Caravel Undergraduate Research Journal
Abstract
Housekeeping, Marilynne Robinson’s 1980 novel, tells the story of teenaged Ruth in the fictional town of Fingerbone, Idaho, as she and her sister grow up in their unpredictable aunt Sylvie’s care following their mother’s suicide. In Housekeeping, Ruth develops a complicated relationship between environment and its inhabitants, especially remembering her grandfather’s death and her sister’s pursuit of a more stable life. Most notably, Housekeeping has been read as a feminist novel and for its elliptical, pretty prose. However, the relationship between its characters and the outdoors requires more investigation. Reading Housekeeping alongside Robert Frost’s “The Need of Being Versed in Country Things,” we expose a sense of personal restlessness struggling for expression in an unsympathetic environment. The tension is sometimes overlooked in works that, at first reading, can seem like simple stories. Together, Housekeeping and Frost’s poem update transcendental views of nature and muddle distinctions between people and nature.
Recommended Citation
Genay, Sarah
(2014)
"Living with Nature in Marilynne Robinson’s Housekeeping and Robert Frost’s “The Need of Being Versed in Country Things”,"
Caravel Undergraduate Research Journal: Vol. 3, Article 5.
Available at:
https://scholarcommons.sc.edu/caravel/vol3/iss1/5