“Whether anybody was home meant everything to a house. It was more than a major fact: it was the only fact.The family was the house's soul.”
In this quote by Jonathan Franzen, the importance of a family in a house is emphasized. The idea that the family is the soul of the house suggests that without inhabitants, a house is merely a structure, devoid of life and meaning. This highlights the significance of the relationships and memories that make a house a home. Franzen's words remind us that it is the people within a dwelling that truly give it its identity and purpose.
In Jonathan Franzen's quote, the idea of a house being more than just a physical structure is highlighted. The concept of a house being truly a home when it is filled with the presence of a family still holds relevance in today's society. Today, with the rise of technology and virtual connections, the idea of a family being the soul of a home is a reminder of the importance of human connection and relationships in our everyday lives. The presence of family members in a house adds warmth, love, and meaning to the space, making it a place where memories are created and cherished for generations to come.
In Jonathan Franzen's novel, the concept of a family being the soul of a house is beautifully depicted. As he states, "Whether anybody was home meant everything to a house. It was more than a major fact: it was the only fact. The family was the house's soul." This quote highlights the importance of family in creating a home.
When reflecting on Jonathan Franzen's quote about the significance of having a family in a house, consider the following questions:
“Her house was the heavy (but not indefinitely heavy) and sturdy (but not everlasting) God that she'd loved and served and been sustained by.”
“There was, of course, nowhere better in the world to be than New York City. This fact was the foundation of her family's satisfaction with itself, the platform from which all else could be ridiculed, the collateral of adult sophistication that bought them the right to behave like children.”
“Washington's all abstraction. It's about access to power and nothing else. I mean, I'm sure it's fun if you're living next door to Seinfeld, or To Wolfe, or Mike Bloomberg, but living next door to them isn't what New York is about, In Washington people literally talk about how many feet away from John Kerry's house their own house is. The neighborhoods are all so blah, the only thing that turns people on is proximity to power. It's a total fetish culture. People get this kind of orgasmic shiver when they tell you they sat next to Paul Wolfowitz at a conference or got invited to Grover Norquist's breakfast.”
“As she left her parents' neighborhood, the houses got newer and bigger and boxier. Through windows with no mullions or fake plastic mullions she could see luminous screens, some giant, some miniature. Evidently every hour of the year, including this one, was a good hour for staring at a screen.”
“Here was a torture that Greek inventors of the Feast and the Stone had omitted from their Hades: the Blanket of Self-Deception. A lovely warm blanket as far as it covered the soul in torment, but it never quite covered everything.”
“THE CORRECTION, when it finally came, was not an overnight bursting of a bubble but a much more gentle letdown, a year-long leakage of value from key financial markets, a contraction too gradual to generate headlines and too predictable to seriously hurt anybody but fools and the working poor.”