#7 – Sunday September 27

All the families have fit into the general consensus that no two families are alike and the reason why people study families is to try to find a definition.  However, there is none.  With the families that we have looked in Cunningham’s, a Home at the End of the World, and Wes Anderson’s direction of the Royal Tenenbaums, the viewer can see that families are dysfunctional.  Families are different but can share some of the same attributes.

There is a connection of some kinds.  As in the Tenenbaum’s Margot is connected by adoption; this is very ironic, since she was adopted to be apart of the family.  WHile being introduced to people Royal refers to the fact that she is adopted frequently.  In both families we have seen a separation of the parental figures.  Ned was separated from Jonathan because Ned spent a lot of his time at the movie theater.  Royal just left the house and returned when the children were grown up and had some lives of their own.  In both works the parents try to reconnect with the children.  Ned insisted on Jonathan setting down and spreading his ashes close so that they would not be separated and that Jonathan could visit him.  Royal wanted to reconnect with the family so he suggested that he had cancer so that the family members would let him back in.

In both works there were outsiders that wanted to be apart of the families.  Eli is very similar to Bobby.  Both wanted to become members of the families, and they tried by talking to the mother figures.  Bobby talked to Alice and connected by food- baking and cooking.  Eli conversed with Etheline and would send his grades from college and his clippings from his experiences to share with her.

#6. Thursday September 24

While watching the Royal Tenenbaums it was hilarious, the reason for this was that Wes Anderson does a great job in letting the viewer learn about all aspects of the characters and see their interactions with one another.  With the narration you were able to hear about what all the characters were thinking.

From the get go, the parents have always been separated from the children.  While sitting at the table in the beginning you could see the distance between everyone in the family.  When the bird, Mordecai, is set free the same time when Royal leaves the house and upon Royals return the bird returns as well.  Mordecai has white feathers to show that he has been through some traumatic experiences like the characters have as well.

It is weird that the family does all return to live in the house that they had when they were children.  Chas was married and had children and returned home, Margot was married twice and decided to live home (because Chas was allowed to return).  Then Richie decided to jump ship and head home.  The children were not that close when they were children and they chose to return to the house that they left.

Royal thought that the only way that he could reconnect to his family was by saying that he had cancer and was dying.  That was interesting since when the children were growing up he had not tried to connect with them.  Royal stole money from Chas that ended in Chas suing his father.  Royal shot Chas in the knuckles, and said that there were no teams.  What about how everything that Royal did with Richie and later in life with Uzi and Ari were dangerous things.  LIke riding on the side of garbage trucks and gambling.

#5. Sunday September 20

After completing the novel A Home At the End of the World.  I wasn’t that surprised by the fact that Clare left taking Rebecca.  Didn’t everyone see that happening eventually?  I mean come on, she was more interested in having a child than living with a bunch of men.  Even through Clare hated Alice, they did have an awful lot of similarities.  Alice would stay and home and care for Jonathan, while Ned would go to work.  While Alice stayed at home she stayed in and had Jonathan tell her stories about what was going on in the world on the outside.  Clare stayed at home and cared for Rebecca and Erich.  While Jonathan and Bobby went to work in the restaurant.  Clare would take naps with Rebecca and listen to her as she would tell her mother stories about what was going on in the world or at least the house.

I think that Clare thought she was doing the best thing for her child.  Living in a house with a bunch of men that would go to work all day, and help mom take care of Erich.  That would have been an interesting life to grow up in.  Clare even says that  Rebecca will go into therapy later in life.

While Clare was packing to go to ‘her mothers’ wasn’t interesting how she needed to bring everything, because if she didn’t her mother would go to Saks and buy new things.  Jonathan asked her many times, you are only going for a couple of days right?  Clare knew that she would be leaving and not going back, hence why she invited Bobby to go with them.  All the meanwhile, Rebecca didn’t even want to get into the car.

#4. Thursday September 17

In the book there are many references to the family.  Basically all the characters have a special bond that connects them and makes them family.  Although they believe that they do not have this connection.

Jonathan is a character that acts as a glue to hold both of the families together. Jonathan is a very dynamic character who just does not know what he wants in life.  Jonathan knows that he is looking for love, but he wants to find that one person that he connect to.  Although he has found two people that he has fallen into love with, he just doesn’t think thats what he wants.  That is the reason for him moving out and trying to find another to love.  Jonathan realized that he wasn’t in love with Erich, hence not wanting him to meet the Hendersons.  He used Erich basically just for the sex.

Jonathan did not really have a connection to his parents.  Alice and Jonathan had not really seen eye to eye since she walked in on him and Bobby in the car.  This put a strain on their “friendship” relationship.  Even when Jonathan went to Arizona to see his parents, he went to the movies with his father as their special outing.  Alice took this time to take car of the garden.  Ned trying to give Jonathan a lawn mower was an idea that Ned maybe a little ashamed and wants a different life for Jonathan.  Ned wants Jonathan to settle down in a suburban area that has a cemetery nearby and a lawn that Jonathan can cut the grass in.  Ned wants Jonathan to have his dream of the American family, which doesn’t seem to exist at this point in Jonathan’s life.

Jonathan realizes that he doesn’t fit into the lifestyle of the Hendersons.  He realized that Clare and Bobby were in a relationship with one another and felt like the third wheel and didn’t have a connection.  I think that the story end when the three of them get back together and live life in the commune of a house that would meet all of their needs and wants, and raise a child.

Class Discussion: 9/14/09

Group Members:  Kate, Kelley, Vicky, Kelly

Clare is a very interesting character.  It is very weird how she is older and practically rapes Johnny.  Wants to have a baby but doesn’t want it to be like her in anyway. Sometimes how she is described makes her seem like Ronald McDonald. p. 142-145

Themes

Bobby’s brother:

p. 153 – Break through the glass at the party

p. 152 – Bobby’s connection to brothers death

p. 158 – Thinks of brother having sex in cemetery while looking at Jonathan naked

Hang out / Dancing

p. 167 – Bobby/ Clare dancing and smoking pot

– Bobby and Jonathan hanging out in towels on the roof

Food

Jonathan becomes a food critic

Alice loves to cook

Bobby opens his own restaurant/ bakes in bakery

Home-life

p. 112 – Kids that want to gaul off and smack

– Clare stays inside in the winter; Alice stays in

– Both are mother figures

p. 196 – Buying/doing things on a whim

p. 201 – Bobby saw the lights going home – never going home

The idea of the Hendersons – 3 people living together.  The idea of Ma and Uncle Johnny.  All take over and split family responsibilities.

External Forces –

Jobs

Death

the Fire

Sex

Drugs

Music

Money

AIDS – p. 171

Questions:

Why is everyone looking for love but no one will let love in?  Jonathan looking for excuses because he is scared?  Why does he blame his father and not his mother for the traumatic experience in the car?

Is Bobby thinking about his brother more now that he isn’t buried close by and he needs to carry his brother’s dreams to New York?  How is Clare involved in this?

Always Changing – Go back to the way it was?

p. 133 – 135,

This is the part of the book that Bobby gets to Jonathan’s apartment in NYC.  When they realize that their lives have changed and they are distant.

“Over the years we’d lost our inevitability together; now we were like the relatives of two old friends who had died” (p. 133)

Bobby also talks about only bringing records to New York to try to reconnect with Jonathan and they have some different tastes in music.

Family is…

My family is very disfunctional and can be rather frustrating at times.  Like I said in class I am really close to my mother, like the Gilmore Girls.

The reasoning that my family can be rather frustrating is because of my father’s views of the woman in the home.  Coontz states “Women’s roles were redifined in terms of domesticity rather than production, men were labeled “breadwinners” (a masculine identity unheard of in colonial days), children were said to need time to play, and getle maternal guidance supplanted the patriarchal authotitarianism of the past” (Coontz 10-11).  Because of this view and for the fact that my parents are divorced, this is the way that I am treated in the house.

Over the past summer, while my father was at work he expected me to take care of the house during the day.  Then when he came home from work he expected dinner to be on the table and for me to cook it.  When it comes time for doing anything in the household its my responsibility to do it.  I went home for labor day without being home for 2 weeks and my brother and my father had not been to the store, and it was my job to go after driving the 3 1/2 hours home.  So I guess in realization, this has changed the way that I view family roles, I see that it doesn’t work this way, and may work better if the family roles are divided equally.  Meaning if one person cooks, the other will clean up.  Not the same person is responsible for all aspects of the kitchen.

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