Today during class we discussed many things regarding the novel Housekeeping. One thing that really struck my attention was how Connor discussed the foundation of the Ruth's home and how the Grandfather built that house for his family. It is interesting how the end of the book somewhat surrounds around the fact that Ruth and Sylvie burn the house down. In burning the house down, Robinson makes it so that Ruth and Sylvie defy all the conventional aspects of their life before finally leaving the town of Fingerbone.
In the first few lines of the novel, Robinson writes, "Through all these generations of elders we lived in one house, my grandmother's house, built for her by her husband, Edmund Foster...It was he who put us down in this unlikely place"(Robinson 3). Ruth's grandfather, Edmund, builds this house for his wife, in hope that his family will have the foundations of a respectable life to live in. However, it is clear by the end of the novel that Ruth and Sylvie, and even Lucille, all leave this home for a life that they believe to be better than their lives living in the home Edmund built for them.
Throughout the novel, Ruth and Lucille both undergo a transition that defines them as female individuals. When Sylvie is introduced in the novel, Ruth becomes attached to the lifestyle that Sylvie lives; that of a drifter. Lucille, on the other hand, feels as if she is trapped inside the constraints of the house and decides that she needs to "leave this place!"(132). It is evident that she does not like the lifestyle that Sylvie and Ruth have come accustomed to in that household. Despite the fact that the house belongs to her Grandmother, she declares, "That's Sylvie's house now"(123) with obvious hostility and anger. In stating this, Lucille is evidently angry at Sylvie for forcing Lucille to live an unstable lifestyle in that house. This is likely one of the reasons that Lucille leaves this house and goes to live with her home-ec teacher. Lucille then begins to live the life that she wants to, that of a "normal" woman in Fingerbone. Despite the fact that Lucille conforms to societal stereotypes of what a woman should be, she is clearly not trying to make something of herself that she is not. It was her decision to become that type of woman, and she had no doubts that the life she had chosen would not suit her, which I think contrasts deeply with that of Ruth's transition.
When Sylvie comes to take care of the girls, Ruth undoubtedly takes a liking to Sylvie's character. Perhaps she becomes so close to Sylvie because her relationship with Lucille gets destroyed when Sylvie comes to live with them, however, it is nonetheless clear that Ruth's character meshes well with that of Sylvie's. When Lucille decides she wants to become more of a stereotypical woman, she tries to persuade Ruth into following in her footsteps. However, Ruth believed differently: "It seemed to me then that Lucille would busy herself forever, nudging, pushing, coaxing, as if she could supply the will I lacked, to pull myself into some seemly shape and slip across the wide frontiers into that other world, where it seemed to me then I could never wish to go"(123). She openly appears to be pushing herself away from Lucille's character and more in the direction of Sylvie's.
At the end of the novel, her transition comes full circle when she burns down her house. In her attempt to burn the house down, Ruth says, "Now truly we were cast out to wander, and there was an end to housekeeping"(209). In saying this, Ruth allows the reader to dip into Ruth's thoughts about leaving. It seems to me that she had not accepted the fact that she would indeed have to leave Fingerbone until she burned down the house, until she burned down the foundation of the life that her Grandfather had made for her. In this same scene Sylvie says, "It's not the worst thing, Ruthie, drifting. You'll see, you'll see"(210). The only reason for Sylvie ever to say something like that, something that would reassure Ruth that what she was doing was the right thing, would be if it was obvious that Ruth was not entirely confident in her choice to become a drifter. I think this is extremely important because it shows that it was not entirely Ruth's ambition to become that type of woman. In the end, however, she does choose to cross the bridge with Sylvie. I think that she does this because she is dependent on Sylvie for guidance and support because if it was otherwise, I do not think that she would have chosen to leave Fingerbone and escape into another life.
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