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Summary Of St. Lucy's Home For Girls Raised By Wolves '

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Karen Russell’s “St. Lucy's Home for Girls Raised by Wolves” tells the story of a group of girls who experience lycanthropy. The girls go through five stages of rehabilitation on their journey to human identity. An epigraph before each stage is included to help with the organization and structure of the story. It also includes behaviors rehabilitators should expect from the students and is taken from The Lycanthropic Handbook on Lycanthropic Culture Shock. The rehabilitators use the handbook to understand how the students might react to the different stages. There are many characters but is written from the perspective of Claudette, who’s reactions differs throughout the five stages. Stage 1: The initial period is one in which everything …show more content…

They feel many mixed emotions and struggle to keep themselves composed during this time. At the beginning of Stage 2, Claudette struggles to conform to the new form of locomotion. Claudette repeats over and over again, “Mouth shut, shoes on feet,” and was “...stumbl[ing] around in a daze, my mouth black with shoe polish” (229). Claudette works very hard to adapt but struggles as she becomes very distraught. Claudette felt “irritated, bewildered, depressed…” and overall felt very “uncomfortable…” (229). Claudette did not like her new surroundings and felt very homesick as a result. As time passes by, Claudette becomes frustrated and very upset with the host …show more content…

They make generalizations and doubt the host culture’s lifestyle. In this stage, Claudette mirrors the epigraph very well and shows the attitudes depicted. In Stage 3, the girls met their first purebred girls. Claudette began to judge them almost immediately and made generalizations about them. Claudette describes them as “apple-cheeked fourth-grade [girls]” with “frilly-duvet names like Felicity and Beulah” (237). Claudette felt superior to the purebred girls and made fun of their appearance and names. Because of this, Claudette “felt sorry for them” and “wondered what it would be like to be bred in captivity, and always homesick for a dimly sensed forest, the trees you’ve never seen” (237). Claudette felt that her wolf culture was far superior to the behaviors and actions of the human culture. As the Claudette begins to settle into the new environment, her attitudes towards the host culture dwindle and begins to feel more

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