What is Forsyte's conception of family life, love, and works of art.Family seems to be the most important part of the human's society. And though within a time people changed, family existed always. Within different historical periods, the role of the family developed and grew. John Galsworthy in his "The Forsyte Saga" also tried to show us what were the concepts of family relations in England at the end of the 19th century, what were their basic principles and values, and what has influenced on them. The Forsytes is a typical family of the Victorian period in Great Britain where family instinct was a leading power and the family property played the major role in their life. For that reas ...view middle of the document...
The Forsytes cannot not imagine themselves whether it is possible to marry for love not for prestige and money. They cannot understand why did young Jolyon desert his wife and child and ran away with a foreign governess. Nevertheless, the only question they are concerned about is how much he can give her but not love and happiness, but money, since happiness for Forsytes means money! James says: "If he likes to do these things, I s'pose he can afford to. Now, what's he going to give her? I s'pose he'll give her a thousand a year; he's got nobody else to leave his money to"2In the chapter "Old Jolyon Goes to the Opera" we can see that for old Jolyon love to his child eventually overcame his arrogance and he went to meet his son he missed so many years. Of course he wanted to help his son with money since young Jolyon didn't earn much and his father was worried about it but still old man didn't understand why had his son made such a bad choice to stay with his new wife and reject good reputation and money. And it is not surprising because it is not only his problem, but the problem of the life values of the society he belonged to. The following words are in support of this "In spite of his love for his son, in spite of an instinct, partly constitutional, partly the result, as in thousand of his class, of the continual handling and watching of affairs,1"The man of property", Chapter 1, p. 11,1st paragraph.2"The man of property", Chapter 1, p. 19,5* paragraphprompting him to judge conduct by results rather than by principle, there was at the bottom of his heart a sort of uneasiness"3.Another character is Soames who could not understand why his wife, Irene, did not love him. He just could not imagine that to be loved one should also give this love. But Soames looked at Irene as a part of his prope...