St. Lucy's Home For Girls Raised By Wolf Chapter Summary

St. Lucy’s home is a home for girls to go to when they have been raised by wolves. They go there to gain skills and manners that they weren’t taught growing up. During their visit, they go through five stages to become more human. Some girls change and improve, but others do not and they stay the same. Something happens with Mirabella and she did not improve during her visit.

Ostensibly, “St. Lucy’s Home for Girls Raised by Wolves” is a story about the human daughters of a pack of werewolves trying to learn the

Throughout the whole story Mirabella’s sister have started to go through a lot of changes.They started acting human, especially Claudette. Once they were told they could go back to their home and visit their family in stage five Claudette was actually quiet sad. She was happy acting differently than a wolf and being to do human things. And for once Claudette actually told a human lie “So,” I said, telling my first human lie,”I’m home.” (Russell

From enthusiastic and on board with the life she lives, to not enjoying it and wanting to stop, Jeanette Walls life changes over the time of the book. Jeanette grew up with siblings, Brian, Lori and Maureen. She had a hard childhood constantly moving and not being able to make friends and did not have a lot of food. Her father was an alcoholic and could not hold a job, and her mother was a teacher who wanted to be an artist. She always dreamt big and had a lot of hope for the future but that changes in the book.

Jeannette’s untraditional upbringing causes her to be constantly moving and living a life closer to nature. An excerpt from the book:

One of her weaknesses was pets, such as her cat Quixote. Jeannette also loved her pets, but her parents did not appear to connected with them. One time when the Walls family was trying to skedaddle, Jeannette brought along her cat Quixote. However, the cat grew uncomfortable in the car and started to panic. Her mom stated that she did not wanted Jeannette to be sentimental about the cat, so they threw the cat out of the car into the wilderness. “Quixote landed with a screeching meow and a thud, Dad accelerated up the road, and I burst into tears”. (pg. 18). Additionally, another one of Jeannette’s weaknesses is her feelings towards dad. She always had a soft spot for her father, as they had a special bond with each other. However, her patience for her dad quickly grew then as he would constantly spend money on alcohol, and return home drunk. One time, when her mom left for two months, Jeannette was given $200 and had to budget it for two months. However, her father would ask for a small amount of money at first for alcohol. Jeannette knew that she should not cave in and give him the money, however, she seemed to always submit to her father. Jeannette’s weakness repetitively showed up throughout her adventure. At times she would admit her weaknesses, and realized she needed to grow from them. Jeannette’s weakness showed that while she may be a strong character, she does have

In Karen Russell’s short story, St. Lucy’s Home for Girls Raised by Wolves, a group of girls raised by wolves have learn how to adapt to a new environment and a new culture. From being raised by wolves, to being ordered by Catholic nuns, it is obvious that the theme of change is unchanging. From the beginning, the wolf-girls do not get along. For instance, Claudette never liked Mirabella, simply because she would do thing to agitate the other girls. On the other hand, the entire pack hated Jeanette because she was successful and extremely disrespectful to the other wolves. Throughout the text, it is obvious that the girls had a hard time adapting to their new environment. Afterall, giving up an old way of life for a new one is a difficult strange stage of life that almost everyone will have to deal with at one point or another.

In Stage One, Claudette’s relation to the epigraph is that she explores her new environment. She stated, “Everything was new, exciting, and interesting” (Russell, 238). She adapts to human society in this stage by wearing human clothes and eating cupcakes. In the animal kingdom, cupcakes are not considered animal food; they are more of a human food. Claudette has not

In any case, she close that getting a handle on and revealed to herself it was a phase 3 thought; to "dismiss their host culture" (Russell 244). Additionally, in light of the fact that Mirabella picked not to accommodate, the nuns chose they needed to accomplish something, "a something so terrible that no one needed to accept accountability for it" (Russell 245). The story expresses that Claudette needed to help her sister, yet she was blinded by being in Stage 3, that she created detest for her sister since she would not acclimate. Claudette trusted that in the event that she indicated Mirabella empathy, she could never

In stage one Claudette will adapt to new environment. “That first afternoon, the nuns gave us free rein of the grounds. Everything was new, exciting, and

Lucy’s. Claudette, the average student, is learning to stray away from her animal instincts by staying away from Mirabella, the main problem student; “I snatched the bread away from Mirabella…. Mirabella gave chase, nipping at my heels…. After that I spent less time with Mirabella.” Also, Claudette refuses to comfort Mirabella while she is covered in splinters; “Lick your own wounds,’ I said not unkindly….. The nuns had instructed us to say;” The pack, as a whole, is learning how to adapt by doing everyday activities such as riding a bike;” we’d ride bicycles uphill…grim-faced nun pedaling behind each one of us.” Another activity the learned, was how to play checkers;” The purebred girls were making mistakes on purpose in order to give us an advantage.” Learning the human culture is a main component of adapting;” we understood this was the human’s moon…” The pack learns more about the human culture from their choir director, then from the nuns;” She showed us how to pattern the old hunger into arias.” As the girls start to grant their parents’ wishes of adapting to change, they then start to develop with those

“St Lucy’s Home for Girls Raised by Wolves” by Karen Russell is a story of a group of lycanthropic sisters who go to a school to adjust to human culture. Through Claudette, the main character and narrator, the story is told throughout five stages of lycanthropic culture shock. Claudette’s personality changes drastically throughout these stages and her narration gives a deep insight into this. Claudette’s state of reform at the end of her schooling is very arguable as several incidents in the text differ in idea.

Since Claudette is still strongly connected to her pack, she is still strongly attached to her wolf like manners and culture. She still functions together with her sisters like one big group, and always makes the same decisions as a whole. Claudette does match the epigraph because Claudette explains how everything is “new, exciting, and interesting.”

One and the other “St. Lucy’s” and The Native Americans had to learn and memorize a new way of life. “There was repression on tribal languages” states Brenda J. Child author of “Boarding School Seasons: American Indian Families, 1900-1940”, this happened to the Native Americans by surprise they did not think the early Americans repress their language, leaving the Indians unhappy(boarding schools). The nuns in “St. Lucy’s” taught the girls how to speak and write english, the girls did not enjoy learning this but in the end they learned it (“St. Lucy’s”). “Europeans enforced there own rules and regulations among the American Indians culture” says Dr. C. Blue Clark of Oklahoma City University School of Law(assimilation). Much like this the girls in “St.

The short story “St. Lucy's Home for Girls Raised by Wolves” contains several stages, each stage describes how the girls will feel once they reach that particular stage. As each stage progresses the student will be closer to being human. In this short story our narrator also known as Claudette goes through these stages we see how these statements in the stages are correct. So we know that the girls will feel uncomfortable, irritated, isolated, bewildered, and depressed.