St. Lucy's Home For Girls Raised By Wolves Analysis

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.

Describe Jeannette’s childhood, specifically her socialization or the process by which she acquired family values, information about social expectations, and survival strategies.

To build “the gate of difference”, Russell makes Claudette resistant to the culture change. This

In every good initiation story the protagonist experiences a range of changes. In Karen Russell 's story “St. Lucy 's Home for Girls Raised by Wolves”, the protagonist Claudette is quickly submersed in a new world. She and her pack go from living with their lycanthrope parents in the woods, to being raised by nuns and taught to act human. She has to learn a whole new way to exist. She learns what to do, how to think, and how to become an individual. Karen Russell effectively shapes Claudette as a dynamic character. Throughout the story Claudette experiences changes in her personality and behaviors, producing a stark contrast in the end.

In this book the character, Claudette, is narrating the story of how the "wolf-children" learn to integrate and adapt into human society. By reading this short story, the question that if Claudette has successfully integrated into human society is clearly: yes. By Stage Claudette had already begun wearing two squared toed shoes instead of walking around barefoot and also learnt to keep hear moth shut when necessary. Claudette was one of the good girls, not bad but not good either, just in the middle because she didn't want to be hated for either being too good or being too bad. By the 3 stage, the nuns believed the girls should actually talk and socialize with human pure bread girls.

Claudette went to St. Lucy's home for girls to become a human. She changed drastically during her time there. By the time that Claudette had left and gone through all 5 stages, she went from wolf to fully human. Claudette becoming a human is showed by many different examples. Claudette became selfish, she spoke english, walked on two feet, and lied. These are all human traits that show that Claudette fully assimilated into becoming a

Whether one would like to admit it or not, change is a difficult and not to mention uncomfortable experience which we all must endure at one point in our lives. A concept that everyone must understand is that change does not occur immediately, for it happens overtime. It is necessary for time to pass in order for a change to occur, be it days, weeks, months, or even years. The main character, who is also the narrator of “St. Lucy’s Home for Girls Raised by Wolves”, realizing that “things felt less foreign in the dark” (Russell 225), knows that she will be subject to change very soon. The author makes it evident to readers that the narrator is in a brand new environment as the story begins. This strange short story about girls raised by

She realizes that it is not the same at St. Lucy's like how it was in the woods. “This wasn’t like the woods, where you had to be your fastest and your strongest and your bravest self. Different sorts of calculations were required to survive at the home.” (p.233) She was beginning to see that to be the best you had to adapt quickly or you won’t survive in the human world. She also began to wonder how people lived with themselves. She began to comprehend her surroundings more clearly and questioned them. “How can people live like they do? I wondered” (p.236) Claudette began to adapt but did not want to show it in the fear that she would be outcasted as Jeanette had been for adapting. “None of the pack besides me could read yet, and I wasn't ready to claim a common language with Jeanette.” (p.240) Claudette is able to think more human-like and has adapted

Because the key to change is acceptance and the girls, including the main narrator, do not fully accept themselves in their new way of life, the transition from a wolf to a human life is never complete, leaving them in a place where they feel they do not belong. As readers, “the growing pains, the victory over culture shock, are so suggestive that we don't know where our sympathies lie. [We don’t know if we] should… admire civilized existence or primitive warfare” (Irving

For example, throughout her childhood she never had a truly stable home. Her family was constantly moving from place to place around the country, and as her father said, “doing the skedaddle” whenever inconveniences arose, like debt collectors catching up to them or getting into trouble with the law. Second, her father always spent the majority of their money on beer and other alcoholic beverages at bars, and they frequently had no food to eat and were starving. The children often had to fend for themselves to find food when they were hungry without the assistance of their parents. Jeannette often subdued her and her siblings’ difficulties by taking charge of herself and her siblings to acquire food and by standing up for herself whenever it was necessary. For example, she stood up for herself whenever her mother was being selfish and pompous. Her mother would hide snacks and eat them secretly without sharing, and she would also spend days sobbing and complaining about how she had to do everything. During those times, Jeannette often took charge and directly criticized her mother about not doing her job. After her dad whipped her, Jeannette vowed to escape Welch for good and began saving up money to leave and move away. As a result of her struggles, over the years Jeannette had become very hard-working and diligent at whatever work she did. This lead her to become very successful in the future. She

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

To build “the gate of difference”, Russell makes Claudette resistant to the culture change. This resistance allows for growth and conflict. Readers can see the inner conflict Claudette faces through the

In this paper, I will explain how the article “The Lady and the Tramp (II): Feminist Welfare Politics, Poor Single Mothers, and the Challenge of Welfare Justice” by Gwendolyn Mink relates to the thematic focus of working women and the Marxist and socialist branch of feminism. In Feminist Thought: A More Comprehensive Introduction, Rosemarie Tong explains that Marxist and socialist feminists understand women’s oppression as a labor issue. Women’s work is not viewed as a productive contribution to society. One of the ways Marxist and socialist feminists sought to improve women’s oppression was through the wages-for-housework campaign of the 1970s, which fought for work done in the domestic sphere to be paid and respected by society. In this same vein, Mink’s article can be viewed as a continuation of sorts of the wages-for-housework campaign. Mink suggests that poor single mothers have the right for their work to be recognized by society and supported economically like the Marxist and socialist feminist in the 1970s.

In her transformation of the well-known fable "Little Red Riding Hood," Angela Carter plays upon the reader's familiarity. By echoing elements of the allegory intended to scare and thus caution young girls, she evokes preconceptions and stereotypes about gender roles. In the traditional tale, Red sticks to "the path," but needs to be rescued from the threatening wolf by a hunter or "woodsman." Carter retells the story with a modern perspective on women. By using fantasy metaphorically and hyperbolically, she can poignantly convey her unorthodox and underlying messages.

In Lucy, Jamaica Kincaid explores the disillusionment faced by the eponymous character upon immigrating to the United States. The novel's style of narration allows Lucy’s thoughts and emotions to remain hidden. Despite this intense privacy, Lucy's disillusionment is clear. She had hoped that moving around the globe would solve her problems but she still struggles with homesickness and her relationship with her mother. Her move is disappointing. The erasure poem And Coldest also engages disillusionment. The poem suggests the speaker has become disillusioned by observing the world, and indicates their plan to be “shut tight.” The poem inspired me to consider the causes of Lucy’s disillusionment, and her failure to address her own emotions. As a recent immigrant, the causes of Lucy’s disillusionment are somewhat obvious. More enigmatic is her self-avoidant, “shut tight” attitude. In this paper, I argue that Lucy’s disillusionment causes her to avoid the discomfort that comes with self-reflection.