IDENTITY AND EXISTENTIAL LONELINESS IN JONATHAN FRANZEN’S THE CORRECTIONS

Abstract

In The Corrections, Jonathan Franzen introduces the reader to the Lamberts: a dysfunctional family of highly individualistic characters whose goals and ideas never intersect. Throughout the course of the novel, the elderly parents and their three grown-up children further degrade their relationships – both within the family and even with reality. They are utterly, self-consciously alone and incapable of creating a stable connection to one another or with anybody else. In the current paper, I shall try to explain their inability to connect to others by using their intrinsic loneliness as a starting point and the manner in which it helps in forming their identity.