Are Parents People? PDF

Summary

Are Parents People? (1924) is a collection of stories by Alice Duer Miller. Inspired by her work as an activist for women’s suffrage, Miller explores themes of independence, agency, and female desire while illuminating the subject of divorce. Her work was adapted into a 1925 comedy film starring Betty Bronson, Florence Vidor, and Adolphe Menjou. “There they were—her mother looking down at her so calmly from the gallery and her father waiting so confidently for her below, each unaware of the other's presence. What in thunder was she going to do?” As the chairman of her school’s self-government committee, Lita Hazlitt is a young woman committed to order. Seeing her parents in the same room for the first time since their acrimonious divorce, she longs for them to reunite so that their family can return to its former state. When her attempts at reconciliation fall on deaf ears, Lita begins to act out, threatening her parents with scandal by spending time with an older, married man. In each of its nine stories, Are Parents People? explores the politics of divorce in middle to upper class American families. Witty and heartbreaking, Miller’s work is an utterly human look at the shortcomin...

Chapter List (15 chapters):

• Chapter 1: Are Parents People?
• Chapter 2: Title Page
• Chapter 3: Copyright
• Chapter 4: Contents
• Chapter 5: Are Parents People?
• Chapter 6: The American Husband
• Chapter 7: Devoted Women
• Chapter 8: The Return to Normalcy
• Chapter 9: The Red Carpet
• Chapter 10: The Widow’s Might
• Chapter 11: Whose Petard Was It?
• Chapter 12: The New Stoics
• Chapter 13: Worse Than Married
• Chapter 14: A Note About the Author
• Chapter 15: A Note from the Publisher

Reviews