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St. Kucy's Home For Girls Raised By Wolves Analysis

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In Karen Russell 's short story, “St. Lucy 's Home for Girls Raised by Wolves”, she takes the character Claudette on a journey from a barbaric, careless wolf to a independent, determined girl. Claudette is the narrator of this short story. She and her pack start off in the woods, where they lived all their lives, the nuns in the home use the handbook to take them from the woods and teach them to be civilized humans. Claudette goes through this journey, trying her best, for if she cannot become human, she will have nowhere to go. The nuns split the girls learning process into 5 stages, each one filled with new things. The handbook shows the expectations of the girls and what should be in store for them. Russell uses this handbook to develop Claudette 's character throughout the story. Claudette changes throughout each stage, learning and shaping her new identity in each one. In stage one, Claudette isn 't yet independent. She is still apart of the pack and individuals aren 't established until the end of the stage. According to the handbook, it 's is “fun for [the] …show more content…

The handbook expects the girls to begin to understand the human culture almost perfectly and acquire a newfound self confidence (240). Stage 4 is where all the puzzle pieces begin to come together. However Claudette still has her wolf self inside her. She is determined and trying her best, yet it isn 't coming together like she wanted. A debutante ball came to test the girls and what they had learned. Claudette was called to do the Sausalito, while she drew a blank, “what we 're the steps?” (243) she frantically asked herself, forgetting all she had learned. This could ruin Claudette 's chance at success in her treatment. “In a flash of white-hot light, my months at St. Lucy 's had vanished, and I was just a terrified animal again” (243) Claudette had worked so hard, but lost her self confidence. Despite Claudette not failing, she did not meet the expectations of the

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240). The epigraph suggests that by this stage, the girls will be adjusting smoothly to the demands of St. Lucy’s. The events of this part of the story reveal how different Claudette’s experiences of Stage 4 are from the handbook’s descriptions. During Stage 4 the nuns organize a Debutante Ball for the wolf-girls and Claudette struggles to meet the expectations of the dance, including her disastrous efforts to perform the Sausalito. This results in her becoming “just a terrified animal again” (p. 243), which makes it clear that Claudette is still not comfortable in human

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Furthermore, Claudette says “I ignored her and continued down the hall. I had only four more hours to perfect the Sausalito. I was worried only about myself.” The pack was previously extremely loyal to each other and never did anything for the benefit of the individual. Now that she has taken on these human characteristics she can never go back.

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989 Words | 4 Pages

In the short story, “St. Lucy’s Home for Girls Raised by Wolves,” written by Karen Russell, a pack of wolf girls leave their home in the woods for St. Lucy’s in order to be able to live in human society. Within the story, Russell has included epigraphs before each stage from The Jesuit Handbook for Lycanthropic Culture Shock. This handbook was for the nuns at St. Lucy’s to help guide their students. Karen Russell included the epigraphs, short quotations at the beginning of a chapter intended to suggest a theme, from the handbook to help the reader understand what the characters might be feeling or how they will act in a certain stage. In Stage One, the epigraph closely relates to the characters’ development, yet doesn’t consider that the girls could be fearful in their new home due to interactions with the nuns.

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How may one feel if everything known strips away from them? In St. Lucy’s Home for Girls Raised by Wolves, a short story by Karen Russell, the wolf pack goes to St. Lucy’s Home to become more civilized. As the journey continues, Claudette learns how to successfully leave her origins and adapt to human life. In the early stages of the story, Claudette faces many challenges whether it involves identity, family, or overstimulation.

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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).

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922 Words | 4 Pages

In Karen Russell's short story, “St. Lucy’s Home for Girls Raised by Wolves”, a pack of wolf-girls are sent to a church to transform them into human-girls. As they journey through their transformation there is a guide called, The Jesuit Handbook on Lycanthropic Culture Shock that helps the nuns running St. Lucy’s. The book describes the transformation in stages to help determine the girls’ place as a human. Claudette, the narrator, arrives at St. Lucy’s with her pack to begin their transformation. She struggles through most of the stages, but succeeds in only a couple of them.

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Everyone has done something in their life that they have deeply regretted and mostly refer back to their childhood. However, from a young age a person may not understand the issue until they grow into an adult. The author, Susan Perabo shows this to be especially true in her short story “The Payoff”. The use of the main characters Anne and Louise reveal how unwise a young mind can be in realizing the most simple of things. However, through the use of these characters an important message is suddenly conveyed over the story.

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There are many literary devices used across stories. Color imagery is one of these literary devices that is used when colors give objects a symbolic meaning. In the short story “St. Lucy’s Home for Girls Raised by Wolves” by Karen Russell, girls who have been raised as wolves are thrust into the unknown as they are forced to adapt to human society. Their childhood was spent living with wolves, however they are taken in by nuns of St. Lucy’s who attempt to assimilate them into the human world through different phases. Throughout the story, color imagery is used to emphasize the key theme of unity, establish the conflicted tone, and metaphorically develop Claudette’s character.

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The film Dances With Wolves is a moving, culturally significant American western film produced in 1990 and directed by Kevin Costner, who also plays the lead role of John J. Dunbar. It portrays a fictional account of the relationship between a soldier and a tribe of Sioux indians. In the beginning, Dunbar is an injured soldier who accidentally makes himself a hero while trying to commit suicide by riding his horse in front of the enemy. When given a choice for where he wants to be stationed he requests the frontier, because he wants to see it “before it’s gone. ”While stationed alone at Fort Sedgwick in Dakota territory, he befriends the people of a nearby Lakota tribe.

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The girls had a hard time adjusting throughout the 5 stages of the program. They were given new names, new scents, new language, new clothes, and many others new ideas to adjust to. While adjusting, the girls often felt depressed, isolated, and uncomfortable. In the beginning they wanted to run away from St. Lucy’s as fast as they could because it was extremely difficult. But they felt as if they had no one or nowhere to run back to.

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1580 Words | 7 Pages

In Karen Russell’s short story, “St. Lucy’s Home for Girls Raised by Wolves”, she develops the progression of the characters in relation to The Jesuit Handbook on Lycanthropic Culture Shock. The characters, young girls raised as if they were wolves, are compared to the handbook with optimism that they will adapt to the host culture. The girls’ progression in the five set stages are critical to their development at St. Lucy’s. The author compares Claudette, the narrator, to the clear expectations the handbook sets for the girls’ development. Claudette’s actions align well with the five stages, but she has outbursts that remind her of her former self.

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504 Words | 3 Pages

“I narrowed my eyes at Kyle and flattened my ears, something I hadn’t done for months” (Russell 243). Even though Claudette is almost at the end of stage four, she still fails to deminish her wolf instincts. Having the wrong mindset forces Claudette to forget what she has previously learned and return back to her wolf instincts. As much as Claudette wishes to adapt to the human culture, instinctive habits and hopes cause her to not

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721 Words | 3 Pages

In “St. Lucy’s Home for Girls Raised by Wolves”, Claudette, Mirabella, and Jeanette is taken to a foreign place to adapt to human nature. They are taken through the process of 5 stages of becoming human. Claudette, the speaker of the story, is stuck between two faces, the human and the wolf face. While Claudette is in between these two worlds, she has fully conformed from wolf to human. She has completed the transformation from wolf to human because her own mother doesn 't recognize her, trying to make herself seem more like human, and not even caring about her own fellow wolf mates anymore.

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Change is a part of life that can be beneficial, harmful, or both. Every day people dream of becoming something they are not with hopes they can achieve what they believe to be a better life. In “The Ruined Maid” by Thomas Hardy and “St. Lucy’s Home for Girls Raised by Wolves” by Karen Russell, both narrators undergo a drastic transition in their lifestyles. In Hardy’s poem the narrator, Melia, goes from living a simple farm life, to living a luxurious life as a prostitute. In Russell’s short story the narrator, Claudette, transitions from life as a wolf-girl to becoming an average human girl.

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The denouement of the play is received differently by both the readers. In act 3, when Nora intrepidly questions Helmer 's perception of her "most sacred duty" towards her "husband and children", she questions the Victorian era reader 's ideals and beliefs as well which leaves the reader infuriated. Moreover, Nora is thought of as unhinged when she "slams" the door, in hopes of transforming from Helmer 's "little songbird" into a "woman." This is not the case with the modern reader who is relieved by Nora 's epiphany as she begins "to realize everything", including the need to become "independent." The modern reader, on the time spectrum, has had the chance to discuss the sexism that prevails in society and the need for feminism;

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