The Difficulty of Coping in Jonathan Franzen's Freedom

Abstract

Abstract:

The paper examines Jonathan Franzen’s Freedom (2010) from a moral perspective.   It studies how people live, make choices and take decisions, whom to marry, how to raise children. I attempt to discuss Franzen's view that the crucial part of becoming a mature is that grown-ups abandon a definite kind of freedom.  In adulthood one is not able to do the things one used to do when one was a child. What gives this novel its richness and critical recognition is the difficult journeys of the characters towards moral recognition. Therefore, this novel is regarded as one of the most prominent novels in the twenty- first century. It has been called a "masterpiece of American fiction" by Time Magazine and "an indelible portrait of our times" by Michiko Kakutani in The New York Times. The pains, departures, disappointments and even tragic deaths, act as a crucible that allows the awakening of the moral sense of the characters to ultimately achieve their longed-for happy endings.