Consider the treatment of families on the writing of the post war period. Essay

By focusing on Less Than Zero (1985) by Bret Easton Ellis and The Accidental Tourist (1985) by Anne Tyler I will explore the primary family groups with reference to any relevant secondary characters. I will examine the different relationships the protagonists, Clay and Macon, have with their families and discuss whether there is any correlation between their upbringing and their situation at home, and how they adapt and communicate in the outside world. The parents of both Clay and Macon are separated and do, or did not exercise a stable family unit. Clay’s father does not live at home with his mother and sisters and Macon’s mother left him and his brothers and sister in the care of their grandparents. Clay is a dependent child, although at college, and displays negative attributes, such as drug abuse, which could be due to the unstable situation at home. Macon is a middle-aged man and exhibits problems communicating with anyone outside the secure circle of his siblings, which could be a residual effect of the disconnected childhood due to the abandonment by his mother. Throughout my discussion of both books I will investigate the treatment of single parent families and highlight the negativity of these portrayals.
Macon is very close to his siblings and they all have peculiar personality traits that inhibit their capability to interact with people outside their family group. Macon’s own condition seems to have been controlled while he was living with his wife Sarah, but after she leaves him he is consumed by sadness for their late twelve year old son, Ethan, who was murdered whilst away at camp. The unpredictability of Ethan’s death upsets Macon’s reliable structure in life and he experiences difficulty in accepting the fact that he cannot control what happens to him or those around him. When left on his own Macon immediately and unconsciously reverts back to his irrational habits in an attempt to regain order and organisation.

He started keeping the...