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St Lucy's Home For Girls Raised By Wolves Analysis

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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. The first stage from The Jesuit Handbook for Lycanthropic Culture Shock explains that St. Lucy’s will be exciting for the pack, and they should have a fun time exploring their new environment (Russell 226). The epigraph creates a mood of curiosity and positivity for the reader. Three adjectives used in the epigraph itself that help convey this mood are “new, exciting, and interesting”. The word, “environment” is used, which has a positive connotation and emphasizes that St. Lucy’s is a place where the girls can grow in a positive way. This epigraph suggests to the reader that the pack will be exploring and having fun during stage one. In Stage One,
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