Caroline's Page
Kate Culkin's "The Family Car"
Kate Culkin’s work, “The Family Car” illustrates the sense of freedom a woman feels with her first car. Culkin looks at her own experience as well as her grandmother’s experience with the automobile. The story begins as Culkin describes the empowerment she feels behind the wheel of her car. She discusses how it frees her and givers her confidence her. Through this new-found confidence she is able to experience and face the world. Culkin then describes her grandmother’s experience with the automobile. Her grandmother loved her car and loved the sense of autonomy it gave her. However, when she got married she got rid of it and took the role society bestowed upon her. Culkin’s grandmother admires her granddaughter’s freedom through her care and urges her never to succumb to the same circumstances she did.
