Themes From American Literature

In this novel one of the prominent themes is how Americans are obsessed with happiness, even if it is artificial. This theme is mainly shown through the character of “Old” Mrs. Karafilis. The narrators of the novel describe her as being old, cranky, Greek woman. She stays in the basement and rarely come upstairs or socializes. This is mainly because she bowed by the weight of tragedy. In the novel it is said that she had hidden in a cave to escape being killed by Turks, and she had lost the on love of her life, her husband. The young narrators never understand what made her so mean they just said, “Old Mrs. Karafilis had been shaped and saddened by a history we knew nothing about”.  Throughout the novel it is shown that Old Mrs. Karafilis does not understand why Americans pretend to be happy all the time. To her, the suburbs are a place where artificially made surroundings and lives culminate in the tyranny of an enforced happiness. Suburban life does not acknowledge one's personal feeling; instead suburban happiness is a matter of social ritual, where the community continuously proves itself. For Old Mrs. Karafilis, the idea of continual fake happiness is shown through the image of Mr. Lisbon stringing Christmas lights recently after his daughter's suicide. Mrs. Karafilis is entranced by the Lisbon family, because of their way of ignoring death and trying to mask their sadness. It is said that, “She couldn’t understand how the Lisbon’s kept so quiet, why they didn’t wail to heaven or go mad”. Usually it is expected that a family would show their sadness and grief when phased with death, but the Lisbon and the rest of the American culture at this time were obsessed with being happy and not showing their struggle in life. For many Americans the American dream is being happy and better off than your neighbors. Therefore sadness is masked with an artificial happiness in hopes of retaining their social status.

The novel shows other examples suburban ritual to support Old Mrs. Karafilis' theory. For example, the high school holds a day of grieving in response to Cecilia's death, which the school considers to be a great success despite the fact that the suicide was never mentioned and that the Lisbon sisters wait out the day in the bathroom. Also the neighborhood fathers remove the particular fence on which Cecilia jumped, in order to remove the grief and sadness it gave off into the neighborhood. These examples describe a widespread suburban emphasis on the idea that what is proper is infinitely better than what is morally or humanly appropriate.

This theme is also supported by the irony of American happiness is suggested by the characters of Lux Lisbon and Trip Fontaine. After living his youth at the pinnacle of the American dream, Trip spends his middle age in detox recovering. Likewise, Lux's decadent sexuality leads to her premature death. Trip and Lux's search for love and happiness eventually hurts their bodies; similarly, the suburban attempts at American happiness prove to be false and fatal.