Parental Voices In Adoption Narratives Analysis

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In Fu-Je Chen’s article About Parental Voices in Adoption Narratives, Chen analyzes the way society has typically seen adoption and the role of single parents in the literary world. In the literature, society’s standards for men and women still exist, men are supposed to be the strong, testosterone driven providers, but Chen describes how they are often “first denied expressions of their emotional wounds (Chen 2)”. After Silas is shunned from Lantern Yard he had lost his reputation and had to start again, he hides himself away after arriving in Raveloe, trying to protect himself from being hurt once again. He tries to keep up to society’s standards of men having to be strong and stoic whenever they are hurt, like an injured animal that hides …show more content…

One of the topics that often comes to mind in the argument is class, and which father is going to be able to provide the child with whatever they may need whether it be food, clothes or a loving home (Chen 4). Godfrey is a wealthy squire who is capable of providing anything that Eppie will ever need, all except for the sense of warmth and security that her loving home with Silas provides. I agree with Chen that this argument is important and should be addressed in adoption narratives because while a father may be able to provide the child with all the material needs they will ever need, the adoptive father may provide the emotional support and comfort that are more important to a child’s development. Ultimately it is the emotional support that will help establish the character of an youth whenever they are an adult, without that they may not develop those necessary empathy skills. The adoptive father will often accept the child as his own and love them unconditionally because they are “Obsessed with a sense of mastery and wholeness, they are haunted by continued guilt for giving up the child, for being absent prior to the adoption, or even for many unknown reasons (Chen 3).” Silas knows what it is like to be alone, and he does not want Eppie to feel that way, it nearly destroyed him and he does not wish her to experience a similar fate, this is evident in his reluctance to give up his daughter when Godfrey returned to take away Eppie. It is a parent’s duty to make sure that their child have a better life than they had and to not repeat the same mistakes that they had made. Parental figures in adoption narratives often challenge the real life norms of adoption, as evident in Silas Marner (Chen 4). Silas is not the most qualified person to take care of Eppie for sixteen years by any means, but he was the

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