Easter Parade: The Effect of Divorce

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Recommended: Effects of parental divorce on children

Richard Yates' book Easter Parade shows that life can never be the same after a family has failed. Yates details the lives of two daughters, Sarah Wilson and Emily Grimes, as they flail through life uncertain of anything clinging to the wrong people and vice addictions.

Yates published this book to argue the ideals of the time. Many women were leaving their husbands and divorce was on the rise. Women were in a movement for independence during the early 1970's in America. Easter Parade is very informative of what can happen when a failed marriage occurs and the offspring are forced to cope with the divorce. Not only is Yates condemning divorce but he is pointing at vices that people cling to, such as sex and alcohol, as bad objects to let rule your life.

Throughout the first two hundred and twenty-eight pages of Easter Parade there seems to be no significant change for the good in Emily Grimes. At the end of Easter Parade Emily says, "I'm almost fifty years old and I've never understood anything in my life."(Yates, 229) Emily goes through many love affairs and many sexual affairs also. She creates a barrier between her and men often in over usage of alcohol. Emily needs men in her life yet fears rejection. She moves between many men as if she were searching to find someone that could replace the lack of love she received from her own father. Emily is jealous throughout the story over her father's love for her sister. The lack of attention she receives from Walter Grimes causes her to constantly search for a male to fit into that role she would have expected her father to fill. She needs men and she eventually does not seem to find any that can fit the role. Emily detaches herself eventually from these men by drinking alcohol when she is around them. She also likes to keep her distance often and uses the men only for sex.

Sarah Wilson is no exception to a failed life having many vices. Yet she is different from Emily in many ways. Sarah was loved more by her father and this creates a need to latch onto a male figure. Sarah marries Anthony Wilson at a young age to fulfill her desire to latch onto a male. She also does not want to end up like her mother who is alone, miserable and drinks alcohol in utter excess.

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