The Skin of Our Teeth

Although the notion of the American nuclear family is most popularly associated with the postwar period of the late 1940s and 1950s, it existed as an idealized structure as early as the late-18th century. The term originated in the mid-1920s and is derived from the word “nucleus,” referring to a core family group (as opposed to extended family), consisting of a father, a mother, and children, in which each member adheres to strict gender roles. In The Skin of Our Teeth, the prioritization of the nuclear family (and their maid) is how the Antrobuses survive through cataclysmic events. As the father, George takes on the role as the hard-working breadwinner, an upstanding and respected citizen whose job in the domestic sphere is to govern the family. Maggie, the matriarchal paradigm of the family, is often the hidden labor behind her husband’s successes, and she protects their children above all else. They expect their children to follow in their gender-appropriate footsteps to uphold the image of the perfect family, both to themselves and to society around them, even as society falls over and over in apocalyptic events. In the second act, when pairs of animals are loaded into the ark, the implication is that reproduction is mandatory as a condition of being allowed to survive.