In Martha Conway's words, Desperate Characters "has at its center the social upheaval—real or imagined" of the 1970s.[1] Signs of the collapse of the social order intrude into the Bentwoods' lives, mirroring the impending collapse of their marriage.[2] Although Sophie and Otto never actually suffer any severe harm over the weekend, this is itself a source of tension, creating unease and foreboding.[3] The suspense comes from the anticipation – both the Bentwoods' and the reader's – of "implosion."[4]
Franzen has also suggested that Desperate Characters should be "read in the context of a contemporary art scene whose aim is the destruction of order and meaning." The Bentwoods, highly cultured and literate, are tormented by "an overload of meaning," which ultimately resembles the absence of any meaning: they are "oppressed and finally overwhelmed by the way in which the most casual words and tiniest incidents feel like 'portents.'" Sophie and Otto's outbursts on Monday, therefore, are read as the Brentwoods "revolting against an unbearable, almost murderous sense of the importance of their words and thoughts."[2]
The novel also alludes to class and racial tensions – such as in a scene in which the Brentwoods uneasily allow a black man to use their home telephone. Fox has said of the novel, "There’s a kind of muted drumbeat, which is what racial tension always sounds like to me, except when it explodes."[5]
