American Literature

Our family serves as the primary people that would provide care, love and give lessons about life. They serve a very important role in any persons life and their presence is essential especially to a childs growth. The novel Housekeeping talks about the experiences of two sisters as they go about life without the parents they knew and without the proper people to take care of them and help them in their development as a person and as a member of a society.

Housekeeping is a narration of Ruth, one of the main characters experiences as they go about their everyday lives. Ruth and Lucille, the two main characters in the novel, at an early age are faced with a challenge to go about life without both of their parents. Their father died because of an accident and their mother committed suicide and just left both of them at the house of their grandmother that they didnt even know well. The sisters did not stay long with their grandmother this is because she also died due to the fact that she is already at her old age. After the death of their grandmother, the sisters then stayed with their two elderly aunts. Though the two aunts were anxious in taking care of both Ruth and Lucille, they soon realize that they can not handle taking care of children and decides to give up custody of the sisters. The two aunts then turn over the custody to their aunt Sylvie, which is described as being mentally unbalanced. The stay of the two girls with their aunts Sylvie is what the story focuses on. It is with aunt Sylvie that both girls experience what they thought would never happen. This is where both discovered how disordered is their life with Aunt Sylvie, that they do not give importance to school and the traditional housekeeping. This experience made the two sisters separate from one another, one wanting to be different and the other conforming to the lifestyle of their aunt Sylvie. It was later on in the story that Sylvie comes around because of the attempt to take the custody against the girls and gets her life in shape and conforms to the traditional housekeeping ways just to convince them not to take away the girls. It is here that we can see how society sees how womens housekeeping reflects ones way ensuring the well being of the people around them. Aside from family, this novel truly depicts how society ties down women with the traditional housekeeping that all women should know and conform to. It is in examining Sylvie, the aunt of the girls, that readers would be able to see how she really is from the start of the novel and why she is said to be mentally unstable.

In the novel, the character of Sylvie is presented by focusing mainly on her housekeeping habits. The first initial impression of Sylvie is that she is mentally unstable. This is how the two other aunts that took care of Ruth and Lucille viewed Sylvie. The girls were even scared that anytime Sylvie would abandon them because this is what she says to them, and the girls see that she does not even care about them. She is also said to be mentally unstable mainly because of the odd housekeeping habits that she has. She would keep old cans and even keep debris inside the house. This kind of housekeeping is somewhat different from the traditional housekeeping that the people are used to. In considering the traditional way housekeeping it could be said that Sylvie is indeed ill suited for the traditional housekeeping only because her habits are much different from that of the tradition. Though Sylvie may be ill suited for the traditional housekeeping, it does not mean that she cant change her ways and conform to the traditional housekeeping, all that she needed was the motivation to do so.

What changed Sylvies odd housekeeping habits is the fear that Ruth, the child that stayed with her and conformed to her lifestyle, will be taking away from her unless she cleans up the house and become the ideal guardian that would just be right for Ruth. At one point the girls think what if their mother was still alive, what they miss the most is the care that Sylvie showed towards the end of the story. Ruth even thought that if their mother was still alive, both of them would have experienced their mother ignoring them and not giving importance to them. The care and attention was what the two sisters, especially Ruth wanted to experience from her mother who was done by Sylvie as she fights and proves to the officers that she could get her life in shape just to be with Ruth. The girls even experience problems not only at home with Sylvie, but also in school.

After the flood, the girls had to go back to school, but Lucille had no plans on coming back yet. This is because she encountered a traumatic scene with one of her teacher. This teacher of hers accused her of cheating, because of this she comes up with a story about her being sick in order to avid school. Because the letter that Sylvie had done to excuse Lucille from class would not actually grant her permission not to come to class, the sisters just decided to skip class and spend time in the lake. It is here that we can see how close the sisters are, that Ruth supported Lucille in her truancy acts even though it means her not attending school as well. But this incident also brought the two apart. This is because Lucille wanted to be different, very different from that of Sylvie, which goes against the view of Ruth that follows Sylvies way of life and accepts her way of living. One incident may also contribute to the gap in the relationship of Ruth and Lucille this may be because Lucille is annoyed at the way Sylvie acts whenever they talk about Sylvies husband. At one time, Lucille asked Sylvie about her husband and then accused her of inventing this husband of his. Lucille may be hurt by the constant avoidance of Sylvie to talk about his husband maybe because she herself wanted to find out if this person is really true and if Sylvie is really telling them the truth. The constant avoidance of Sylvie to talk about such topic annoys Lucille because Sylvie does not provide her answers and clarifications that she needed in order to believe her. That is why because of this, Lucille and Sylvie grew farther apart.

The story of Housekeeping presents a gloomy and sad atmosphere that depicts the impermanence of life and relationships between members of the family.