Higher Praise: The Emperor's Children By Claire Messud

Adan Ismail

Mr. Allen

English 11 H

29 May 2023

A Novel Worthy of Higher Praise

The American canon refers to a collection of works that are considered to be essential to American literature. This collection covers a wide variety of genres that explore various facets of American life, culture, and history, and it serves to reflect the diversity and progression of our nation and the American experience.

The Emperor’s Children is a novel by Claire Messud that revolves around three distinguishable yet relatable protagonists. Throughout the book, the intricacies of its thematic depth begin to become apparent to the reader, and through the exploration of the complexity of privilege and ambition in American society as well as the novel’s continuous

Also illustrated in an almost poetic way is the crafted tension between the personal aspirations of the characters, and their desire to conform to expectations, for example, Danielle Minkoff wants to spend her life becoming a writer, yet she seeks to prove to her parents she can hold a “more professional” job as a news reporter. Throughout the novel, Danielle tries to balance these two aspects but eventually realizes that as long as she is happy in her line of work, her parents would be as well, this a brilliant exhibition of character development that focuses on a relatable issue of conformity vs.

Perfectly summarized in this novel are our social dynamics: today’s unwavering support for the pursuit of happiness, identity, and yet the disillusionment that some of the privileged are guilty of having. In the case of Marina Thwaite, the daughter of a well-off writer, everything in her life has been handed down to her on a silver platter, and due to her lack of persistence and motivation, she cannot seem to follow in her father's footsteps of becoming a successful literary critic, and starts to complain to her father that those aforementioned character traits were her own father's fault, as he hadn’t raised her in the manner she saw fit. This is one example of the illustration of the disillusionment that many of the privileged in this country have, which is a very powerful asset to this novel, a very powerful message to the reader, and yet another reason for this novel’s