Why is the new Family so Familiar?

Abstract

Next to the individual, family has been regarded as the most important element of society, and like the individual it has always been treated as the most intimate and private space in culture. In contemporary cultural theory and cultural texts, for instance, regardless of the conceptual frames deployed, family is always assumed to be a space like no other. For instance, in Marsha Norman’s (1983) play ’night, Mother the main character, Jessie, includes her mother, and only her mother, in her suicide by telling her that she will kill herself that night, and in doing so asserts her will by choosing who will be her family in this final moment of her life.