In the short story “St. Lucy’s Home for Girls Raised by Wolves,” author Karen Russell uses short excerpts from a fictional text titled The Jesuit Handbook on Lycanthropic Culture Shock to help provide a reference for characters’ progress throughout the 5 “stages” present in the story. These excerpts describe the differences between each “stage” and the difficulties that students may encounter while adapting to a new culture. These excerpts, also known as epigraphs, foreshadow the events that may occur in the upcoming stage and provide a frame of reverence for the characters’ progress level through the stages. This is particularly evident during Stage 2, where the characters begin to spread apart and their progress levels begin to reflect their personalities. While the majority of the characters in Stage 2 seem to follow the epigraph, there are a few characters that stick out from the rest. The connections between these characters and the epigraph helps to develop them as individuals and showcase their underlying character traits. …show more content…
The epigraph uses words such as isolated, irritated, and bewildered to describe the mood the students will likely be in during the stage Based on this small excerpt, the reader could infer that the wolves will find it hard to keep going during Stage 2, but will persevere and overcome the many difficulties they may face. The reader could also expect that the wolves will have a strong desire to leave as they think back on how easy life was before they started at St. Lucy’s. These inferences are accurate for most of the characters in Stage 2, but some characters stand out as different from from the excerpt’s description. These differences help to develop these characters as individuals and express their unique