Marilynne Robinson's Housekeeping: Critical Review

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Redemption through Memory: Analyzing Narration in Robinson’s Housekeeping

                  Housekeeping by Marilynne Robinson deals with many issues that are deeply personal and complex. The issues that seem to plague the main characters of the novel are loneliness, depression, and an inability to connect with the outside world. Motifs such as ghosts, apparitions, transience and reflections coincide with how the narrative develops these issues into a comprehensible understanding. Tragic and sudden loss surrounding the lives of Lucille and especially Ruthie are not an uncommon experience, as it is one that the whole of society can relate with. Coping with tragic loss can be an inexplicable journey, yet throughout the narrative the puzzlement of loss is slowly and carefully pieced together to the extent that the narrator and the reader can come to terms with it and have a clearer understanding of what the novel intends to convey. The narration by Ruthie is framed from memory which is a significant notion tied to the experiences of loss. In being able to retell the entirety of her past from both real and fabricated memories, Ruthie will finally be able to move on from grief and begin to forgive her troubled past.

            In attempting to analyze why the novel is situated in Ruthie’s memory and how it will eventually reconcile her, it is important to first understand Ruthie’s characteristics portrayed in it. One of her stronger traits that begin to come to the surface of her character as she grows up is transience. Transience is a major thematic element in the text. A transient is one who only occupies a space for a short period of time. In the text it is shown to be a mental space as well as a physical one. The mentality of a transient is an inability to connect with the realities that surround them. As a child Ruthie is never really mentally conscious to the events that happen around her. She partakes in them, but is unable to project her true emotions (at least verbally) at the moment, as revealed in Chapter 6, “You’re so quiet. It’s hard to know what you think.” Sylvie stood up and we began to walk home. “I suppose I don’t know what to think.” (Robinson 105)

             Ruthie is a follower. First she follows Lucille in search of the town’s acceptance then Sylvie into the life of a transient. This combined with her wish to not be seen by the outside world will further decline her into a state of loneliness and perplexity. Ruthie’s experiences have inflicted her with pain that is incomprehensible as a child. In effect she struggles with wanting to succumb to oblivion and be a mere shadow. It is interesting to see that transience does not affect Lucille who went through much of the same experiences Ruthie did. But this question is soon answered. As they begin to grow and enter their later adolescence, they begin drifting apart. This is highlighted in Chapter 7. The marker of change in the sisters’ relationship begins to arise;

            
Sometimes we would try to remember our mother, though more and more we disagreed and   even quarreled about what she had been like. Lucille’s mother was orderly, vigorous, and sensible, a widow (more than I ever knew or she could prove) who was killed in an accident. My mother presided over a life so strictly simple and circumscribed that it could not have made any significant demands on her attention. She tended us with a gentle indifference that made me feel she would have liked to have been more alone – she was the abandoner, and not the one abandoned. (Robinson, 109)

Memories of both sisters are different which is significant. Lucille has chosen a memory of their mother that is positive while Ruthie’s memory illustrates a negative picture. This is evident as Lucille will begin to yearn for acceptance from the town and become more involved in contemporary fashions and building friendships outside the home. Ruthie’s personal memory of her mother is a reflection of herself. There is a void in Ruthie that passionately needs to be filled. She eventually chooses Sylvie to fill that void.

            The pivotal moment of Lucille and Ruthie’s separation takes place when they set out to the woods and spent the night there. They begin to construct a house made of driftwood and stone slabs. The house they build is flimsy and the roof falls twice before it gains any stability. It seems they are subconsciously playing out a scene that has a very similar quality to the woman they attempted to build from snow earlier in the novel. The woman they tried to build also would fall apart. There is some significance to notice that any structure they build together fails to become whole. What can the reader make of this? It could signify their attempts on filling in voids that they so desire. As they nestle into their house they are surrounded by darkness. Again Lucille and Ruthie have different memories of this moment as Ruthie claims, “Lucille would tell this story differently.” Ruthie’s version of this memory is cynical and is inspired by the complete darkness that envelops her; “Darkness is the only solvent. While it was dark…it seemed to me that there need not be relic, remnant, margin, residue, memento, bequest, memory, thought, track, or trace, if only darkness could be perfect and permanent;” Thus signifying Ruthie’s desire for oblivion. It seems here that Ruthie is plagued by memory and finds insight in the complete dark. She finds solace in it and a type of peace that can never be achieved in light with eyes gazed upon her. When Lucille and Ruthie find their way back home the next morning, Ruthie contemplates, “I knew that my decay, now obvious and accelerating, should somehow be concealed for decency’s sake.” (Robinson 119). Ruthie realizes that if she sinks into a visible state of depression it might further separate her from Lucille and also build a larger barrier to the outside world.

            After this moment of realization, Ruthie starts to become much more isolated. Her relationship with her sister is at an awkward stage of revulsion. They cease to communicate. However, this catalyzes more of a bond with Sylvie. The episode in Chapter 8 reveals a push toward insight and familial discovery. In an urgent manner, Sylvie wakes Ruthie in the early morning telling her of a surprise. They make their way to a boat where they set off towards a place where Sylvie would secretly go and search for lost children. The scene reveals an eloquent and insightful rumination by Ruthie;

             
If there had been snow I would have made a statue, a woman to stand along the path, among the trees. The children would have come close, to look at her. Lot’s wife was salt and barren, because she was full of loss and mourning, and looked back. But here rare flowers would gleam in her hair, and on her breast, and in her hands, and there would be children all around her, to love and marvel at her for her beauty, and to laugh at the extravagant adornments, as if they had set the flowers in her hair and thrown down all the flowers at her feet, and they would forgive her, eagerly and lavishly, for turning   away, though she never asked to be forgiven (Robinson 153).

This lengthy passage offers a glimmer of Ruthie’s longing to connect with the outside world. This is a facet of some sort of redemptive memory she brings to her conscience. Again the reader is introduced to the statue symbol Ruthie repeatedly brings up. The emphasis on it could symbolize her mother. Furthermore, the Biblical reference to Lot’s wife is provocative. Notably, it is Ruthie (or Robinson) that comes up with the idea that Lot’s wife was full of loss and mourning. It does not mention as to why Lot’s wife looked back in the Bible, but could provide further evidence of the idea that one can project an idea or a memory to help delineate or console one’s conflicted past. The earlier scene in darkness and the wish for oblivion seems to be quelled by this memory and sets Ruthie on a path of forgiveness and reconciliation.

            The episode in Chapter 9 will set off events that will unintentionally secure the bond between Ruthie and Sylvie. When the townspeople of Fingerbone become overly concerned about Ruthie becoming a transient, they intervene and enter into the personal lives of Sylvie and Ruthie. It is not because they share an empathetic concern with Ruthie’s well being, but are more guilt-ridden in witnessing Ruthie’s transformation. Their religious and moral duties enact them to invade Ruthie’s life.  It makes them uncomfortable because it fills them with pity brought on by their definition of a good moral Christian. Furthermore, Ruthie explains, “So the transients wandered through Fingerbone like ghosts, terrifying as ghosts are because they were not very different from us. And so it was important to the town to believe I was rescued, and that rescue was possible.” (Robinson 178). It was an impossibility to see Ruthie fall victim to a life of transience. Upon numerous visits to their household, the neighbors notice a scene of hoarding and un-cleanliness. We begin to see Sylvie’s desire to keep Ruthie as she states the importance of family to stay together; “Families should stay together,” Sylvie said. “They should. There is no other help” (Robinson 186). Unfortunately they fail to convince their neighbors that Ruthie should stay in the care of Sylvie, in which case there will be a hearing to decide their fate. The thought of another separation conjures up in Ruthie an insightful and eloquent message of memory and loss forthcoming in the remainder of the narrative.

            The next chapter reveals Ruthie’s unwillingness to be separated through the retelling of Creation developed by family breakup. Mourning and loss is played out in history and in an eloquent rationalization Ruthie connects it with memory; “Memory is the sense of loss and loss pulls us after it” (Robinson 194). Moreover, once one loses someone, their memory becomes more real than when they were actually physically present. Helen’s disconnect with her children is evident of this notion. Earlier in the narrative Ruthie explains that the memory of her mother is characterized by her indifference which is a reflection on herself as well as Sylvie. More evidence of this comes from Ruthie’s observance of Sylvie in connection with this notion;

             
Sylvie did not want to lose me. She did not want me to grow gigantic and multiple, so that I seemed to fill the whole house, and she did not wish me to turn subtle and miscible, so that I could pass through membranes that separate dream from dream…She much preferred my simple, ordinary presence, silent and ungainly though I might be (Robinson 195).

At this point in the novel Ruthie and Sylvie become inseparable. The mutually need each other, for if they suffer yet another lose that can doom them back into darkness and oblivion. However the question remains; Does Ruthie ever come to a point of reconciliation? The answer could be seen in the bridge.

            After Sylvie and Ruthie come to a point where they can no longer convince their neighbors that they should not be separated, they decide to burn their house down and begin a life of wandering. As they start to cross the bridge something ruminates deep inside Ruthie’s narrative voice and beckons back to a memory that fulfills her with a redemptive image of her mother. The noises and slow movement provided a moment of clarity and demystified the memory of her mother’s indifference that haunted her. She recalls a scene of a park where her mother used to take her. The memory is full of nostalgia and Ruthie concludes, “My mother was happy that day, we did not know why.” (Robinson 213) Even though Ruthie and Sylvie may have been always destined to wander, there is an apparent reconciliation that happens within Ruthie. Their banishment from Fingerbone is not because they willed it to happen in order to wander aimlessly into oblivion. It was because if they stayed the family would be fragmented conclusively. Their housekeeping is not ended with the burning down of the house. However it should signify their willingness to continue on with the housekeeping, by keeping a sense of their family intact.

Works Cited

Robinson, Marilynne. Housekeeping. New York: Picador, 1980.