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Erica Arambula
Professor Ditch
English 113 B
8 May 2015
Identifying the Guernsey Family
Throughout many challenges that one may encounter throughout ones live, many people turn to
one another for moral support thus helping each other forget and overcome certain horrifying
obstacles. While doing this so, many people develop friendships and the sharing of caring acts
creates and introduces a new symbolic way of defining what family is. In the novel, The
Guernsey Literacy and Potato Peel Pie Society, there has been a community who have endured
emotional and for some physical pain because of the WW1. With the love of literature, many
people from the Guernsey society came together and socialized over books and of course with
the potato peel pie. As members from the literary society began the sharing of emotions with
love and care for one another, friendships grew closer thus progressing into a unique culture of
certain individuals flourishing into a sense of family. Although many people might believe
family are the people one is born and lived with, in the literacy society, members cultivated a
culture in a rapid and unexpected moment that connected and created a family which helped
cope with the effects of the war.
Guernsey becomes invaded by German soldiers using their food and homes to use as a sense of
comfort to help fight in the war. It tears Guernsey apart by making many live in fear with the
threat of being taken to prison or even killed. As an author named Juliet, writes to the some of

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the members from the Guernsey society, she soon becomes astonished and wants to find out
more of how the book club came about and the reason of how members of the community
became family. Furthermore, members from the literacy society contributed to helping one
another by having discussions over books rather than what was happening outside with the wars
affect. On the contrary as Joshua Miller explains, Communities are poorly served when families
retreat into their home life to the exclusion of community engagement (29). Within the
Guernsey society, those who became a part of the literary society, showed that showing up and
contributing in helping one another out constructed integrity for each other, therefore offering
and embracing the family that developed. By interacting with one another, those who were
involved in the literary society, often contributed to coping with the after war effects with
positive solutions, thus strengthening and successfully applying ways to furthermore enhance the
book club as an effective coping method.
When the literacy society is created through the love of literature, it bonds those who are
coping with the war and while many are facing their own difficulties, a strong supporting
community evolves. As Barbra A Brahm and Chester J Bowling states , Communities need to
develop and maintain consistent, ongoing, repeated messages in support of families they must be
known for being committed to putting families first in all areas of the community(3). When
Elizabeth; the founder of the Guernsey and Potato Peel Pie Society, was sent to prison for the
love of a German soldier and having a child with him named Kit. Leaving Kit to the members of
the society, Adelaide said in a letter to Juliet, The Literacy Society raised that child as its owntoting her around from house to house the babys maintenance was undertaken by Amelia
Margery, with other society members taking her out like a library book for several weeks at a
time (Shaffer & Barrow 82-83). Dawsey, Amelia and other members were committed in taking

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care of Kit, although to some members, she was the daughter of their friend Elizabeth, they took
care of Kit as if she was their own. Many families look out for one another and even if one might
not be blood related, for example in the Guernsey book club taking care of Kit, defined them as a
sense of a family.
Trust and the level of comfort play out a role in the literacy society, identifying those who look
out and care for one another when facing challenging times, which for many was coping with the
wars outcome. The sharing of deep conversations as well of contributes to how close of
relationships one has with one another, building bonds among those who may not be biologically
related. For example a women named Remy, connects with Elizabeth while being in the
horrifying concentration camp. Being sent to somewhere where one might know anyone, may be
scary to some and might feel alone although one is being surrounded by others who are going
through the same thing. For Remy and Elizabeth not to know each other but yet grew closer than
in a short amount of time before Elizabeth got killed. Remy states, We stood there, hand in
hand, until the darkness came I do not think of anyone outside such a place could know how
much that meant to me, to spend such a quiet moment together (179). Meeting someone for the
first time that helped one cherish a moment in such a horrific place, symbolizes a deeper sense
into how friendships that become established in short amount of time amplifies a new meaning
of family within Elizabeth and Remy. In other words, Elizabeth presents what the literacy society
was about and therefore helping each other to cope with the war such as Elizabeth did with
Remy, identifies some characteristics of the Guernsey family.
When The Guernsey members got the attention from the author Juliet, she too felt the connection
as she wrote a letter to her publisher Sidney, All those people Ive come to know and even love

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a little waiting to see me I knew them by their letters (Shaffer & Barrows 159-160). Juliet has
built new friendships through letters and although she did not know them in person, the
connection she and the Guernsey family built gave Juliet room to be a part of too. Going into
deeper understanding, the Guernsey family resembled a family that was shown in the
documentary Happy. Many members of this community struggled to make ends meet and by
coming together each family that was living under a big house went to show that although many
of them did not know each other; the community helped, cared and supported one another. Both
in the Guernsey society and the community that was shown in the documentary Happy, many
were all strangers to one another but through hard times, they came together, valuing each other
symbolizing a different way of defining family. As stated in the article Culture and
communication, Kurylo states, In your personal relationships, professional lives, and
interactions with strangers you are regularly involved in intercultural and cultural
communications (5). I believe in both the Guernsey family and the families in the documentary
happy, seemed to have developed a culture in which the way both members from each
community expressed themselves. It enlightened the idea of the way each communicated with
each other and other strangers identified the representation of a new definition of what many
families are about which was the interactions and effort each had into showing full potential to
help their well-being as well as others.
Being a family takes a lot of effort and in many families there may two types of family. There is
the immediate family and then the extended family which is; the neighborhood, community, etc.
The Guernsey members were indeed an extended family but coping with the war together with
using literature as a sanctuary in the book club, brought them into becoming immediate family.
As stated from an interview in the article, Changing families/Changing communities, a lady

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said, Were very fortunate we have strong neighborhood ties. So we have several families that
we socialize with, besides the book club Thats a nice community to be in, nice people with
good values and thoughtful gestures, good friends (Roos, Trigg & Hartman 10). Even though
many of the members from the Guernsey family, did have biologically family, the community
that was built upon the literacy society defined them as a family with the sharing and caring acts
one did for one another.
The wars effects on the Guernsey society may have teared the community apart with the
psychical and mental pain many suffered, but with the book club taking full effect on presenting
a safe but rather comfortable environment in for those who did attend the book club meetings. A
Kurlyo states in Culture and Communication, A culture is any group of people that share a way
of lifeway of life refers to the aspects of a culture that make up the life of its members
including language, norms and values (1). When coping with the war, the literacy society
opened doors for those who were trying to forget what was going on at the moment. I believe
those who were part of the Guernsey family created a norm in which each valued each others
presence signifying a tradition in which identifies as a way of living and the sharing of emotions.
Therefore the sharing emotions connects people through both good and bad times, developing
friendships which increasingly becomes defined as being part of a family who arent necessarily
blood-related.
Although many people might disagree that family is defined in different ways and those who one
have connected with in all sorts of level, whether it is same interests or even the slightest
emotional connection, in the literacy society the building of trusting bonds and close friendships
id what I have now identified as the Guernsey family. There were righteous acts of looking out

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for one another and that was when members of the literacy society introduced a new perspective
of different ways family can be defined.

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Works Cited
Brahm A. Barbara, Bowling, Building Caring Communities to Support Families. Ohio State
University Extension and the Ohio State University, 2009. Web. 31 March 2015
Hartman, Mary, Mary Trigg, and Patricia Roos. "CHANGING FAMILIES/CHANGING
COMMUNITIES: Work, Family and Community in Transition1." Community, Work & Family,
9.2 (2006): 19
Happy. Dir. Roko Belic. Perf. Marci Shimoff, Gregory Berns, Richard Davidson and Ed
Diener. Netflix Documentary, 2011.
Kurylo Anastacia, Culture and Communication, Marymount Manhattan College. Print. 31 March
2015.
Miller, Joshua. "Family and Community Integrity." Journal of Sociology and Social Welfare,
28.4 (2001): 23-44.
Shaffer Mary Ann and Barrows Anne. The Guernsey Literacy Potato Peel Pie Society. Dial
Press Trade Paperbacks. 2009. 31 March 2015. Print.