single parent families

Tristan Davenport · 07 Jun 2006, 18:49 · from 2006-June.txt.gz

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From: tristan_davenport at hotmail.com (Tristan Davenport)
Date: Wed, 07 Jun 2006 11:49:06 -0700
Subject: (urth) single parent families
In-Reply-To: <BAY103-F5ECE1AED89590DF486571D78A0 at phx.gbl>
Message-ID: <BAY104-F19AE8336913AEA070971FC968A0 at phx.gbl>

b sharp wrote:

>As a BotNS fanatic I have noticed a complete absence (I think, any
>exceptions?) of "normal" two parent families in the series. All the child
>characters have either one or zero parents to interact with.  The closest 
>we
>see to an intact nuclear family is Casdoe's, but of course her chapter is
>titled "the Widow".  From my lesser familiarity with his other works, I
>think this trend might extend to the greater Wolfe universe but I'm not
>sure.  Anyone else have thoughts on this?
>
>
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I haven't read everything of Wolfe's by any stretch of the imagination, 
either, but you seem to be onto a pattern.  Parent-child estrangement 
happens for just about every reason possible in the Book of the Long Sun.  
The only nuclear family we really see -- the gods don't count because Typhon 
is dead/in storage for most of the book -- is Horn and Nettle.  But they 
don't have children until the very last chapter.

In There are Doors a nuclear familie is impossible:  men die shortly after 
having sex.

In the few Wolfe short stories I've read that involve children, absent 
fathers (and often mothers) seem to be the rule.  The Island of Doctor Death 
(single mom with a revolving door policy on boyfriends), The Death of Doctor 
Island (children are institutionalized), The Eyeflash Miracles (boy travels 
alone, but meets a stand-in father figure).

It seems that the father stand-in is an equally common pattern:  Patera Pike 
for Silk, Severian for Little Severian, Latro for Io (though he later has a 
romance with her, if I remember right??), perhaps Dr. Death for the boy in 
that story...

I don't have any analysis of this, but the trend is definitely present in 
what I've read of Wolfe.

~Tristan

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