Karan Russell “St. Lucy Home for Girls’ Raised by Wolves” is an abstruse baffling short story, that embrace a human-like wolf pack to be taught into a human. The pack consist of three main captivating characters, Claudette, Jeanette, and Mirabella. This illusive narrative contains five epigraphs, which is a short quotation that is intended to suggest the theme of a story. Although the epigraph for this short story sometimes stay true to its word, but it is not always the complete truth, as readers would be in for a wild ride. Throughout Stages One to Five, the nuns continue their preaching through the guidance of the handbook, The Jesuit Handbook on Lycanthropic Culture Shock, which is supposedly meant as a guide toward the conversion of custom …show more content…
Claudette is an average normal wolf girl that is “...Not great and not terrible, solidly middle of the pack” (232). During this stage, she begins to show her own personality, like when she was remembering the “river and meat” (229) and how she felt disoriented to “look down and see two square-toed shoes instead of my own four feet” (229). The introductory on Claudette as an individual developed her as feeling uncomfortable towards the new lifestyle, but at the same time not opposing it. Meanwhile Jeanette and Mirabella are like polar opposites and they couldn’t be more different from each other. Jeanette is one of those goody kids and was the “most successful [out] of us” (232) as she is shown to blend in flawlessly into the new customs. In addition, she was among the first in the pack to, “apologize; to drink apple juice out of a sippy cup; to quit eyeballing the cleric’s jugular in a disconcerting fashion” ( 232). Jeanette was able to follow and even exceed the expectation of the handbook. On the other side, Mirabella is known as a troublemaker and to the extent of being shot with a tranquilizer dart at the end of Stage One. Nevertheless she continued to show her obnoxious stubborn behavior in Stage Two. For instance when Mirabella “rip foamy chunks out of the church pews and replace them with ham bones and girl dander” (230). The action emphasizes the
For example, Sister Maria says, “you must be patient with them”(226) and “Stage 1 can be a little over stimulating”(229). These examples show how the girls are guaranteed to change and develop into their new lives. During this stage all the girls will experience new things as they develop and become aware of their new
There are many literary devices used across stories. Color imagery is one of these literary devices that is used when colors give objects a symbolic meaning. In the short story “St. Lucy’s Home for Girls Raised by Wolves” by Karen Russell, girls who have been raised as wolves are thrust into the unknown as they are forced to adapt to human society. Their childhood was spent living with wolves, however they are taken in by nuns of St. Lucy’s who attempt to assimilate them into the human world through different phases. Throughout the story, color imagery is used to emphasize the key theme of unity, establish the conflicted tone, and metaphorically develop Claudette’s character.
In this stage she is expected to feel comfortable in the human culture, and everything in the human culture will start to make sense (Russell 240). Claudette does not match the expectation in this stage due to the Sausalito dance. When she got to the dance, she met Kyle, her brother. Their conversations were very awkward, she, “narrowed my eyes at Kyle and flattened [her] ears, something [she] hadn’t done for months” (Russell 242 and 243) because she had changed into a human. She naturally resorted to her wolf like instincts to flatten her ears when she was in this awkward conversation with Kyle, meaning she has not met the expectation of the stage.
This proves itself by how Claudette took on a large dose of self-confidence and independence. At the installation of the fourth section, Claudette ignored Jeanette’s need for help and continued with what she needed to accomplish for herself to be successful at the time. Claudette’s confidence and independence shows her understanding of situations and comfort in her new life. Further along in the fourth stage, when the Debutante Ball began, Claudette had her hair swept “back into high, bouffant hairstyles” and was “wearing a white organdy dress with orange polka dots” while eating fancy hors d’œuvres (Russell 242). This display of comportement further shows her confidence and acclimation to the human culture through her ability to stand the high class situation.
Character Analysis of Marie from “Puppy” by George Saunders In the short story “Puppy” by George Saunders, Marie is driving to Callie’s house to purchase a puppy for her children, Josh and Abbie. Throughout the drive to Callie’s, Marie is trying to connect with her children but they are not interested. Once Marie makes it to Callie’s home, we can see how judgmental she is when she talks about the uncleanliness and disorganization. She decides against purchasing the puppy after seeing Bo, Callie’s son, chained to a tree.
In “St. Lucy’s Home for Girls Raised by Wolves”, Claudette, Mirabella, and Jeanette is taken to a foreign place to adapt to human nature. They are taken through the process of 5 stages of becoming human. Claudette, the speaker of the story, is stuck between two faces, the human and the wolf face. While Claudette is in between these two worlds, she has fully conformed from wolf to human. She has completed the transformation from wolf to human because her own mother doesn 't recognize her, trying to make herself seem more like human, and not even caring about her own fellow wolf mates anymore.
and she acts like a good student it is only because of the school’s expectations. Claudette wants to return back to her wolf culture so she pretends to have
People who endure dislocation feel out of place and have many mixed emotions. Karen Russell’s “St. Lucy’s Home for Girls Raised by Wolves,” tells the story of a group of girls who suffer from lycanthropy including Jeanette, Claudette, and Mirabella. The “pack” of girls go through many stages to rehabilitate to their human identity. The girls experience culture shock and have to work as they progress through the stage.
Jeannette’s Tone Change As a result of maturing and learning new things, perspectives on people usually change. This is what happened with Jeanette Walls in her novel, The Glass Castle. Her initial attitude towards her father, Rex Walls, is loving, supportive, and faithful. However, when she is able to process how many times her father has let her down, her tone in the book changes to being very critical and clinical.
Claudette tried her best to adapt to the humans culture and all the feral children had spent months learning to assimilate into human culture. However, despite her perseverance through all these challenges, some of the wolf in them still remained. This would later cause Claudette to stand out in both societies due to the wolf characteristics that still remained (thus not fitting in with the human societies) and the human characteristics that she learned (thus not fitting in the the werewolf societies). Feral diction also appeared in the story when Claudette attempted to dance to sausalito with Kyle. When she stepped onto the dance floor, the panicked and the feral part of her returned; Russell writes, “I threw back my head, a howl clawing its way up my throat” (250).
They think they can bend the rules and do what they think is necessary. Jeannette is exposed to these understandings, making her the person she grew up to be. Jeanette demonstrates how she struggles with her family throughout numerous portions of the novel: “The Desert,” “Welch,” New York.” These struggles developed and defined who she came to be.
Not great and not terrible, solidly middle of the pack” (Russell 232). This idea of Claudette being a good but imperfect character connects to her relation to the Handbook, as she mostly follows along with its expectations but occasionally lags
Mowat’s rhetorical strategies Wolves for thousands of years have been one of man’s greatest enemies. In Farley Mowat’s book, published in 1963, he makes us rethink why we are still at war with this species. Never Cry Wolf is about Mowat’s adventure as he studies wolves in the Northern Canadian Plains. His research brought him to become friends with Eskimos and a small family of wolves that he’s learned to respect and love. During his six month period he learns that wolves have been wrongly judged and are not the beasts that they have been titled.
In the short story, “St. Lucy’s Home for Girls Raised by Wolves,” written by Karen Russell, a pack of wolf girls leave their home in the woods for St. Lucy’s in order to be able to live in human society. Within the story, Russell has included epigraphs before each stage from The Jesuit Handbook for Lycanthropic Culture Shock. This handbook was for the nuns at St. Lucy’s to help guide their students. Karen Russell included the epigraphs, short quotations at the beginning of a chapter intended to suggest a theme, from the handbook to help the reader understand what the characters might be feeling or how they will act in a certain stage. In Stage One, the epigraph closely relates to the characters’ development, yet doesn’t consider that the girls could be fearful in their new home due to interactions with the nuns.
In Stage One, Claudette exceeds the standards the handbook sets. The handbook says that the girls will experience new things, full of curiosity and wonder of what is to come (225). Claudette exceeds this description, along with most other members of the pack. Throughout Stage One, each member of the pack has great curiosity of their surroundings, leaving a destruct wake in their path. The girls “tore through the austere rooms, overturning dresser drawers, pawing through the neat piles of the Stage 3 girls’ starched underwear, [and smashed] light bulbs with [their] bare fists” (225).