Family is at the heart of American Literature

Point 1

Importance of family and supports needed from the familial unit shown through depictions of characters who’s live shatter under social divides due to a lack of this support.

Point 1 - Gatsby

AO1 - Gatsby’s life is broken underneath him despite his best efforts at self reinvention due to the battering of social barriers without any support.

AO2 - ‘he had no comfortable family standing behind him’ ‘leaking isolated and unpunctual tears’ ‘he must have looked up at an unfamiliar sky through frightening leaves and shivered’

AO3 - rise of individualism in American society & destructive nature of AD. Fitzgerald’s fatal drinking habit became his only support - led to deterioration

AO5 - Marxist view - impact of capitalist, consumer culture of 1920s = highlighted through the breakdown of Gatsby’s life without family.

Point 1 - Passing

AO1 - Clare has created the breakdown of her life through leaving her community & family - shown through her marriage - & her efforts to return to what she left behind reflect that

AO2 - ‘if it wasn’t for them I wouldn’t have had a home in the world’ ‘I was determined to get away’ ‘you had all the things i wanted and never had’

AO3 - Great Migration - movement of black people leaving home & families in hope to only not find better opportunities elsewhere - left alone with no family support like Clare

AO5 - Wall - ‘Larsen’s protagonists assume false identities that ensure social survival but result in psychological suicide’ Little - ‘Clare Kendry finds no peace, rest or loyalty after returning to the black community’

Point 2

This view is also contrasted by both writers through the use of family as merely agents to enhance social mobility.

Point 2 - Gatsby

AO1 - Tom & Daisy & Myrtle & George both = loveless marriages - the woman married the man to improve or maintain social status - meaning of marriage lost/replaced by materialism & AD

AO2 - ‘neither of them can stand the person they’re married to’ ‘she married Tom Buchanan with more pomp & circumstance than Louisville had ever seen’ ‘I married him because i thought he was a gentleman’

AO3 - Incorporation & infection of myth of AD & reflection on Fitzgerald’s own marriage

AO5 - Both display stark incompatibility through affairs etc reflecting the shallowness of the marriages. Feminists - D & M simply remain trapped in marriage in order to gain a place in society

Point 2 - Passing

AO1 - Clare’s marriage grants her financial mobility & freedom from race constraints of society - it is part of her image as pretty & white. While Irene’s gives her the freedom to pass & achieves her desired social status in the community

AO2 - ‘she was to him only the mother of his sons, that was all’ ‘had even hinted at a dissolution of their marriage in the persistence of the idea’ ‘a girl that she had known who had done this strange & abhorrent thing successfully’

AO3 - Links to Larsen’s motives for her own marriage - very successful husband who promised her a secure life & the entry into a black professional class & social circle her mixed heritage didn’t allow

AO5 - Black feminists - C, I & NL were forced into using marriage to build a life in society of oppression. Askew - ‘through her racial masquerade she has achieved a class status higher than Irene’s’

Point 3

Both writer reinforce this view through a focus on family legacy & inescapable nature of family ties

Point 3 - Gatsby

AO1 - Gatsby is forced to create a wealthy past to escape poor family background but his self reinvention with Daisy = restricted as he can’t escape the ties to his past (can’t rebuild new life without acknowledging old) - father is only one at funeral. D marries T to maintain family legacy

AO2 - ‘his parents were shiftless & unsuccessful farm people’ ‘valued at 350 thousand dollars’ ‘his imagination had never really accepted them as his parents’ ‘vague contour of JG had filled out to the substantiality of a man’

AO3 - Fitzgerald’s attempts to dismiss impoverished family & background - 1st gf etc. Importance of wealthy family legacy in 1920s

AO5 - Bradbury - ‘Fitzgerald was the half poor boy among the rich’ Psychoanalytical suggests Gatsby is so desperately driven by desires that he fails to recognise defining family ties

Point 3 - Passing

AO1 - Clare & Irene constantly drawn back to each other - can’t escape the reminders of pasts& chosen family in black community. Clare can’t escape family ties therefore

AO2 - ‘it had rung like something possessed’ ‘holding the second letter of Clare Kendry’s’ ‘her drunken father, a tall powerfully built man raged threateningly up and down the room’

AO3 - HR reflected sense of community & family for C, I & NL - became manifestation to many of the culture they couldn’t escape from despite desires - legacy of black community

AO5 - I & C become each other’s support network & chosen family in a way as a means of escaping societal pressures. Perhaps C clings to I as she represents the idea of a stable, secure family that Clare wishes she once & still had