Minnie 1201

St Lucy’s Home for Girls Raised by Wolves​ by Karen Russell

Summary

A pack of young girls raised by wolves got sent to a nursing home for them to adjust
to human life. The nuns were in charge of conducting the girls on how they behave. They
divide their humanizing process into five stages: exploration, dislocation, rejection,
understanding and accepting. While going through all those stages, some girls succeed while
some girls fail and got sent back to the wilderness. The main character tries her best to
become ‘human’ until she finds out that she cannot go back to living like wolves anymore.

Literary Device

Karen Russell utilizes onomatopoeia to reinforce the realism in her short story ​St
Lucy’s Home for Girls Raised by Wolves. ​By including such a noticeable literary device like
onomatopoeia, readers can automatically ‘hear’ the story in their heads, making it more
realistic.The sounds captured in certain lines help enhance its depth of tone, bringing it to life.
One significant example is where Russell creates a humorous effect in p. 241,
“Her[Jeanette’s] real name was GWARR!” The word “Gwarr” would have such a strange,
sudden impact on readers as it is not a legitimate word, but a unique sound exclusively made
by wolves. This onomatopoeia then gives a meaningless word some meaning by relating it to
Jeanette’s uncivilized identity, as the name comes from what her wolf parents literally called
her. The same goes with the line “...calling out our old names. Hwraa! Gwarr! Trrrrrrr!” in p.
246. It is then revealed that “Trrr” is the narrator’s original name because that is what her
wolf mom calls her when she arrives at the cave. Therefore, the onomatopoeia helps
strengthen the characterization of her younger, wilder self. Aside from the aforementioned,
onomatopoeias in this short story also represent the untamed wildness inside each of the girls,
by helping readers clarify the difference between being uncivilized and being civilized. So,
readers can imagine along with the characters how difficult it is to completely transform their
own lifestyles. As to say, without onomatopoeias, this short story would not be as vivid,
imaginative and relatable as it does.

Creative Response

a. Converse with specific points in the text that strike you. You can agree, disagree, question,
comment, joke, or continue a point.

“Our pack grew up in a green purgatory.” This line caught my attention as it creates
such a strong metaphor. In purgatory, judgment is made whether you belong in heaven or
hell. This makes it seem like the distinction between wolf life and human life is as much as
there is between heaven and hell. The fact that Claudette is forced into each of the two very
different lifestyles makes her life very conflicting. To say, people can lose grip of what is
considered normal or appropriate when they are presented with the types of lives whose
values and pattern of behavior contradicts. A milder example of this would be moving to a
new country whose culture is different from one’s home country. Purgatory can also signify a
change that a person needs to make in order to prove that they belong where they belong. In
 Minnie 1201

the story, it seems like a stage that is full of confusion, frustration and lack of the sense of
belongingness. Personally, I really like that it conveys such a big relatable idea.

Also, this line really struck me because it instantly reminds me of a drama series I
have watched called “Riverdale.” It is a darker, more mysterious version of the Archie
comics. In the series, there is one character that experiences the same ‘purgatory’ as the girls,
whose name is Jughead. The town of Riverdale is divided into two sides: the North Side
(perceived as pious, responsible people who controls the town) and the South Side (perceived
as low-life gangsters and drug dealers who are participating in some kind of cult) Jughead
was born from a South Side family but was sent to a school where North Siders go to. As a
teenager, Jughead gains more North Sider friends and acquaintances while trying to forget his
South Side origin. However, the town’s downfall of justice forces him to get involved in the
South Side community anyway. So, he now has one foot in the North Side and another in the
South Side. Similar to Claudette when she has to choose between wolf life and human life,
despite how much attachment he has to each of the choices, he still has to choose. The brutal
truth is that no matter what he chooses, he will have to sacrifice some parts of himself.
Likewise, when we want to change, we have to sacrifice some parts of ourselves, some parts
that may be impossible to regain, for better or for worse.

One interesting thing to point out is, in purgatory, God is the one that makes the
decision for you, you do not get to choose where you belong. So, you have to prove that for
the least, you belong somewhere. Obviously, hypothetically speaking, people would choose
heaven over hell so they would have to do good deeds in order to get there. But what if a
person thinks they belong in hell? Will they have to prove that they belong in hell? Or is evil
loud enough to overcome goodness that proof is not needed to judge whether a person is good
or bad? Anyhow, backtracking to the story, Mirabella, the rebel actually proves that she
belongs in the wolf life, that she has already settled herself in that life and it is only painful to
start over a new human life. This concept actually reveals that it is not only YOU who is
involved in the process of making YOUR life decisions, but it is the world around you as
well. To begin with, society shapes us since we were born, governing how we interact with
each other and determining what kind of adults we grow into. Even if our cases is not as
extreme as the girls in the story, I still think we can imagine how difficult and intimidating it
would be to change from one lifestyle to another, especially if we have chosen to change
ourselves.

I also really like the part where Claudette repeats “mouth shut, eyes on feet” because
it really shows how hard she tries to hold back her animalistic impulses. Her determination to
change is strongly portrayed and that makes her character very inspiring to readers who are
also trying to change, like me. As vague as it sounds, I am always trying to change, in one
way or another. For instance, when I was trying out art lessons, I did not like them at all until
I came to realize that it takes patience and determination to become good at it. Before I know
it, I have already emerged myself in art, unable to reverse back to my non-artistic and sadly
more logical self. In my opinion, the fact that some changes are irreversible should be a
motivation for us to narrow down what really suits best for ourselves.

Reference
Russell, K. (n.d.). ​St Lucy's Home for Girls Raised by Wolves​.