Cracks Beneath the Surface: Deconstructing the Myth of the Perfect Suburban Family in Celeste Ng’s "Little Fires Everywhere"

Abstract

Celeste Ng’s "Little Fires Everywhere" (2017) dismantles the idealized image of the suburban family, exposing the inequalities concealed by middle-class privilege. Set in the planned community of Shaker Heights, the novel depicts the unraveling of the seemingly perfect Richardson family following their encounter with Mia Warren, an unconventional single mother. Drawing on Pierre Bourdieu’s concepts of habitus and cultural capital, this paper analyzes
suburban conformity as a marker of moral legitimacy and social power. In dialogue with Judith Butler’s theory of performativity, it further examines how family ideals function as fragile social constructs. Ultimately, the article argues that Ng exposes the myth of the “perfect” nuclear family as a mechanism that reproduces exclusion and systemic inequality in contemporary American
culture.