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Fathers and Sons (and Mothers and Daughters)

Sophocles starts it: the father you can't escape. Shakespeare doubles it: the father who gives everything away and the son who can't act. Dostoevsky puts the father on trial. Turgenev and Lawrence fight him. O'Neill drinks with him. Miller watches him fail. Faulkner and Baldwin inherit his sins. Steinbeck retells Genesis. Roth watches his son destroy everything he built. Rushdie and Mahfouz make the family a nation.

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  1. 1
    Oedipus RexSophocles (-429)
  2. 2
    King LearWilliam Shakespeare (1606)
  3. 3
    HamletWilliam Shakespeare (1601)
  4. 4
    The Brothers KaramazovFyodor Dostoevsky (1880)
  5. 5
    Fathers and SonsIvan Turgenev (1862)
  6. 6
    Sons and LoversD.H. Lawrence (1913)
  7. 7
    As I Lay DyingWilliam Faulkner (1930)
  8. 8
    Long Day's Journey into NightEugene O'Neill (1956)
  9. 9
    Death of a SalesmanArthur Miller (1949)
  10. 10
    The Sound and the FuryWilliam Faulkner (1929)
  11. 11
    Go Tell It on the MountainJames Baldwin (1953)
  12. 12
    A Raisin in the SunLorraine Hansberry (1959)
  13. 13
    Absalom Absalom!William Faulkner (1936)
  14. 14
    East of EdenJohn Steinbeck (1952)
  15. 15
    American PastoralPhilip Roth (1997)
  16. 16
    Midnight's ChildrenSalman Rushdie (1981)
  17. 17
    The Cairo TrilogyNaguib Mahfouz (1957)