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Feral Diction In St. Lucy's Home For Girls Raised By Wolf

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In the story, “St. Lucy’s Home for Girls Raised by Wolves”, the author, Karen Russell, uses feral diction to establish that although people strive for perfectionism in their lives, people cannot become someone or something that they are not, thus causing a loss of identity. Russell uses feral diction in “St. Lucy’s Home for Girls Raised by Wolves” to prove that people cannot change who the are. For example, Kyle tried to talk to Claudette, but just succeeded in annoying her instead. Claudette immediately reacted and, according to the story, “I narrowed my eyes at Kyle and flattened my ears, something I hadn’t done for months” (249). Feral diction is present in this quote through the phrases, “narrowed my eyes”, and “flattened my ears”. When …show more content…

Claudette tried her best to adapt to the humans culture and all the feral children had spent months learning to assimilate into human culture. However, despite her perseverance through all these challenges, some of the wolf in them still remained. This would later cause Claudette to stand out in both societies due to the wolf characteristics that still remained (thus not fitting in with the human societies) and the human characteristics that she learned (thus not fitting in the the werewolf societies). Feral diction also appeared in the story when Claudette attempted to dance to sausalito with Kyle. When she stepped onto the dance floor, the panicked and the feral part of her returned; Russell writes, “I threw back my head, a howl clawing its way up my throat” (250). The words, “howl”, and “clawing”, suggest that the animal part of them is still in them. In the real world, the word howl usually refers to wildness and to the wolves when they communicate and the word clawing, of course, also gives the feeling of a savage and is a bestial action. Just like the first quote, Claudette tries to change and modify her thoughts to one of a human, but the fact that she turns inhuman when she panics, it is obvious that she is just pretending to be normal. No matter how many obstacles Claudette

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