An Unfinished Literary Analysis of "Somehow Form a Family" by Tony Earley (Creative Nonfiction II 09-10-12)

Joseph Melanson

Creative Non-Fiction II

Prof. Cahan

24 June 2012

 Literary Analysis of Somehow Form a Family by Tony Earley as it applies to the criteria

of Memoir.

           

            Memoirs invite us into the lives of their authors, and offer us a unique perspective about the world we share. Memoir either remains on a specific day and what it caused, or it embody significant events across a period of time in the author’s life. Memoir is told from the perspective of things that had already occurred, or from the present moment, or it can go back and forth from the present to the past, and then back again. Memoir records events that occurred in the order occurred, having a clear linear timeline, or it can cross backwards and forwards through the author’s life in order to tell its story. Memoir allows us into the life of its writer, in order to relate a story in which we can compare to our own, perhaps even seeing ourselves in the writer’s recollections of his or her past. Memoir attempts to answer questions that are relevant to both authors and their readers. The authors of memoirs utilize scene and detail with a compelling and authentic voice that attempts to make sense of their past to show us how they came to be the person they are now. Memoirists offer a glimpse into their personal memories, and use various techniques mostly specific to the criteria of the memoir. In “Somehow Form a Family” by Tony Earley, one can see how this essay applies to the genre of the memoir.

           “Somehow Form a Family” by Tony Earley, is his personal and family history in front of the television as it was interspersed with the episodes of his own life; the July 1969 lunar landing in which the television failed to do what it was built to do, the death of his sister, dad moving out, his contemplating suicide, dad moving back in, his marriage to a woman who couldn’t care less about the events of television, and his glimpsing Ann B. Davis who played Alice on The Brady Bunch, a woman with whom he had spent countless hours watching on television but with whom he “could not think of anything to say to her about the world in which we actually lived” (199).  “Somehow Form a Family” illustrates how we are unknowingly seduced into becoming spectators to the rest of the world by the empty images and sound that comes from the television. 

            Memoir can comprise “a single day and its effect”, Perl and Schwartz state, “or it can capture key moments over time” (182). “Somehow Form a Family” occurs across the significant events of the life of its author, Tony Earley, coinciding with the shows that were on television at the time. It begins with his anonymous, but perhaps typical youth. Then a new television arrives to replace an on outmoded and barely functioning model, this new television bringing into his home what would later become an integral part of his life. Television became almost a retreat and an escape to Tony Earley, influencing his rebellious adolescence, occupying what seemed the majority of his time and developed into an addiction, coloring his memories of his youth, serving as an empty distraction through his sister’s death, serving as the greatest gift that he could give his parents when he received a Christmas bonus from work one year, and then later losing it’s power over him when he later marries a woman whose family did not make television their religion as much as his family had.  

           According to Perl and Schwartz, memoir is “told in past tense, or in present tense, or shift between past and present” (182). Tony Earley, in “Somehow Form a Family”, relates his personal history in the mostly in the past tense, yet occasionally the present intrudes upon his memories. Looking back on his deceased sister, in one memory of her she frolicked in the backyard imitating weightless astronauts, and chasing lightning bugs, Earley relates “I am tempted to say that she was beautiful in the moonlight, and I’m sure she was, but that isn’t something I remember noticing that night, only a thing I need to say now” (193). On the same night as his memory of his sister, during the night of the July 1969 lunar landing, he recalls “the moon, as I remember it, was full, although I’ve since learned that it wasn’t” (192). “Somehow Form a Family” is an essay that relates Tony Earley’s youth, occasionally colored by his present self.

           Memoir, according to Perl and Schwartz, can be “chronological, a memory told form beginning to end, or it can jump back and forth in segments of time” (182). “Somehow Form a Family” is told chronologically, with a structure that Perl and Schwartz state, “moves forward from beginning to end in a straight narrative line”, generally having a “rising action, climax, and resolution” (34). The rising action of the essay is the arrival of color television into his family and how it eventually overtook their lives, the climax occurring at his sister’s sudden death when Earley was a freshman in college, and the resolution comes as Earley realizes how much television became a substitution for living, rather than what should have been a true participation in the world.

            According to Perl and Schwartz, memoir invites us into the author’s past lives and how we will connect and identify, even find some of ourselves in the writer’s memories” (182). Earley, in his essay, relates the shows that he was watching at a particular time in his life. “We watched Hee Haw, starring Buck Owens and Roy Clark; we watched All in  the Family, The Mary Tyler Moore Show, The Bob Newhart Show, The Carol Burnett Show, and Mannix, starring Mike Conners with Gail Fisher as Peggy; we watched Gunsmoke, and Bonanza, even after Adam left and Hoss died and Little Joe’s hair turned gray; we watched Adam-12 and Kojak, McCloud, Columbo, and Hawaii Five-O; we watched Cannon, a Quinn Martin production, and Barnaby Jones, a Quinn Martin production, which co-starred Miss America and Uncle Jed from The Beverly Hillbillies” (Earley 195). What Earley seems to be saying by relating this list of shows is how he, as

well as the rest of us watched our lives pass before our eyes, squandering our youth and our years in front of the television.

            The authors of memoirs, according to Perl and Schwartz, attempt to “answer personal questions such as “why, of all the stories I can tell, am I telling this one?”, and “what’s at stake here for me - and for my readers?” (182). 2 Examples. Look back on how much we invest of ourselves into our distractions and entertainments, rather than actively participating in the world and learning how to better relate to and appreciate the people in our lives.

            Memoirs, according to Perl and Schwartz, use “detail and scene to make the past come alive” by creating “one or more appealing voice for telling his or her story” to show “how each struggles with and reflects on the past”, and how this voice or voices “makes connections to whom they are now” (10).

            According to Perl and Schwartz, “it’s only through details that you can relive that moment – and recreate it for others” (23). “In July 1969, I looked a lot like Opie in the second or third season of The Andy Griffith Show” Earley begins his essay, giving us a clear and specific picture of his appearance using one of the most well known characters with a unique and distinct first name from one of the most popular shows in television history (191). Earley then minimal of description of his family, likening them to the stereotypical television cast of most popular television shows by saying “I was the brother in a father-mother-brother-sister family” (191). Earley then casts the focal character of his essay, the television, and it’s massive antenna that was attached to the roof, as a predatory insect. “It looked dangerous, as if it would bite, like a praying mantis” (193). Of the television that was beginning to fail he later states, “It’s picture narrowed into a greenly tinted slit (Earley 199). “It stared like a diseased eye into the living room where Mama and Daddy sat” (Earley 199).

“Scene makes characters come alive on the page”, Perl and Schwartz state, “using dialogue and description to zoom in, like a camera close-up, on key moments in the story” (50).

“Voice”, according to Perl and Schwartz, “conveys personality” and “counts as much as information” because it is through the writer’s stance that helps us decide whether our perception(s)

            According to Perl and Schwartz, “reflection offers the writer’s thoughts about what is happening and what it means” (52). “Shelly died on Christmas Eve morning when I was a freshman in college”, Earley informs us, his sister died in a car accident (198). Earley allows us to see that he knew no other means to deal with his grief other than turning to the television for comfort. “That night I stayed up late and watched the Pope deliver the Christmas mass from the Vatican” (198). “There was nothing else on” (Earley 198).

           “Connection”, according to Dictionary.com, means “a connecting or being connected, a thing that connects, a relationship; association” (  ). “And what I’m trying to tell you now is this: I grew up in a split-level ranch-style house outside a town that could have been anywhere” (Earley ). “I grew up in front of a television” (Earley  ).

Populated world

Works Cited:

Earley, Tony. “Somehow Form a Family” Writing True: The Art and Craft of Creative Nonfiction. Eds. Sondra Perl., Mimi Schwartz. Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company. 2006. Print.

Neufeldt, Victoria. Sparks, Andrew N. Sparks. Webster’s New World Dictionary, Pocket Books Paperback Edition. Simon & Schuster Inc. 1990. Print.

Dictionary.com

 Joseph, you did very good work with your literary analysis. Frequently quoting Earley offers your reader a comprehensive look at his essay as well as a clear perspective of your classification of “Somehow Form a Family” as a memoir. With originality you offer evidence of close analytical reading, as you integrate literary terms and concepts into your essay’s overall fabric to prove your main point (i.e. “Somehow Form a Family” fits the textbook definition of a memoir). You offer plenty of specific details to support your general statements as you create a convincing perspective. You control your essay with a well defined thesis and, with effective diction (word choice) and variety of sentence structures, engage reader interest from beginning to end. Grade for Literary Essay #2 is B+. 87%.