The Music Makers: Significance of Characters and Themes

This essay provides an in-depth analysis of 'The Music Makers', exploring the significance of the title, the characters, their relationships, and the major themes presented in the novel. The essay examines the ordinary lives of characters like Virginia, a tax attorney struggling with family dynamics, and Joshua, grappling with the loss of his wife and his relationship with his son Adam. It delves into the complexities of characters such as Christine, the rebellious daughter, and the impact of the Holocaust on characters like David. The analysis also touches upon how the characters navigate their personal struggles to find harmony and meaning in their lives, drawing parallels to real-life experiences. The essay uses the provided references to support its arguments and provides a comprehensive understanding of the novel's core elements.

Running head: THE MUSIC MAKERS
THE MUSIC MAKERS
Name of the Student
Name of the University
Author Note

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THE MUSIC MAKERS
Significance of the Title of the novel “The Music Makers”
The story is all about the ordinary characters bestowed with ordinary human problems
trying to find out the deep-rooted harmony of life on which all the human beings look
forward to survive. Either the characters are drawn to get haunted by certain memories from
the past or some are tortured with the problems of the present situation. However, amidst all
the chaos the characters try to catch the balance and they finally are able to get the hold of.
Since the characters find the perfect harmony at the end, they discover the secret to survival
they are nothing but “music makers” (Daukantaitė, Hefferon and Sikström 2016).
Significance of the boy
The boy ids young and charming who is envisioned by Virginia in the backyard. The
character of the boy remains mysterious in the entire story, which in a way or the other helps
the characters assess the worth of each other in each other’s life. The mystery that the boy
carries with him is the thread to the harmony that everybody in the story is searching on his
own. The boy creates the misunderstanding between Virginia and her daughters. However,
this acted as an instrument to reveal the true traits of all the characters existing in Virginia’s
life.
Relationship of Virginia with her surroundings and her importance in the story
Virginia who is a tax attorney stays with her two daughters Meghan and Christine.
Among these two Meghan is going to have her higher studies while Christine is done with her
education in college. Virginia is a single mother who is struggling constantly to survive with
her daughters. She is in dearth of support from her daughters. She is neither happy with her
parents nor her off-springs. Both the daughters give her trouble while she finally is able to

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manage to get a partner in her vision. Now it is doubtful whether the boy really exists or not
but she creates her dream for her own existence (Louis 2017).
Relationship between Joshua and Alicia
Joshua had a very beautiful and dotting relationship with his wife Alicia with whom
he had a son namely, Adam. Joshua stays with his aged father who has both fortunately and
unfortunately survived holocaust. He got married to Alicia and they were deeply in love with
each other. Their marriage was near to the state called, perfection. They had a perfectly
balanced life and no key note from the harmony was missing however, while Adam had to be
coming to life Alicia had to sacrifice her life. Joshua lost Alicia and that probably became the
reason for such indifferent behavior towards his own son.
Story of Adam
Adam is ever confused and does not how to go about his relationship with Meghan.
He has never received any kind of affection from his father because of his departed mother
Therefore he has no idea how to take care of her relationship. On top of that, his father,
Joshua is not ready to accept the conflicting relationship between him and Meghan. He rather
secludes himself from the shadow of his father. He understands later in the novel that he was
going to entangle himself with a wrong person. He could not accept the refusal of his father
initially but later he understood on himself if he would have decided to continue with
Meghan.
Christine being a rebel and her way of dealing with issues
Christine is a tattoo sculptor who carries all the signs of a rebel through the attire she
carries and the attitude she wears on her daily life. She has purple hair. She is almost aligned
with her sister Meghan opposite to her mother Virginia. She is nowhere at peace with her

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family. She has misunderstanding with her mother in every level. She has no patience of
adjustment rather she wants to get devoured but the outrageous nature of her. Although she
has put some effort to bridge the gap between her and her mother yet she failed miserably
that led her to harm herself bodily. It would satisfy her to suppress the pain and frustration.
David and Daniel
David and Daniel are brothers who have been together before the Nazis have attacked
their homeland. They had grown up together and had experienced all the vicissitudes of life
together. They had no idea of getting confined in their own homeland by some troupe of
soldiers dressed as civil servants. When David falls through the Alzheimer’s he only tries to
recall, what his brother used to tell him. He tries to relive and rejoice in the memory of his
brother who was the only bridge that could link him to the moments before holocaust
(Helmreich 2017).
David and Sarah
Sarah is the wife of David who has always been by his side no matter what. She is the
character who can be considered as the contradicted representation of other characters with
respect to Virginia pr the rebellious Christine. These women have been acted for their own
freedom while Sarah has always provided support to David even at the time of holocaust and
even after that when he is constantly struggling to fight against his haunting memories.
David and Alzheimer’s
Alzheimer’s is a disease that usually occurs in the later age where people tend to
forget things that are happening in the present (Dumanski et al 2016). However, David at his
later age faces the problem of Alzheimer’s where he has to deal with the images from the past
when he has suppressed under the shadow of holocaust. He is haunted by the breathtaking

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trrible memories of the time when men were slaughtered as if they were animals. He starts
living on the past. Gradually he grew accustomed with his thoughts and continued to survive.
An individual from the real life
There are character in real life who have somehow influenced Wachtel to weave a
complicated story on the lives of different people and connect them with a single thread.
Christine is an extremely relatable character and she completely reflects our modern world.
One of my friends Rebecca is like her who has chosen to be a disco-jockey, which is
happened to be a neglected profession and has gone against her parents and family to achieve
her aspiration. She is always differently dressed and wears loud make up and jewelry.

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References
Daukantaitė, D., Hefferon, K. and Sikström, S., 2016. The harmony in life scale complements
the satisfaction with life scale: expanding the conceptualization of the cognitive component
of subjective well-being. Social Indicators Research, 126(2), pp.893-919.
Dumanski, J.P., Lambert, J.C., Rasi, C., Giedraitis, V., Davies, H., Grenier-Boley, B.,
Lindgren, C.M., Campion, D., Dufouil, C., Initiative, T.E.A.S.D. and Pasquier, F., 2016.
Mosaic loss of chromosome Y in blood is associated with Alzheimer disease. The American
journal of human genetics, 98(6), pp.1208-1219.
Helmreich, W.B., 2017. Against all odds: Holocaust survivors and the successful lives they
made in America. Routledge.
Louis, H.I., 2017. Between Illusion and Reality in the Dream Factory. In First of the Year:
2010 (pp. 199-204). Routledge.