Though only one family is named in the tide of The Magnificent Ambersons, the relationships between members of the Amberson, Minafer, and Morgan families really drive the action of the novel, provoke its dramatic interest, and provide the thematic insights which lift the work well above the typical sentimental bestseller of the early 1900s.

Major Amberson establishes great wealth through land holdings and rental houses. This fortune allows his family to live in leisured luxury. His daughter Isabel marries Wilbur Minafer, though she really loves Eugene Morgan, another suitor who loses her through a cheerful drunken escapade uncharacteristic of his true good nature. Wilbur is business-minded, dull, and ever-so-steady as a husband. A chastened Eugene leaves town to forget disappointment and seek new horizons.

Isabel and Wilbur settle into a placid marriage, crowned by the birth of the cherished Amberson heir, George Amberson Minafer, upon whom she unstintingly...