Popular Culture Review Vol. 2, No. 2, July 1991 | Page 73

Displaced People and the Frailty of Words 65 He's just an absolute muck about telling anyone." Without Ethel s facilitating the relationship between Norman and Chelsea, their longing to connect might never have been enough. After Chelsea and her father reach a reconciliation through the help of Ethel, subtle shifts in language once again illustrate the at least temporary transformation of the relationship. As Chelsea leaves, she says shyly, "Well. Good-bye. Norman. . . Dad." In all three films, characters who are 1) trapped by the inherent unreliability of language as well as 2) enraged by their own inability to meet another family member on common ground remain frustrated and unsure of how to make their feelings clear. Expecting more from themselves, they feel more and more inadequate. It is Conrad of Ordinary People who best expresses this inadequacy: "I kept thinking John Boy would have said something about the way he felt." The reference to the perfect son depicted in the long-running family drama "The Waltons" indicates the insurmountable chasm between Conrad's desire to verbalize his pain and his mother's incapacity to hear him. In Terms of Endearment, the stakes are even higher, as Emma Greenway (Debra Winger) and her mother (Shirley MacLaine) struggle to communicate after Emma is diagnosed with terminal cancer. Aurora Greenway is obsessively involved with her daughter from the moment we see her crawl into Emma’s crib and make her cry (in order to reassure herself that Emma is still breathing). Emma's father dies, and Aurora alienates Emma's friends ("Sure would be nice to have a mother somebody liked," Emma tells her friend Patsy) and eventually refuses to attend Emma's wedding because she disapproves of Emma's choice of a husband. One of the first examples of the difficulty the two have in addressing central issues between them occurs when Emma and her husband, Flap Horton, move from Houston to Des Moines. As the family hugs farewell, Aurora clings to her daughter. Emma says, "That's the first time I stopped hugging first. I like that." Aurora replies, "Get yourself a decent maternity dress." Emma's disappointment lies behind her eyes as she says, "You had to get one in, didn't you?" In the c ancer ward with each new treatment failing, Emma and her mother are alone. The desperate desire to connect is evident as each of them tries to stabilize the alternately troubled/tender relationship between them. Aurora tells her