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Central metaphor of St. Lucy's home for girls raised by wolves
Central metaphor of St. Lucy's home for girls raised by wolves
Central metaphor of St. Lucy's home for girls raised by wolves
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Forced Assimilation in Russell’s “St. Lucy’s Home for Girls Raised by Wolves” “St. Lucy’s Home for Girls Raised by Wolves” is a short story written by Karen Russell and published in 2006 as part of an anthology. Much analysis on this short story presents it as a demonstration of opposites, for instance, “Girls and wolves don't make sense [together] because they belong to different realms” (Malin 172). Some say that this short story is a commentary on humanity’s “civilized existence [and] primitive warfare,” however, a more in depth reading of this story remains (Malin 172). The story is broken into five parts labeled as stages; each stage demonstrates the progression of the girls moving from a werewolf culture to a human culture within a Catholic boarding school, starting with wearing clothes, eating cooked foods, changing language and …show more content…
The wolf girls struggle to reconcile this new way of life with the way they were raised and push back against this forced assimilation. While this story is fantasy based it can be interpreted as historical criticism in regards to the wars between European settlers and American Indians. Aliken to the wolves, Native Americans have a unique culture that is carefully intertwined with nature. In the late 19th and 20th centuries Native American children were forcibly taken from their homes and forced to assimilate to a white American world within Catholic schools. “St. Lucy’s Home for Girls Raised by Wolves” is symbolic with the assimilation of the werewolf girls into human culture of how Catholic boarding schools and the American Government forced
Kek, the main character in Katherine Applegate’s Home of The Brave, struggles to find belonging as a Sudanese refugee living in Minnesota. Kek tries to help hope win the battle between fear, and successfully, during Part Two of the story, Kek begins to make some forward progress. But Keks cycle of belonging has not ended, and I am sad to say that Kek is still alienated from America as much as he belongs in America.
The three main characters, Elijah, Xavier and Niska are losing their culture gradually throughout the novel. The Europeans tries to obliterate the Cree culture by setting up residential schools, which are schools that First Nations attend to learn the European culture and forget their own. All of the three main characters, Elijah, Xavier and Niska go through the residential school. At the school, children are not allowed to speak in their own tongue or they will be punished. As Niska describes, “When I was caught speaking my tongue, they'd for...
“St. Lucy's Home for Girls Raised by Wolves” by Karen Russell is a story about Claudette and her pack of wolf sisters learning how to adapt to the human society. Claudette starts off the program with a mentality of a wolf, like the rest of the girls. As she progresses into individual stages, she starts to change and adapt towards different characteristics of the human mentality. She shows good progress towards the human side based on what the Jesuit Handbook of Lycanthropia Culture Shock describes on behalf of what is suspected of the girls. But at the end of the story, Claudette is not fully adapted to the human society and mentality.
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 wolves being trained by nuns to be more human in character is a symbol for immigration, as the girls are forced to make major changes in their lives in order to fit in with their new environment and adapt to a new culture.
Perpetuation of Native American Stereotypes in Children's Literature Caution should be used when selecting books including Native Americans, due to the lasting images that books and pictures provide to children. This paper will examine the portrayal of Native Americans in children's literature. I will discuss specific stereotypes that are present and should be avoided, as well as positive examples. I will also highlight evaluative criteria that will be useful in selecting appropriate materials for children and provide examples of good and bad books. Children will read many books as they grow up.
Mary Rowlandson’s “A Narrative of the Captivity and Restoration of Mrs. Mary Rowlandson” and Benjamin Franklin’s “Remarks Concerning the Savages of North America” are two different perspectives based on unique experiences the narrators had with “savages.” Benjamin Franklin’s “Remarks Concerning the Savages…” is a comparison between the ways of the Indians and the ways of the Englishmen along with Franklin’s reason why the Indians should not be defined as savages. “A Narrative of the Captivity…” is a written test of faith about a brutally traumatic experience that a woman faced alone while being held captive by Indians. Mary Rowlandson views the Indians in a negative light due to the traumatizing and inhumane experiences she went through namely, their actions and the way in which they lived went against the religious code to which she is used; contrastingly, Benjamin Franklin sees the Indians as everything but savages-- he believes that they are perfect due to their educated ways and virtuous conduct.
Lucy’s Home for Girls Raised by Wolves.” The story is about a group of girls that are raised by a family of wolves. They have lived in caves all their lives and do not know how to behave and interact like humans. They had no authority in the cave and were treated as a pack. There was no compromising or respect because everyone was treated equally. With this being said they are sent away to St. Lucy’s church, and the girls are taught how to adapt to a new environment. The girls are unsure how to act in the new environment, “It was impossible to make the blank, chilly bedroom feels like home. In the beginning we drank gallons of bathwater as part of a collaborative effort to mark our territory… we couldn’t mark our scent here it made us feel invisible” (Russell 270). The transformation is tough as they learn to become more “civilized” in society and abandon their old habits and family values. The setting helps to display how different the girls acted before they got moved to the church. The cave was their home and that’s all they knew. They were unaware of the outside world and who they truly
This is juxtaposed with the various aspects of British culture imposed on Lucy’s home island. As a child, Lucy attended “Queen Victoria Girls’ School” (Page 18), a school...
In a desperate attempt to discover his true identity, the narrator decides to go back to Wisconsin. He was finally breaking free from captivity. The narrator was filling excitement and joy on his journey back home. He remembers every town and every stop. Additionally, he admires the natural beauty that fills the scenery. In contrast to the “beauty of captivity” (320), he felt on campus, this felt like freedom. No doubt, that the narrator is more in touch with nature and his Native American roots than the white civilized culture. Nevertheless, as he gets closer to home he feels afraid of not being accepted, he says “… afraid of being looked on as a stranger by my own people” (323). He felt like he would have to prove himself all over again, only this time it was to his own people. The closer the narrator got to his home, the happier he was feeling. “Everything seems to say, “Be happy! You are home now—you are free” (323). Although he felt as though he had found his true identity, he questioned it once more on the way to the lodge. The narrator thought, “If I am white I will not believe that story; if I am Indian, I will know that there is an old woman under the ice” (323). The moment he believed, there was a woman under the ice; He realized he had found his true identity, it was Native American. At that moment nothing but that night mattered, “[he], try hard to forget school and white people, and be one of these—my people.” (323). He
Native American children were physically and sexually abused at a school they were forced to attend after being stripped from their homes in America’s attempt to eliminate Native peoples culture. Many children were caught running away, and many children never understood what home really meant. Poet Louise Erdich is part Native American and wrote the poem “Indian Boarding School: The Runaways” to uncover the issues of self-identity and home by letting a student who suffered in these schools speak. The poem follows Native American kids that were forced to attend Indian boarding schools in the 19th and 20th centuries. By using imagery, allusion, and symbolism in “Indian Boarding School: The Runaways”, Louise Erdrich displays how repulsive Indian
In Crow Lake, Mary Lawson portrays a family who experience a great tragedy when Mr. and Mrs. Morrison are killed in a car accident. This tragedy changes the lifestyles of the seven years old protagonist Kate Morrison and her siblings Matt, Luke and Bo. The settings are very important in this novel. Though there are limited numbers of settings, the settings used are highly effective. Without effective use of themes in this novel, the reader would not have been able to connect with the characters and be sympathetic. Lawson uses an exceptionally high degree of literary devices to develop each character in this novel.
I read the book Lonesome Howl, which is a drama book and a love story. The book was about two main character whose names are Jake and Lucy. They lived with their family in two different farms, but in the same community besides a mountain covered in a big wicked forest where many rumors took place. The farmers around the place lost many sheep’s since a feral beast. It was a quite small community and a lot of tales was told about it to make it even more interesting. Lucy was 16 years old and lived with her strict father and a coward of mom who didn’t dare to stand up for her daughter when she were being mistreated and slapped around by her father. Lucy was a retired and quite teenager because of that. She had a younger brother whose name was Peter. Peter was being bullied in school and couldn’t read since the education of Peter was different compare too Lucy’s. She helped him in school and stood up for the mean bullies, although all she got in return was him talking bullshit about her with their cruel dad which resulted with her getting thrash.
“St. Lucy’s Home for Girls Raised by Wolves”, by Karen Russell is the story of a pack of human girls who were born of werewolves. They are taken from their families in the wilderness and brought to a St. Lucy’s. It was here that they were to be civilized. The process of civilization involved stripping them of their personal and cultural identities and retraining them in a manner that was acceptable to the human world. This is a close analogy to the Residential Schools of Cultural Assimilation for native Americans from 1887 to the early 1950’s.
In “A Narrative of the Captivity and Restoration of Mrs. Mary Rowlandson,” Mary Rowlandson, a Puritan mother from Lancaster, Massachusetts, recounts the invasion of her town by Indians in 1676 during “King Philip’s War,” when the Indians attempted to regain their tribal lands. She describes the period of time where she is held under captivity by the Indians, and the dire circumstances under which she lives. During these terrible weeks, Mary Rowlandson deals with the death of her youngest child, the absence of her Christian family and friends, the terrible conditions that she must survive, and her struggle to maintain her faith in God. She also learns how to cope with the Indians amongst whom she lives, which causes her attitude towards them to undergo several changes. At first, she is utterly appalled by their lifestyle and actions, but as time passes she grows dependent upon them, and by the end of her captivity, she almost admires their ability to survive the harshest times with a very minimal amount of possessions and resources. Despite her growing awe of the Indian lifestyle, her attitude towards them always maintains a view that they are the “enemy.”
...the young girl prior to meeting the wolf, how the young girl strays from the ideals of femininity once she meets the wolf, and last, what is inherently not feminine as represented by the wolf and his masculine characteristics. The wolf does not naturalize masculine characteristics within the reader because he still acts somewhat like a wolf, he is used as a tool to further naturalize the ideals of femininity, by standing in stark contrast to them.