Saint Lucy’s Home for Girls Raised by Wolves Saint Lucy’s Home for Girls Raised by Wolves, by Karen Russell, is a fictional short story about lycanthropism and forced assimilation into human culture.The main character is Claudette. It is unknown if Claudette has been fully assimilated into human society. There are multiple points in the story that prove that Claudette has not been fully assimilated. This essay discusses why Claudete isn’t fully assimilated. This quote from the story supports that she hasn’t adapted, “I wasn’t that far removed from our language (even though I was reading at a fifth-grade level, halfway into Jack London’s The Son of the Wolf). “Lick your own wounds,” I said, not unkindly. It was what the nuns had instructed us to say; …show more content…
She is not fully out of her language yet. She can still understand the native tongue and she has to hold herself back from licking her sister's face to comfort her. Claudette is never able to fully assimilate but she’s trying to force it upon herself to become a person fit for a human society. It is evident that Claudette will always have a piece of her old culture, and will have to hold back no matter what. More evidence to prove that is “I felt hot, oily tears squeezing out of the red corners of my eyes. Shoesonfeet! I barked at myself. I tried again. “My! What lovely weather—”...“The time has come to do the Sausalito,” Sister Maria announced, beaming into the microphone. “Every sister grab a brother!...I could feel my jaws gaping open, my tongue lolling out of the left side of my mouth. What were the steps? I looked frantically for Jeanette; she would help me, she would tell me what to do” (Russell 243). When it comes time to do the sausalito Claudette forgets everything and starts having ‘inhuman’ burgers again. She wants to tear off her shoes and run away. She is in a panic of what to do. It's like she’s going through culture shock. Claudette is extremely