St Lucy's Home For Girls Raised By Wolves Summary

When the answer to “were you raised by wolves?” is two-in-one: insult and factual– at least to the wolf girls. Karen Russell’s “St. Lucy’s Home for Girls Raised by Wolves,” tells the tale of the daughters of werewolves and how they assimilated into human culture. Acting as a metaphor for the residential schools used to convert the children from indigenous tribes in North America to align with the European culture and ideas of the settlers. Russell uses inserts from the “Jesuit Handbook on Lycanthropic Culture Shock” (264) to provide insight into how the wolf girls are tamed into exemplary citizens upon their graduation. The actual building of St. Lucy’s is a symbol of cultural assimilation, language and names, and home.
When the girls first

Moving these girls separate from their inner circle and they are forced to leave behind the culture of the forest. Claudette, Jeanette, and the rest of the girls are pinned against one another in a competition of “who can change the fastest?”. It proves to be Jeanette, the oldest, who everyone thought would never miss the woods, but was found mourning the life she once had (271). However, Jeanette is the oldest of these girls, she lived in the woods the longest and theoretically been the hardest to assimilate into human culture. Mirabella is the youngest and is assumed to be the most moldable of all these girls but is so stubborn she refuses to conform to the nuns' ideas and wishes. The relationship between Jeanette and Mirabella can be intertwined with the survival of the fittest idea. Jeanette quickly realized that no matter what she did she was not going to see her parents before she graduated from school. Mirabella’s fate took a darker turn, she was said to be released back into the woods, a lone wolf. Wolves are pack creatures and flying solo is a no-go. When Claudette visits her family’s cave at the end of the story Mirabella is nowhere to be seen, and she probably will never be seen again. Conversely, the nuns' efforts to rewire these girls' thought processes away from their animalistic nature are never truly successful. Claudette thanks and praises Mirabella when she is

Lucy’s was suggested as a guide to uniting the lycanthropy and human cultures, but the nuns had another plan. However, with their “wolf in sheep’s clothing” (267), Jeanette outwardly displayed her growing connection to the learned culture, but she still feels the connection to the woods. When reading a novel about wolves drinking from a pond in the forest (270). Jeanette starts crying because she longs for the naivety that existed pre-St. Lucy’s. Stripping these girls of their furs and comfort they are forced to adapt to the cold and isolate themselves to thrive. This sink-or-swim mentality is represented between Mirabella and Jeanette, who is the push and pull. Mirabella is the unmoving rock that is thrown into the puddle and sinks, Jeanette was adaptive and understood that she had to change to survive. Mirabella’s naivety was her downfall, and Claudette was the middle– she was the second-best reader (271) but struggled to remember the human teachings when she was at the dance (273). Claudette only saw her family at the end of her time at St. Lucy’s, and in her trek, through the woods, she felt sadder and sadder (274). As she goes back home, she realizes that she knows nothing about her