Family Relationships in The Wentworths - Book Report/Review Example

Family Relationships in The Wentworths Family life has undergone major changes in patterns since WWII. A high percentage of women are now in the labor force, rates of divorce are rising, and substantial numbers of children live either in single-parent households or with stepfamilies. Cohabitation has become increasingly common. Alternative forms of social and sexual relationship are likely to flourish in the future, yet marriage and the family remains firmly established institutions. According to the functionalist perspective, the family performs important specific, unchanging responsibilities that contribute to society’s basic needs and help perpetuate a particular social order. A Marxist society is always in a process of being created, and this occurs through communication and negotiation (Giddens et al, 2003). When the family breaks down, these important functions no longer occur. Social order becomes confused either because they were never understood to begin with under the functionalist perspective or because there is no communication or negotiation under the Marxist perspective. This sort of breakdown can be discovered in many recent examinations of American family life such as that included in Katie Arnoldi’s fictional novel The Wentworths. As is shown in The Wentworths, for reasons of pride or competition, today’s society typically allows for little real connection between family members which makes it difficult for us to truly communicate with one another. Katie Arnoldi’s book tells the story of a small family in Southern California struggling to overcome the division and dissension of the postmodern lifestyle. Although the family is not the worst family to be found anywhere, it is highly dysfunctional. The Wentworth family consists of August Wentworth, who is an aging man who has always been something of a playboy and is only just beginning to recognize that this lifestyle is no longer fulfilling. August is married to Judith, who has become obsessed with keeping her body looking like a 20-year-old despite the fact that she has three children already well past that age and with keeping everything exactly the same. At one point in the book, her entire day is destroyed because of a missing pair of silver serving tongs that are not where they belong. August and Judith have three adult children. The oldest is Conrad, who remains single and is a high-powered lawyer in L.A. He also is sexually deviant, engaging in masochistic activities and consistently choosing to sleep with women who resemble his mother. Becky is the middle child who worships her mother to the point of attempting to look and act exactly like her at all times even to the detriment of her marriage and her children. Becky is married to Paul Jones who seems to be the only one truly concerned with the family relationships and they have two children of their own – Monica, a teenage depressive and Joey, a silent kleptomaniac. The Wentworth family is rounded out by Norman, the youngest child of August and Judith, who is proudly gay, abashedly transvestite and highly cynical regarding his own family. The story begins with the family gathered together in the police station to pick up Norman, who has been arrested for having sex in the park with another man while dressed in an outfit that appears shockingly like his mother. It is told from a variety of viewpoints, constantly shifting to illustrate first one, then another character’s perception of events. The plotline is driven by the relationships between August and his mistress Honey, Conrad and his psychotic girlfriend Angela (conveniently also the owner of the child care center where Honey takes her daughter) and Becky and Paul as Paul struggles to keep his little nuclear group together. As August begins to realize that Honey is a human being with problems and desires of her own, he also begins to understand that his relationship with her has become unfulfilling primarily as a result of its superficial character. However, Conrad’s choices in girlfriends creates a dangerous enemy when he attempts to break up with her and she begins making plans for blackmail by seducing Honey before losing control of her emotions and shooting Conrad at point blank range. Meanwhile, Paul becomes concerned about his relationship with his wife and children and instigates family counseling, thus offering a second alternative to the possible outcomes. Despite the importance of these adult relationships, though, the novel carries another theme primarily concerned with the relationships between parents and children and the redemptive qualities these might have for their parents. Perhaps the first parent-child relationship that becomes apparent in the book is that which exists between Judith and Becky. It is brought into relief in the police station on the first page of the book because of its apparent closeness compared to everyone else’s distance. In this scene, Arnoldi states that the mother “clutches the father’s arm.” This word choice gives an impression that while the mother needs support, the father isn’t necessarily interested in providing it, thus there is separation between them despite their close proximity. Conrad “stands off to the right with his arms folded across his chest” and Paul “stands behind, patting his wife’s shoulder, wishing she would lean on him for support once in a while” (7). Information gleaned from the Personal Dynamics workshop given in New York last year indicates that all this body language screams of separation, yet Becky is described as leaning in close to her mother, giving an impression of deep family intimacy. This closeness is emphasized by Becky’s clothing, nearly identical to her mother’s, and by her supercilious attitude, also in imitation of her mother. While this body language may seem to indicate closeness, the book reveals the true nature of their relationship to be highly insecure. Becky’s thoughts in Chapter 22 enlighten the reader who has not caught on already that a large part of her relationship with her mother is a frantic attempt to retain approval and support. She is threatened by her older brother’s ‘preferred’ status in the family and, aware the deep-seated family disconnect, is aware that her brother will ensure her children are not provided for unless the grandparents do something to secure this future in written, legal form. There is no real feeling of connection because these other emotions get in the way. Conrad and August have a similar disconnect in their relationship, but in this case, both men are deceived regarding what comprises a relationship. Conrad feels a connection with his father because it was August who taught him how to hunt wild animals when he was young and continues to prove a role model through his sexual prowess and financial superiority. As he sits watching his father drink his first martini at lunch one day, Conrad thinks about all the activities his father used to enjoy and no longer participates in, realizing that something has shifted. “This was the man whom Conrad had idolized when he was a child. A man bigger than life. Stronger, funnier, wiser than any of the other dads” (138). There is an abiding resentment in Conrad that has grown since his days at college. Although Conrad had learned that normal rules didn’t apply to Wentworths, he realized at college that his father “was nothing but an overly pampered clown, and not a particularly bright one at that” (140). Having already determined that normal rules didn’t apply to him and now set free of the boundaries set by the father that he no longer respected, Conrad was able to grow into a monstrous human being who thrived on the misery and suffering of others and who had become unable to listen to reasonable warning when it was given. The relationship that begins to break the mold is that which exists between Paul and his two children. While they have definitely lost touch over the years, Paul remembers a time when the children and he were close. As he walks into Monica’s room one morning to wake her up for school, he reflects upon the time when they purchased the large pink canopy bed that she still sleeps in. The tone she uses to address him conjures up memories of when she used to call him that. “Daddy came from the days of Play Doh spaghetti and mud pies in the backyard and scary ghost stories with the endless search for a secret passage way or a hidden key. It was Daddy and Mo-mo who baked chocolate chip cookies together and ate the whole batch” (92). That this relationship has changed dramatically is made clear when ‘Mo-mo’ tells her father he needs to leave the room so she can get dressed, since she’s “not exactly wearing anything” now (92). This particular scene had particular personal resonance for me. After attending the New York workshop and learning so much about myself, I realized that I am not alone in having difficulty opening up to my own father to tell him my true thoughts and feelings. I often reminisce about earlier times when I was young enough to hold my father’s hand in public or when he would indulge me just because I was his little girl. Distance grew as I began to grow older and he began to say no. While we all end up making our decisions based upon our previous experiences of life, I realized through the seminar that we often use our past experiences in unproductive or negative ways instead of allowing them to help us live better. Most of us have the tendency to close ourselves off after having been betrayed, cheated or otherwise emotionally hurt by someone else. This not only hurts the other person who has never been given a chance to be truly loved, but adds to our own stress, sadness and heaviness of spirit without our realizing its cause. This was particularly brought home to me through a game that we played during the workshop in which it was demonstrated that our primary goal in life today is simply to win with little thought or consideration of how it might affect others. Instead of helping each other, we have been killing each other all this time or simply standing on the sidelines trying to keep out of the fight so we aren’t hurt too badly. When he goes to wake his son, Paul realizes that he didn’t really have a relationship with his son, either. In fact, he had less of a relationship with Joey than he had with Monica. “They spent time together at the breakfast table in the morning eating Lucy’s eggs or French toast … But that wasn’t a relationship, not really” (93). As this realization struck him, Paul made a resolution to do something about it. Upon his discovery of the carefully executed ‘tear’ in Joey’s mattress and does some research, Paul is able to recognize the danger signs for both of his children to enter into an adulthood of destructive behavior and determines to find a solution, dragging the entire family into counseling sessions and thereby providing them with some hope for a better, more connected future. Arnoldi doesn’t provide details regarding how Paul manages to coax his wife and children into the therapist’s office, but the process of communication is forcefully started in this scene by providing Joey, the silent child, with the river stone that designates the right to speak. Although he is interrupted in what he wants to say, the therapist continues to remind the family to listen rather than talk, “Joey has the talking piece. When he’s finished I’ll have him pass the rock to you but for now we must respect his turn and listen” (144). In this scene, Arnoldi indicates how Becky manages to control her family through her violent outbursts that force everyone else to remain quiet and simply sit in their corner. By forcing Becky to remain silent by removing her from the group, the therapist is able to provide the rest of the family with a chance to communicate and begin making connections with each other. Not only is the therapist helpful in permitting the other members of the family to say things, but he helps the family learn how to talk to each other in a more constructive way, slowly guiding them out of the prideful and self-possessed attitudes they’d adopted as a means of protection and teaching them how to open up to each other by being honest with themselves. As the Wentworth-Jones family learns how to get along with each other better, they begin to influence the rest of the family. Norman decides to attend some therapy for a laugh, but quits when he discovers that he might truly have some issues and Judith and August begin to talk following Judith’s ‘confrontation’ with Honey. In each case, it can be seen that it is only when the bounds of pride and competition are removed that these breakthroughs are made possible. For Norman, the breakthrough comes when he realizes he cannot cope with the murder of his older brother, committed right before his eyes. Hospitalization removes him from the scene far enough to deal with his own inner demons and begin to forge new connections with the family he’s been alienated from for so long. Connecting the book to the ‘real’ world, it can be determined that Arnoldi has taken a more Marxist view of the family, highlighting the ways that it can change and evolve, but emphasizing its dependence upon the tools of communication and negotiation. “The basis of the Marxist theory of human nature negates the notion of isolated human nature and affirms the in-extricable unity between persons and their natural and social environments” (Gimenez, 1975). However, when these environments are isolated due to lack of communication and negotiation, such as was the case within the Wentworth household, the family cannot survive. Although Judith and Becky seem to have a close relationship, this is founded more upon a shared superficial concern for appearances and a desperate insecurity. While Conrad and August seem to have a deeper foundation for their relationship, it is proven to be just as shallow in its lack of true values by first emphasizing how ‘normal’ rules don’t apply and then a loss of authority because of this very emptiness. Falling into the same pattern, the Wentworth-Jones family is well on its way to a similar dysfunction as that found in the older set until Paul realizes the danger signs and takes the necessary steps to correct it, regardless of appearances, pride or any sense of competition. He is courageous enough to put his family before these mundane concepts and thus manages to redirect his entire family onto a more positive path. For families of today, highly concerned with these same issues and concerns, it is a lesson well worth learning to keep lines of communication open and remembering that this process requires negotiation rather than volume. Bibliography Arnoldi, Katie. The Wentworths. New York: Overlook Press, 2008. Giddens, A.; Duneier, M.; & Appelbaum, R. “Chapter 15: The Family and Intimate Relationships.” Introduction to Sociology. Ed. 4. New York: W.W. Norton and Company, 2003. Gimenez, M. “Marxism and Feminism.” Frontier: A Journal of Women’s Studies. Vol. 1, N. 1, (Fall, 1975). December 3, 2008 . Read More