French Braid

One theme that stands out powerfully in French Braid is that the Garrett family members are disaffected: Across the board, they do not understand one another, do not enjoy one another, do not grow together, have little in common, and show little desire or ability to overcover the emotional distance between them. Tyler emphasizes this theme by demonstrating how it pervades a narrative spanning five generations—including Mercy’s father and Serena’s son—over 60 years. The eight separate episodes from the life of the family each uniquely bear out the dysfunction, dislike, and distance that characterize the Garrett family. Chronologically, the theme begins with Tyler noting that Mercy’s father, Mr. Wellington, constantly found fault with his son-in-law despite Robin’s devotion to the company Wellington entrusted to him. Eight decades later, Alice expresses outrage to David that Lily has remarried without telling anyone in the family—just as Alice expressed outrage to Lily when David married Greta without telling her. Symbolically, the clearest image of the family unit comes from Alice as she looks back toward the beach from the lake and sees a scene resembling a French Impressionist painting of people gathering at water. The difference, she notes, is that the painting shows people engaging with one another. Arriving at the beach, she realizes, everyone is disengaged. Another artistic representation of this comes from Mercy’s home-interior portraits. Most of the images on her canvases appear as impressions, vague suggestions, while one item in each portrait stands starkly apart, painted in perfect detail. This mirrors the structure of each chapter—throwing one character at a time into sharp focus—as well as Mercy’s view of her family: She only has clarity about one person and that person’s place and function—herself.

To say the family members are completely disaffected does not mean that they do not form alliances, maintain closer relationships with some, and draw together when it becomes necessary. Alice and David, who find nothing else of interest during their infamous lake vacation, draw close to one another. Alice maintains pride in the idea that she and David have bonded, although there is almost never contact between them. Lily and Mercy have an odd union. Though Lily complains that her mother cannot grasp the gravity of the problems she faces—her complaint both when she is 15 and when she is in her mid-twenties—Mercy immerses herself in Lily’s dalliances, triangles, and crises, seemingly relishing the chaotic thrills. Yet, when Lily wants to live in her art studio, Mercy turns her away. Tyler depicts Robin as being oblivious to virtually all the family dynamics. He disrupts, demands, and disapproves without making anyone happy or anything better. As the family expands numerically and geographically, Tyler shows that the disaffection among them remains constant, with second-generation members passing down their judgments and prejudices to their children: Alice lists those family members she thinks are worthy and unworthy to her youngest, Candle, saying that Mercy should never have had children. Across the span of the novel, emotional disaffection pervades.