Are Perspectives Reality? - Housekeeping by Marilynne Robinson

“Everything we hear is an opinion, not a fact. Everything we see is a perspective, not the truth,” said Roman emperor and philosopher Marcus Aurelius. 

Do our childhood experiences shape who we are and how we view the world? Maarten Bak from the Department of Psychiatry and Neuropsychology, Maastricht University in the Netherlands conducted a study with 4000+ members; concluding that early experience of trauma increases the risk of dysfunctional responses to anomalous experiences *. In the context of Housekeeping by Marilynne Robinson, Ruth’s childhood experiences influence her perception, distorting her attitudes and portrayals of other characters in the book; specifically Sylvie as the protagonist and Lucille as the antagonist. 

Ruth’s early life influences her decisions and her stories, the absence of a stable mother figure growing up created a need for a caregiver; a need so strong that she filled in the role with an inadequate guardian, Sylvie. Ruth also grows apart from her sister who recognized fundamental flaws in Sylvie’s behavior as a guardian. Robinson starts off the book by intimating the audience of the numerous guardians that Ruth and her sister Lucille went through. Ruth didn’t get the chance to say goodbye to her mother who dropped her and her sister off at their grandmother, Sylvia’s house and then drives into the lake, disappearing from their lives altogether. It is evident that she was detached from her mother as she constantly refers to her as ‘Helen’ and not ‘mom’ or ‘mother’. She was briefly brought up by Sylvia who died about five years after her mother did. Lily and Nona, her grandaunts, stayed with Lucille and Ruth soon after, but constantly spoke of shifting the burden of raising two teenagers to their estranged aunt Sylvie. Through Ruth’s interactions with Sylvie and Lucille, it is clear that her childhood trauma weighs on her sub-conscience; she constantly yearns for a motherly figure in her life. For example, when overhearing Lily and Nona talk about bringing Sylvie into their lives, Ruth says that she and Lucille “began to hope, if unaware, that a substantial restitution was about to be made,”(Robinson, Marilynne, 43) showing that they crave a motherly figure in their lives. Soon after Sylvie arrives, they flood her with questions about their mother: “Would you tell us about her?”(50) and the lack of an intimate relationship with a matriarch plays on her mind when she builds women out of snow, personifying them in her head for protection and comfort. Ruth has constant insecurity about being abandoned. When Sylvie goes out for a walk the morning after her arrival and when Sylvie leaves unexpectedly during their trip to the lake, “she isn’t coming back”(55) is the thought that replays in Ruth’s mind, forcing her to go look for Sylvie and hold on to the only parental figure she has in her life. When Ruth and Lucille see Sylvie out on the bridge, they expected to see her jump, assuming the lake would consume yet another family member. One of the major recurring themes in the book is dreams; she describes one where Sylvie is brushing her hair into ringlets - she yearns for motherly physical affection. This fear of being abandoned tied with her longing for stability shields her from the advice that Lucille gives her, telling her to leave the house as Sylvie is an unfit parent. Ruth zones out, blocking the thought of letting go of something she has wanted for so long, not even recognizing that it may be bad for her. This fear of being betrayed could also be the reason that Ruth doesn’t try to make new friends even after Lucille leaves, not wanting to be abandoned. Hence, we can conclude that Ruth’s insecurities hinder her from prioritizing or even recognizing what’s best for her. She perceives Sylvie as a role model and unquestioningly joins Sylvie as a transient showing either Sylvie’s strong influence on Ruth or Ruth’s destiny being that of a transient because of her childhood experiences in her hometown of Fingerbone. 

Because of her upbringing, Ruth has a desperate desire for a mother regardless of how good a parent they are. ’She is like a sister to me,’(182) Sylvie says in reference to Ruth. Sylvie may be a good friend but there are numerous instances in the book where she is an unfit guardian but because Ruth is the narrator, it is glossed over. Sylvie forced the family to stay secluded from the Fingerbone society, she claimed not to know anyone although she grew up in Fingerbone and ignored Lucille’s need to interact with others outside of the family. This is mirrored in Ruth’s behavior when she and Lucille went to the store and Ruth kept insisting to go back to their house. Sylvie doesn’t question Lucille and Ruth’s absenteeism in school and voluntarily writes them leave notes. She even later coaxes Ruth to stop studying and skip school to accompany her to the lake where she displays questionable behavior as a role model and steals a boat. Ruth’s mindset doesn’t find Sylvie’s behavior alarming at all but members of the Fingerbone society including the neighbors and the sheriff come to check on them repeatedly. They even brought them home-cooked food and warm clothes, all duties that should be performed by Sylvie the custodian. One could argue that Sylvie is so caught up in her own mind-space that she doesn’t even realize when Lucille and Ruth spend the night out in the forest, is reluctant to call the sheriff when Lucille moves out without an explanation and doesn’t bother intimating Lucille that the only family she has ever known is leaving Fingerbone forever. It doesn’t startle Ruth when Sylvie doesn’t come looking for them because she doesn’t want to find any flaws in her guardian’s character, showing that Ruth’s desire for a mother hinders her from having the appropriate reaction of alarm to dangerous situations she is in. ’I don’t mean she should be (sad), but, you know, who wouldn’t be,’(185) Sylvie says, disregarding Ruth’s need to heal and grow from the situation. She is negligent in her duty to help in bettering the mental wellbeing of Ruth; she can relate to Ruth’s situation but doesn’t want to help her get better hence her constant reference to Ruth as a companion, not a daughter or niece. Ruth doesn’t pause to question the misalignment in their perceptions of their relationship; Ruth looks at Sylvie as a mother but Sylvie looks at Ruth as a friend. ’Sylvie like cold food,’(87) she packed a black banana, a lump of salami with a knife through it, a single yellow chicken wing and a few potato chips for their trip to the lake. With her love for the lights out, the girls probably didn’t experience many warm home-cooked balanced meals. Ruth shows no objection, an opportunity cost she is giving up to have a ‘mother’ around. Although there were dishes in the house, Sylvie’s issues with her mom led her to put them away, making the girls eat out of detergent boxes and drink out of jello cups. Toward the end, it is evident that Sylvie is a wanderer as she has no feeling of attachment to the house. Hoarding newspapers, tins, and paper bags, the messy house attracted mice, kittens, and birds proving that she neglected her duty of up keeping the home for Ruth and her to live in. Ruth spent most of her childhood in the house but doesn’t question Sylvie’s motives in keeping the house dirty. Sylvie set ablaze her childhood home, the one that her father built, leaving with Ruth and sealing Ruth’s life as one of a transient with no mention of Ruth to pursue higher education and make a better life for herself. Ruth is oblivious to the unfortunate tangent her life has taken as she is constantly overridden by the necessity to have a motherlike figure, a need that her childhood experiences have induced. Sylvie may be a good person but she is certainly not the protagonist that Ruth’s rose-tinted description portrays her to be.

Lucille and Ruth grow up as best friends, sharing the first decade of instability together. Ruth and Lucille grow apart when they face a conflict of interest: Lucille doesn’t share the same blind love for Sylvie that Ruth has.‘Did you want them (children)?’, ‘Where’s your husband?’(58) Lucille asks Sylvie several questions about her personal life and is portrayed as infringing on Sylvie’s personal boundaries. I argue that it is natural for a child to ask such questions; it is difficult to invite a complete stranger into your life, especially one that is going to fill the role of your  mother. When describing an interaction between Lucille and Sylvie, Ruth uses words like ‘insisting’ the light is on or ‘demanding’ for vegetables to eat. Although Ruth is fine with canned sardines, Lucille wants a warm healthy balanced meal, arguing that it is Sylvie’s duty to provide for them. Lucille is seen as fussy and opinionated when she expresses objection to Sylvie’s style of living; Sylvie kept her possessions boxes and didn’t even unpack her things when she moved in. As someone who has grown up experiencing people walk in and out of her life, the fact that Sylvie didn’t unpack signals to Ruth that Sylvie is going to leave and abandon them, probably striking a nerve in Lucille who believed Sylvie could have been more considerate of those small yet significant anxieties. Another instance where Lucille is perceived as the antagonist is when Lucille shows interest in matters outside the family, specifically her future. Ruth is the narrator of the story but the audience has no insight into her interest and her future plans. Lucille often gets shamed for pursuing her dreams and encouraging Ruth to have them - ‘ Are you going to be a botanist, Ruthie?’(135) to which Ruth shrugs in front of the principle. Ruth often portrays Lucille as being materialistic and caring about her appearance and her family's appearance. Firstly, which teenager isn’t self-absorbed? Secondly, Lucille shows some character in her passion for dance and fashion. Ruth often portrays Lucille in a bad light - as the antagonist - because she feels like Lucille is threatening the thing Ruth has longed for: a motherly figure and a sense of familial stability.

Do you remember how much you hated J.K. Rowling’s character Severus Snape until the chapter ‘Princes Tale’ in her sixth book Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince? The purpose of this essay is to instill the same feeling about Sylvie and Lucille. Ruth’s priorities in life are warped by her childhood experiences and hence the roles that the people in her life play are distorted to meet those priorities. Ruth doesn’t alter Sylvie and Lucille’s character alone. The description of her grandfather and his character could be argued as being highly embellished. Her only exposure to her dead grandfather was through her grandmother’s stories and the house. Her grandmother only cared for her husband out of duty, hence she wouldn’t have raved about him. Ruth was also easily able to let go of the house she grew up in, showing that she had little attachment to the house her grandfather built. This gives the audience even less of a reason to believe her perceptions. Ruth never showed any instance of sorrow and perhaps her misguided attitudes were her coping mechanism through difficult times.

*Bak, M. , Krabbendam, L. , Janssen, I. , Graaf, R. , Vollebergh, W. and Os, J. (2005), Early trauma may increase the risk for psychotic experiences by impacting on emotional response and perception of control. Acta Psychiatrica Scandinavica, 112: 360-366. doi:10.1111/j.1600-0447.2005.00646.x

Book: Robinson, Marilynne, House Keeping