Posted on 11/29/2004 7:05:36 AM PST by Pikamax
This is kind of a silly argument, but Miyazaki has parentless children because that is a element that people have liked in stories for thousands of years. How many famous stories can you name where an intact nuclear family was featured throughout?
Most of the examples I think of first -- Cheaper by the Dozen (original), The Waltons, October Sky -- are based on true stories.
"Famous story" is kinda broad. Most stories, famous or otherwise, aren't about children, so the issue of parental status doesn't enter in. Do you mean fairy and folk tales? Since happy and well-cared-for children have little motivation to seek out giants, dark woods, and far-away castles, it is hardly surprising that many have less than perfect home lives.
What motivates Miyazaki is something neither you or I know. I do know what motivates the bean counters at Disney. It isn't famous stories, nuclear or otherwise.
Betty Jane, If you look at when those books were written, most of them were at a time when things were radically different. ( Harry Potter aside)
The life expectancy in the US at the turn of the century was 49 and 3/4 of children died. Many of them in infancy but lost a lot to childhood illnesses.
Tom Sawyer has a small pox case in it. Small pox wasn't eliminated world wide till the 1970's.
The flu epidemic of 1918 killed millions, Polio was a feature of life in the United States up until the 1960's.
The number of families with intact/origional mother and father with their children during colonial times was rare. Many women died during childbirth and many men lost to accidents. They blended families.
Life used to be a lot more fragile. The US took 500,000 casualties during WWII and there were a lot of widowed women and fatherless children.
The till death do us part in the marriage vows was literal.
My own grandmother was a widow at 29 with 4 children.
In modern times, we have forgotten how fragile our grip on life is. Now it is common for divorce rather than death to end a marriage.
These books reflected real life.
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