Analysis Of On Going Home By Joan Didion

Too many of us family is the most important thing in our life. They will always be there for us when we need them, there our backbone. In Joan Didion 's “On Going Home” she tries to explain to us what family to her is. What I think she wanted to tell us was that family is supposed to be sacred but there are circumstance where it may become a burden or you might have to distance yourself from them. Once she left home her life changed drastically, she now has to worry about her marriage, raising her daughter, and dealing with her family. According to Didion, “Marriage is the classic betrayal” by this I think that she means marriage can ruin your relationship with your family. When you get married you most likely will move out of your hometown and will dedicate most of your time to your new family, so in most circumstances you will end up losing contact with your immediate family. So yeah marriage can make your family feel like you betrayed them and or maybe it can be the other way around, if your family doesnt like who your spouse is they might also forgot about you and will end up

According to Didion “I was almost thirty years old before I could talk to my family on the telephone without crying after I had hung up” (140). This is clearly an example of her being babied, she is thirty years old and can 't stop crying after hanging up on her family. I think she doesn 't want to raise her daughter the way she was raised because she will end up having the same problem she goes through. Didion stated “She is an open and trusting child, unprepared for and unaccustomed to ambushes of family life, and perhaps it is just as well that I can offer her little of that life” (141). What I think she meant by this was that her daughter is still very young and she is not prepared for all the family issues that lie ahead of