Theme Of Family In Family Life

Akhil Sharma 's novel Family Life follows Ajay, a young Indian boy, and his family as they immigrate to America and navigate the hardships of living together in a new country. When senseless tragedy strikes, his brother, Birju, is left with irreparable brain damage and requires constant care. This new strain weighs on the family and young Ajay, who does his best to cope with the struggles of adolescence and his tense home life. As the title would imply, family is a huge theme within Family Life. All other themes and aspects pushed aside, the novel presents the portrait of a family- an imperfect one, but a family all the same. In the story 's depiction of Ajay and his family, there are many universal statements about what living as a family

Ajay 's mother is no exception to this. From the beginning of the book, she is portrayed as hardworking and dedicated to both of her sons, taking care of them diligently and being quite loving. She puts their wellbeing above everything, as seen in her willingness to abandon her comfortable life in India for the chance to give the two boys better opportunities in America. She also becomes Birju 's primary caretaker after his accident. Although the family undergoes great tragedy and trauma, Ajay 's love for his mother never wavers or becomes any less. He says that while he was glad that his life did not turn out like Birju 's, he would never want to "be more fortunate than his mother... To be luckier than her was to be different from her, it was to be apart from her, it was to have a life that would take (him) away from her"(133). Despite her bond with her children, Ajay 's mother clearly has some issues as an individual. For example, her relationship with her husband is odd and considerably colder than many relationships between married couples. Even as young as he is, Ajay notices this, and it becomes a tense part of their family 's

While often romanticized and peaceful and ideal, the novel presents it as the concept of making a life with these people whom you have not chosen yet have been tied to in an unmistakable way. In the first pages of the novel, Ajay 's mother exasperatedly asks: "What is this life we lead? Where is Ajay? What was the point of having raised him?"(12). Maybe Ajay 's mother should not ask what the point of raising him is, but instead how they should go about raising him. Perhaps there is no real "right" way to raise a child, especially in such unpredictable circumstances, but there has to be a better way so that children like him do not spend their adulthoods healing from their childhoods. The novel demonstrates that family life is not perfect, and it was never meant to be. A family is a group of unique, complex individuals (who may or may not even get along) who find themselves bound together. While we may leave our families, our experience with them never leaves us; we carry that with us through the rest of our lives. Furthermore, every family has hurt and sadness within it- dark things that we all share in common, yet are reluctant to discuss out of shame that there was something wrong with our family all those years. It is nearly impossible to read Family Life without examining our own. The novel cuts deep into the heart of those family situations and experiences that characterize lives, for better or