St. Lucy's Home for Girls Raised by Wolves, by Karen Russel Essay

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.

Karen Russell’s St Lucy’s Home for Girl Raised by Wolves is about a pack of wolf girls that are taught how to act civilized at St Lucy’s. Over the course of the story, there are three main wolf girls, Claudette, Jeanette, and Mirabella. At St Lucy’s the girls go through five stages. Some of the girls will either be ahead, stay at the same pace as, or be behind the program. The epigraph for Stage One suggests that the girls will have a new-found curiosity and excitement. It also suggests that they will enjoy the new environment that they’re placed in.

Besides the Native American, the girls in “St. Lucy’s Home for Girls Raised by Wolves” also had to become civilized. Along with becoming civilized, the girls were becoming experienced by learning how to adapt to the new surroundings. (Complex) According to Karen Russell, “Our own scent had become foreign in this strange place.”(St. Lucy’s) The girls had to learn how to be comfortable with the new surroundings; while also having to fight back the natural instinct that was happening. As stated in “St. Lucy’s”; “Mouth shut, shoes on feet. Do not chew on your new penny loafers. Do not.” (St. Lucy’s) Aside from learning how to fight back the natural instinct, the girls were in training to attain how to verbalize. In brief statement, the “St. Lucy’s”

The second epigraph of St. Lucy’s Home for Girls Raised By Wolves refers to a “Stage 2” from the Jesuit Handbook on Lycanthropic Culture Shock. According to the text, in this stage, the wolf-girl pack will realize that they are required to make an effort to adapt to their new environment and begin the stressful process of integrating themselves into the host culture. During this period, the epigraph explains, students may feel frustrated, depressed, confused, out-of place, or somewhat insecure, reminiscing about their old home and ways of life. Stage 2 marks an important phase in the development of the pack as a character, and of the wolf-girls as individuals.

The story of St. Lucy’s Home for Girls Raised by Wolves by Karen Russell, demonstrates several types of individuals which a society holds. For instance, there is the independent type of character, they are the ones who do not like to go with the flow. In the story, it was portrayed by one of the main characters named Mirabella, the youngest among fifteen girls. Another, are those types that go along with the norms, they are the individuals who generally do what the society approves of, and no qualms associating with others. It was exemplified by another main character, Jeanette, the girl who easily adopted the human ways. Lastly, those who lies in the middle, these are the types of people whose eyes are open and could understand how to “read the map and navigate the ship”, which was put into character by the girl named Claudette, who’s the narrator as well. The portrayal of social classes propelled me to choose this story, which led me to analyze and restate for better understanding of the underlying messages which the author wants to relay to its readers. Though it has a bit of fantasy incorporated in the story by adapting the characters of werewolves, it even highlighted its purpose to explain the author’s ideas. For that, I inferred that the main argument which the author wants to share is that even a maverick in an extreme condition can be subject to conformity, given the chance for rehabilitation or training to become adapted to the norms behaviors.

In “Leave Your Name At the Border” by Manuel Munoz, he talks about how immigrants are in a sense forced to change their name to something more American so that it will be easier not only for the people around that don’t speak Spanish, but so that it would be easier for them to get jobs. Manuel talks about how it would also be helpful for them to learn English because it would be beneficial to them getting higher in the workplace. “Clear communication meant you could go unsupervised. Every gesture made toward convincing an employer that English was on its way to being mastered had the potential to make a season of fieldwork

Unconsciously, we all speak different languages; we categorize the way we speak by the environment and people at which we are speaking too. Whenever a character enters an unfamiliar environment, they experiment with language to find themselves and understand reality. For immigrants, language is a means to retain one’s identity; however, as they become more assimilated in their new communities their language no longer reflects that of their identity but of their new cultural surroundings. When an immigrant, immigrates to a new country they become marginalized, they’re alienated from common cultural practices, social ritual, and scripted behavior. It’s not without intercultural communication and negotiation

The growth of English language has increased tremendously over the years and has become the most widely spoken languages in the United States. This observation aims to explore why when moving to the United States, many non-English speakers feel the social pressure to learn English and what difficulties they encounter. After my observation, I found that many feel the need to learn English in order to assimilate into a community, and though straddling two languages is difficult, it opens more opportunities, and language privilege.

The epigraphs in St. Lucy's Home for Girls Raised by Wolves are intended to give information as to what development the wolf-girls of the school will experience. The information they give us typically concerns the actions the girls may perform and the feelings they might experience by telling us the stage that they are at in their transition. With the exception of Mirabella, all the information we're given concerning the girls matches up with the quotes's corresponding epigraph. Epigraph two and it's sequential text is no different.

Another reason is that children learn a language by imitating the sounds they hear (mimicry) without an accent. This enables children to obtain a correct diction. Here a child has a positive experience and is able to assimilate with ease. On the other hand, an elderly person will find the learning process a challenge and to a certain extent the situation might even be so burdensome that one loses interest in learning. In Amy Tan?s speech My Mother?s English, she explains the difficulties her mother faced because she (Tan?s mother) was unable to clearly express herself. She (Tan) also felt the effects of this as a child. Not only did Tan?s mother find speaking English a barrier in the process of assimilation, but Tan herself felt her mother limited her perception (Tan 45). Since Tan?s mother was unable to speak English properly people would not give her good service and would not treat her seriously even to the extant that people ?pretended not to understand her or even acted as if they did not hear her,?(Tan 45). This is just one example of many that shows how some people have had negative experiences assimilating into American society.

How I feel about the argument in the text of learning english is it would be hard to do daily tasks around the community. The argument thats been amplified to know is to speech the language is everything. A assumption about learning english is people want to study the language to have a better career to start a better life there are programs like ELS allowing immigrant and refuges to study english as their second language. However, ESL program takes time to learn and immigrant and refuges don’t have the time with the long hours of work to the busy schedules. A viewpoint about learning a new language would be very hard on me and the pressure of feeling like the outsider of a new country. The purpose for me to read about the language struggle

Life as an immigrant in the U.S was not all that great. First, they had to learn English

Upon first reading “St. Lucy’s Home for Girls Raised by Wolves,” it might seem like an imaginative fantasy and nothing else. The story focuses on the daughters of a pack of werewolves, and it takes place in a world where the werewolves and their daughters are nothing out of the ordinary. But upon closer examination, this is a story rooted in reality. This inventive tale parallels several real world phenomena. Karen Russell uses allegory in “St. Lucy’s Home for Girls Raised by Wolves” to objectify western society’s views of people outside of that society and of outsiders in general, and compare them to the views that people have of wild animals.

In “Monster Culture”, Jeffery Cohen develops an idea that “monsters” are essential to society. In fact, they construct what is “normal”, “rational”, and “civilized”. Specifically, “monsters” are foundational to how we view ourselves. “Monsters” contain all the traits deemed unacceptable and odd. It can be concluded that every outlier is a “monster”. In St. Lucy’s Home for Girls Raised by Wolves, Karen Russell tells the story of a pack of wolf girls who are transitioning into young ladies. Russell delves into society’s need for conformity, gender roles, and change. The story is told from the point of view of the middle wolf girl, Claudette, and follows her on her journey from wolf to woman. In relation to Jeffery Cohen’s idea of monster culture, Claudette’s journey applies to Thesis IV “The Monster Dwells at the Gates of Difference” and part of Thesis I “The Monster’s Body is a Cultural Body”. Claudette is torn between two worlds and she has to learn how to successfully “move between the two cultures”. Through Cohen’s theses, Karen Russell uses character development and dialogue to depict the inner and outer battle of societal femininity and individualized femininity and the decision of accepting either side. The presence of “monsters” are essential for this acceptance.

It is important for immigrants to learn to speak and write in English while keeping their native tongue. Without knowing how to speak the common language here, it is impossible to blend