The Bennets: Experts in the Field of Inter-Family Conflict Avoidance Father looks across the dinner table and kindly asks his darling wife to pass the dinner rolls while Suzie is lovingly telling about her second grade teacher’s neat handwriting. The linen tablecloth is firmly pressed and the home-cooked meal is thankfully devoured. The yellow-checkered dinner plates are freshly washed, and the smell of lilacs from the garden drifts through the sunlit dining room. Billy smiles at his mother as he asks her if he could please have some more of her “deliciously home grown asparagus.” Mother nods to Billy and passes him the serving dish.
When the family has had their fill, Suzie volunteers to do the dishes and Billy habitually clears the table and brings each of his parents a glass of dessert wine. Mother and Father then proceed to enjoy their wine as they talk of Beethoven and Monet. This is a family without conflicts. Everybody dreams of one, nobody has one. It is impossible, and makes for a very unrealistic, and also a very boring, story.
An imperfect family can be used in literature in order to make fiction believable and often more relative to the reader. By showing a character’s flaws, the author can add texture and depth to a story. Jane Austen definitely uses this idea in her famous novel: Pride and Prejudice. Not one of her characters is perfect. These flaws add drama to the plot in the same way that dressing adds flavor to a salad. The weaknesses of one character often foil the strengths of another: Lydia’s goofy foolishness has the affect of bringing out the sense and patience of Jane and Elizabeth.
The Essay on ''Cheaper'' By The Dozen, Character Analysis Billy
In the novel Cheaper by the Dozen, Billy who is one of the Gilbreth’s 12 children, along with being a brother to 11 children he is also very impressionable and like anyone, he can be grumpy. Billy can be many different things, one thing that all people are is grumpy, here are a couple examples. When all of the were meeting Mrs.Gilbreth’s family, they all had to be on their absolute ...
Mr. Wickham’s false personality and immoral behavior toward the Bennets proves Mr. Darcy’s truthfulness and emphasizes his kind and thoughtful personality. Although faults often bring out the best in literature, a psychologist would suggest that the Bennets need some severe family counseling. Mr.
and Mrs. Bennet should never have been married; they contradict the idea that opposites attract. Mr. Bennet had married because he was “captivated by youth and beauty, and [the] appearance of good humour which youth and beauty generally give…
.” (201) He married for the wrong reasons and suffers the consequences of his choice. Mrs. Bennet is described as an ignorant woman with weak understanding and an illiberal mind. Mr.
Bennet is unhappy with the relationship as soon as the physical attraction wears off. Usually, when attraction and respect disappear from a marriage one, or sometimes both, of the people involved in the marriage will become overtly or covertly hostile toward his or her spouse. In the beginning of chapter 42 Mr. Bennet states that his wife’s “ignorance and folly contributed to his amusement.” (201) He provides himself with this amusement frequently through sarcasm and satirical remarks, which Mrs. Bennet is often too dim-witted to detect. Her stupidity prevents overt hostility between herself and Mr.
Bennet, and she is too oblivious to the predicament to have any sort of resentment toward Mr. Bennet. Consequently, the problem has no immediate need for a solution. “All [Mr. Bennet’s] views of domestic happiness were overthrown.” (201) He spent most of his time surrounded by his books in his study, or in the countryside around his house. It is very typical of a husband in such a relationship as Mr.
Bennet to become very silent and solitary. Mr. Bennet’s behavior will keep the surface of the water smooth, even though he is trying not to drown underneath. Each of Mr. and Mrs. Bennet’s five daughters cope with their parent’s problems in a different way.
Lydia, the youngest at 15, and a near clone of her mother, is oblivious to the conflict. She repeats her mother’s mistake by marrying Mr. Wickham, who was eventually forced into the marriage because of his previous unintelligent actions. He soon realizes that he is not, even in the slightest way, attracted to Lydia. Kitty is 16 and doesn’t have much more sense than her younger sister. She is always rather quite, which suggests that she recognizes the problem and could possibly be in a state of denial-so that nothing is wrong, but something about her parents is always bothering her.
The Essay on Mother And Daughter Relationships
What is the “mother-daughter” relationship? I have no direct information on this because I am not a daughter. I do, however, have two sisters, and their relationship with my mother is very different when compared to the characters in the short stories “Who’s Irish?” and “New York Day Women.” Relationships between mothers and daughters take different forms ...
Mary, the middle child, copes with her parent’s unhappy marriage by emerging herself in solvable and explainable problems. She consistently spends the greatest part of each day emerged in books and obsessed with studies. Perhaps she unconsciously believes that somewhere, in some book, she will find a solution for all of her parent’s conflicts, as well as her own. Elizabeth and Jane clearly see the problem, however they prefer not to mention or think of it. “[Elizabeth] endeavored to forget what she could not overlook… .” (202), and Jane, who is protective of her sister, will not mention her mother and father’s relationship in order to avoid discomfort.
Jane is a severe optimist. Everything that exists in her mind is positive, and if it isn’t, it doesn’t exist. She would never openly acknowledge her parent’s deteriorating relationship. It is as if the five girls are drifting in an unstable dingy watching their parents fretfully.
Their father is drowning beneath them and their mother chattering toward them about balls and eligible gentlemen-she’d barely noticed that the boat was rocking more heavily, and that her husband was trying to surface for air-she was only concerned with the absolute nonsense that seemed to billow out of her mouth like swarms of buzzing bees. The entire family is gazing enviously at another boat: a yacht about 100 feet away. Where the perfect family is enjoying lunch. Father kisses Mother affectionately on the cheek then he suggests that Suzie challenge Billy to a game of Chess. The kids settle themselves in the shade with their game while their mother and father talk contentedly, simply enjoying each other’s company..
