The Royal Tenenbaums

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David Everts Jr. English 153 Tenenbaums Essay Julie Hewitt “The Royal Tenenbaums” During the last class I participated in the viewing of a film “The Royal Tenenbaums.” The film told the story of the Tenenbaums family. Characters included Royal (father), Etheline (mother), and three children Chas, Richie, and an adopted daughter Margot. The film was of a 1970s feel. Royal and Etheline had separated when the children were still very young, but they never filed for divorce. Nobody in the family had talked to Royal in decades until he found that Etheline was considering marrying another man in which case he told her that he was dying in order to try to get back in the family but truthfully trying to stop the marriage. In the film the parents have very unique parenting styles as well as many forms of symbolism which I will be discussing a few of these. Royal and Etheline had very different teaching styles which took two different extremes. Royal had almost completely deserted the children and had almost no involvement in their lives. That is except for Richie who had become a professional tennis player very young. Royal invited Richie out to have fun and learn of his family but the invitation wasn’t ever extended to the other children. On the other hand after the separation, Etheline decided to devote her life to her children and their education. Everything was planned, organized, and perfected. Margot wrote a play at a very young age, Chas was a businessman and had his own business with a breed of dalmatian rats, and Richie was becoming a professional tennis player. This made the Tenenbaums’ famous being known as geniuses. As a child I wouldn’t like either of these parenting styles unless I were Richie in the case where he got the best of both worlds but if I had a choice I would choose the parenting style of Etheline. The reason being if a child is
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