Examples Of Transcendentalism In Housekeeping

Umar Dalati
Brock
Contemp Lit
30 January 2014 Housekeeping
Throughout time human nature has evolved general behavioral traits that tend to follow the principles of being independent and self-reliant, but when it came to being by oneself, it was considered strange and bizarre. Over time these ideals created a human environment where it was socially unacceptable to be the outcast, who favored the isolation. Even though these recluse people prefer the lifestyles they live, society has always tended to look down upon them like the loneliness that they preferred was an illness. Marilynne Robinson portrays this intoleration, in her book Housekeeping, the novel depicts two sisters, Ruth the narrator, a quiet, friendless girl who has only
Eventually the girls are left in the care of their aunt Sylvie, a childless and childlike woman who has spent the majority of her as a drifter and a loner. She is the closest thing the girls have ever known to be a mother. As the novel progresses, Robinson uses Sylvie’s transcendentalism to lead Ruth into the impermanence of the natural world and human relationships. Robinson makes Ruth choose the lifestyle she desires while she uses Lucille and Sylvie’s identities to contrast the ideas of conformity and individuality, to show how human beings endeavor to control the uncertainty of the unknown, by using social relationships, and depending on one’s family, because they enjoy the permanence and knowledge of the future, when in reality they need only accept these changes by themselves. As Ruth begins to travel in the footsteps of Sylvie she begins to enjoy and accept the feelings of isolation, all while Lucille detests Sylvie’s erratic lifestyle and housekeeping, because she still longs for a stable life and home, wishing to conform with what is normal, tired of being the outcast and stranger society doesn’t accept. Eventually the girl’s paths begin to separate
While Ruth enjoys the time she is able to spend in the forest, she feels as if Lucille is only tolerating a punishment that she has to bare until she can return to society and be accepted as someone who is viewed as normal. As Ruth and Lucille begin to grow apart, Ruth only gets closer to Sylvie and her way of life. When Lucille finally grows tired of her erratic life style, she leaves Ruth and Sylvie to live with her home economics teacher, in search of this stable lifestyle she desires. Lucille leaving to live with her home economics teacher shows this idea that humans desperately want this stability and attempt to get it through social relationships and family because the fear what they cannot control. The life Sylvie has chosen does not follow guidelines set by society, and she ignores this by accepting the impermanence of life and relationships, she truly believes that she does not need to depend on anyone but herself. While Lucille is the opposite and hates everything about Sylvie’s personality, Lucille shows this after she learns that Sylvie “had had a very nice conversation with a lady who had ridden the roads form South Dakota, en route to Portland to see her