During the 1980s, Anne Tyler surfaced as one of America’s leading fiction writers, despite what she viewed as the undesirable publicity and attention. She is most often identified as a southern writer by herself, and other critics. She has displayed tremendous ingenuity throughout her writings, which include novels, short stories, and literary criticism articles. One focal point of her writings is families and their relationships in modern day time. One of her most famous writings is a short story titled, Teenage Wasteland. This story is about parent-teenager relationships, specifically the difficulty understanding one another. This story was published in 1983 and was named after the song, Baba O’Riley by The Who. The words “teenage wasteland” …show more content…
One event that shows this theme is when Daisy realizes that she caused her son, Donny to grow up lazy and unmotivated. She knew that there was no one else that she could possibly blame. In the text, it states, “At night, Daisy lies awake and goes over Donny’s life. She is trying to figure out what went wrong, where they made their first mistake. Often, she finds herself blaming Cal, although she knows he didn’t begin it.” This shows the theme because Daisy understands that she is a single person that has spent the most time with Donny throughout his life, and therefore most likely has the biggest influence on him and his actions. Another place in the story that supports this theme is when Daisy got beckoned to the school as a result of Donny’s dropping grades. Daisy instantly took the blame upon herself for not monitoring him closely enough, and frankly not paying enough attention to him. In this scene, the theme is represented because Donny was able to ignore and avoid his responsibilities as a result of the lack of attention that Daisy was giving him and the lack of surveillance and monitoring he was receiving. As you can see, Anne Tyler desires to make sure everyone understands the extraordinary influence parents have on their