persisted well into the 20th century. In Barbara
Kingsolver’s The poisonwood bibLe, Nathan Price
drags his wife and four daughters to Africa, bent on
converting the Africans to Christianity but uncaring
and unmindful of how his family will survive there.
Reverend Price, as a public figure, believes that only
he has the answers to how life should be lived. How-
ever, it becomes clear that it is the domestic sphere
that will prove to be the most important prong of
life in the Congo. Providing food and shelter and
avoiding deadly animals is the immediate neces-
sity for the Price family, and Price cannot do those
things.
In contrast to Nathan Price, the characters
in Thornton Wilder’s our town celebrate the
domestic sphere and the importance of family in our
lives. The Stage Manager does not exalt the work of
Dr. Gibbs, providing medical care to the town, over
the cleaning, cooking, and child-care duties of Mrs.
Gibbs, his wife. In fact, he explicitly points out how
important these day-to-day tasks are in the life of
a human being. Emily Webb’s final speech in the
graveyard emphasizes the beauty of these mundane
elements of life, demonstrating that when we under-
appreciate the private in favor of the more flashy
public, we miss out on the wonder of life.
Not all families provide sanctuary or comfort,
however; many make life harder for their members.
In fact, it is common in Western society to blame
the problems of adults on unhappiness in their
families when they were growing up, whether there
is good evidence of this causal relationship or not
(Kagan et al. 41). Bigger Thomas, the protagonist
of Richard Wright’s native son, would like
nothing more than to get away from his nagging
mother and his annoying sister, who, he feels (with
good reason), are unsupportive of him. Bigger’s
frustration and anger, of course, have more to do
with being poor and black in Chicago in the 1930s
than they do with his mother, but it is significant
that he would allow himself to blame her at all for
the way he feels. Despite evidence to the contrary,
many children look to their parents as the source of
their travails.
Bigger finds himself an alternative “family,”
albeit not a very functional one, in the form of
a small gang of friends. This impulse, too, is
common. When family, for whatever reason, dis-
appoints us, we turn to others to provide identi-
fication, support, comfort, and sanctuary. While
some social commentators might worry that this
is a product of the modern era, history shows oth-
erwise. Families have always had to compete with
“others” and family members have always sought
time with same-sex peers (Shorter, quoted 15). In
fact, because the community no longer actively par-
ticipates in private ceremonies surrounding birth,
marriage, and death, it can be argued that families
are more stable in the 21st century than they were
before the industrial age. The family, far from being
weakened by the changes and problems that come
with the modern world, has instead adapted to it,
remaining a source of inspiration in our lives and
our literature.
See also Albee, Edward: who’s aF raid oF
virGinia wooLF?; Anaya, Rudolfo: bLess Me,
uLtiMa; Anderson, Sherwood: winesburG,
ohio; Baldwin, James: Go teLL it on the
Mountain; Cao Xuequin: dreaM oF the red
chaMber; Erdrich, Louise; tracks; Franklin,
Benjamin: autobioGraphy oF benJaMin Frank-
Lin, the; Hansberry, Lorraine: raisin in the
sun, a; Homer: odyssey, the; Houston, Jean
Wakatsuki: FareweLL to Manzanar; Joyce,
James: dubLiners; Kafka, Franz: “Metamor-
phosis, The”; Lewis, Sinclair: Main street;
Lowry, Lois: Giver, the; Molière: tartuFFe;
O’Connor, Flannery: “Good Man Is Hard to
Find, A”; Paton, Alan: cry, the beLoved coun-
try; Sophocles: antiGone; Steinbeck, John:
Grapes oF wrath, the; red pony, the; Stowe,
Harriet Beecher: uncLe toM’s cabin; Welty,
Eudora: optiMist’s dauGhter, the; Word-
sworth, William: “Lines Composed a Few
Miles above Tintern Abbey.”FURTHER READING
Elshtain, Jean Bethke. The Family in Political Thought.
Amherst: University of Massachusetts Press, 1982.
Kagan, Jerome, Alice Rossi, and Tamara Hareven. The
Family. New York: Norton, 1978.
Shorter, Edward. The Making of the American Family.
New York: Basic Books, 1975.
Jennifer McClinton-Temple32 family