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Breathing Lessons Study Guide

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by Anne Tyler
About 92 pages (27,606 words)
Breathing Lessons Summary

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Themes

Family

The central theme of Tyler's novel is the dynamic of modern American families. Within that theme, Tyler focuses on the fact that an individual's initial sense of identity derives from his or her relationship with his or her family. For Tyler, the family acts as force on an individual, in both positive and negative ways. In Breathing Lessons, each character has an individual interpretation of the concept of family that coincides with their understanding of their own identity. For example, Ira feels trapped by his family to the point where he felt that "his sisters' hands dragged him down the way drowning victims drag down whoever tries to rescue them." This view of the family extends from Ira's perception of himself as someone cheated out of his dreams. One of those dreams is that.....

This is a free excerpt of 135 words. This section contains 972 words. This study guide contains 27,606 words (approx. 92 pages at 300 words per page).

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Copyrights
Breathing Lessons from BookRags and Gale's For Students Series. ©2005-2006 Thomson Gale, a part of the Thomson Corporation. All rights reserved.



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