housekeeping

A detailed Summary of housekeeping

In Housekeeping (1980), Marilyn Robinson provides a sense of women and the space and the domestic constraints of society. The story crosses several generations of women and their lives in a single house in a town named Fingerbone.

Ruthie is the main protagonist. She is a young woman who grew up in a household of women, beginning with her grandmother, then her great aunts, her aunt, and her only sister. But the house in which they were all trapped in one way or another was built by and for a man. He was a child of the plains who longed for the mountains, and the site of the house was his dream, not theirs. The isolation of the house physically paralleled the emotional isolation of all the characters.

Indeed, the tone of the narration by Ruthie is emotionally flat. Despite the level of tragedy which is continually visited on the family, the language and the flavor of the conversation is highly unemotional and detached. From the perspective of showing an important characteristic of the narrator, her lack of emotion in general, it is rather a boring effect for the reader. It keeps the protagonist distanced from the very audience which should be sympathetic to her.

Sylvie is the breath of fresh air in an otherwise stagnant world. But it quickly becomes apparent that she will probably not stay forever. Lucille is a child who is likely to stay put, but Ruthie responds to Sylvie's suppressed wanderlust. At last they have a source of information about their mother, about the larger world. Sylvie was the opposite of the oppressive atmosphere of the town and the house. Both closed in on a person, making them small. But Sylvie had broken away before, and neither the town nor the house had any real power over her.

The climactic series of events which ended up tearing the family apart truly was Ruthie's joining Sylvie in an overnight jaunt which started with a stolen rowboat for a chance to look at the train submerged in the lake holding her grandfather's remains and the eventual ride back into town on a freight train. That set the ladies of the town to trying to see that Ruthie did not herself succumb to being a transient. Under the threat of having the state take Ruthie from Sylvie, both decided to flee together. They first tried to burn down the house, but it did not burn. They escaped by walking at night across the railroad bridge, and were subsequently presumed dead. For the rest of their lives they wandered from place to place, rootless. Ruthie took up the life that Sylvie led, and both drifted around, never seeing Lucille again.

ownward progression. Ruthie and her sister Louise came to live in the house after first her grandfather died in a train wreck which pitched the train into a local lake, then her mother committed suicide after dropping the girls off with their grandmother. No reason for this action is given, nor do the characters seem to particularly care. Five years later, their grandmother, who had little emotional connection with the girls also di

Some common words found in the essay are:
Sylvie Ruthie's, Sylvie Lucille, Fingerbone Ruthie, Ruthie Sylvie, Ruthie Ruthie, Marilyn Robinson, Essentially Sylvie, ruthie sylvie, Housekeeping Housekeeping, sylvie lucille, railroad bridge, ruthie sylvie lucille, sense loss,

Approximate Word count = 1220
Approximate Pages = 5 (250 words per page double spaced)

Category: Novels