Saroyan makes the family the background in his books. He shows how the family has its good and bad times together, how it separates after arguments and how it comes back together to work out its problems. Another theme is the leaving of a family member through death or through abandonment.

In Mama I Love You, the father and the mother of the main character divorce, which leaves the mother to support her daughter. Homer Macauley is a fourteen-year-old boy in Human Comedy who is struggling to support his family because his dad was killed two years ago. In One Day in the Afternoon of the World, Yep Muscat is a divorced writer in New York who is struggling in an effort to make some money.

All of the books have one main character in them with similarities that strive for the same things. Twink in Mama I Love You is the only one with any real good judgment, common sense, and wisdom. This prevents her mother, whom she refers to as "Mama Girl", from going crazy sometimes. Homer in Human Comedy is the link keeping his family from falling apart after the death of his father. Yep Muscat in One Day in the

Afternoon of the World uses other people to help him maintain his sanity as a writer.

Even through the arguments that Yep has between Laura and himself, they always come to forgiving and forgetting. Saroyan shows this also in Mama I Love You when Twink and Mama Girl argue. The two fight, but always realize the friendship between them and make up. It is also seen in Human Comedy when Homer and his mother argue about something, such as the war or them being poor. They always end up forgiving and forgetting.

liked Mama Girl, too." "Is it a hit with

Saroyan shows this mental block that Homer and Twink have, which prevents them from getting to see their fathers. No matter how hard Homer and Twink tried in their dreams, they could not get to where they wanted to be. Not being able to get there shows the distance each one has between their fathers. Twink's father is separated from her by divorce and Homer's father is separated from him by death. This separation agitates Homer and Twink and it causes them much anguish.

you two?" "Well so far it looks like it's

9. "William Saroyan." The Reader's Catalog.

Twink misses her dad and sometimes cannot comprehend why her father, whom she commonly refers to as "Papa Boy", had to divorce Mama Girl, take her brother Pete, and move to Paris. Twink has dreams about how life used to be in her family's home in California. She constantly thinks back to how she "would wake up from her bed and run into Mama Girl and Papa Boy's room so they could hold [her] and talk" (Mama 80). She sees Pete and asks him if what she sees is a dream. He tells her no and then she wakes up back in her room again in California, but unknowingly in another dream.

"Did you like Mama Girl?", I asked. "Yes I

Yep misses his ex-wife Laura deeply because of the companionship that he lost. Yep does not show Laura that until the end when she reads the book he wrote. Laura reads the climax of the book and realizes that Yep misses her. She starts to think that things might work out again and she might want to try it again, just like Mama Girl and Papa Boy did in Mama I Love You.

1. Balakian, Nona. "The World of William Saroyan." The New York Times.

Some common words found in the essay are:
Mama Girl, Human Comedy, Mama Love, Papa Boy, Girl Twink, mama girl, Homer Twink, Marcus Homer's, William Saroyan, Yep Laura, Homer Macauley, papa boy, mama love, human comedy, day afternoon world, day afternoon, afternoon world, william saroyan, main character, girl twink, mama girl twink, mama girl papa, boy pete, papa boy pete, saroyan mama love,
Approximate Word count = 2152
Approximate Pages = 9 (250 words per page double spaced)