The novel of manners in Anne Tyler’s Breathing Lessons

Abstract

This paper deals with Anne Tyler (1941) one of the most prolific American writer. Tyler’s Breathing Lessons is the eleventh novel, and the novel won a Pulitzer Prize in 1989. The novel is published in 1988. In this paper a study is undertaken to investigate the use of novel of manners in Anne Tyler’s Breathing Lessons. The novel contains a high dramatic plot than any exciting plot found in any thriller movie. The significance of Breathing Lessons is that it depicts the life of Maggie and her husband, Ira, an American couple and who are middle aged. This family maintains their complex relationship and individual personalities during the twenty eight years of their marriage. The theme of American modern family dynamics is the central theme of the novel Breathing Lessons. Within the limits of this topic, Ann Tyler emphasizes that the identity of the individual and his initial sense of it is derived from his relationship with his family.