For Many Idealistic Americans, Family Is a Very Important Aspect of Life

For many idealistic Americans, family is a very important aspect of life. Families often live very close together and do activities together. In a perfect world, with family coming first, one would always feel safe and happy at home. In tragedy, however, the family structure is often lacking. Where there should be community and togetherness, there is only a feeling of isolation. This is reflected in the definition of tragedy as a n art form. “The art of tragedy grows out of a break between self and community” (Oates 173). The isolation felt within the communal family causes tragedy within the psyche. Both Clyde and Bigger’s families fall under the category of tragic families. They are extremely poor and live so close together that the boys have no personal space. Their parents also impose their religious beliefs on their children. Clyde’s parents evangelize to the neighborhood, embarrassing him as he feels the stares of the other neighborhood members. “As they sang, this nondescript and indifferent street audience gazed” (Dreiser 8). In a city so big that this family is invisible to the public, Clyde believes that he needs to seek fame and fortune in order to escape, as does Bigger. The feeling of entrapment is evident immediately. “Light flooded the room and revealed a black boy standing in the narrow space between two iron beds” (Wright 3). The room is cramped and cold. The walls that surround them and hold them in are adding to oppression and loss, which they will desperately try to overcome. “And the tall walls of the commercial heart of an American city of perhaps 400,000 inhabitants—such walls as in time may linger as a mere fable” (Dreiser 7). These city walls will prove to not only be fleeting comfort, but to be the labyrinth in which the boys find themselves caught, the symbol of civilization that will bring their downfalls. The walls are not those of the family in the suburbs with the white picket fence and plush carpeting. They are cold, plain, like the iron of the bed, and they are tight, with no extra space for freedom. Clyde and Bigger are immediately set up for rebellion, and for an escape that may result in danger and consequence that will once again trap them in cold, iron rooms.