What Is The Theme Of The Book Tara

Tara tells a series of stories about her life from the age of five to adulthood, Tara lives in Idaho on Bucks Peak’s she is the youngest of seven children, her parents are gene and faye who are survivalists , they are very anti- government meaning no school, medical care, and most of their kids at the start of the book don’t even have birth certificates.Throughout the book we see tara transform from this girl molded from her fathers beliefs to her slowly gaining her own perspective and independence from her family and this leads her to break away and stand up to her family about the way she was raised and the things she had to endure this eventually led to her earning her PhD at cambridge university. The definition of a family is “a group

We see this with her feelings towards Shawn's abuse, her life with her family vs. the outside world and with the way she views herself. One way we see this is emotional or lack thereof by Shawn's abuse towards her, in chapter 13 “silence in the churches” we see some of when the abuse first started but it carries on throughout the whole book but particularly in this chapter we see the phrase “from the pain” repetitively. Tara is trying to build a wall or is trying to cage her emotions by telling herself she's only hurting from the physical pain shawn is causing her and not from the emotional pain of her brother that shes only seen as loving and caring towards her turn into a stranger she doesn’t even know because of this tara starts to build this mentality that she is indestructible and untouchable in the sense that nothing can hurt her unless she lets it hurt her meaning shawn can be beating, dragging and throwing her around but as long as she keeps that wall up and that mentality then she's only hurting from physical pain not mental. This is important because with Tara blocking off her emotions she's only thinking of the person she can’t be and the person she has to be, not the person she wants to be. Another way we see Tara give up her individuality is in chapter 19 “in the beginning” when she is battling between two worlds, life with her family vs. life in

However the strength and independence that she acquired enabled her to learn how to be her . one of the major ways that she gained independence was through her getting an education and developing relationships with people who helped her create individuality away from her family. Throughout part 2 and 3 we see how learning starts to separate tara from her family not just because of their disapproval but because her new found education pushes her to reflect, question, and not just follow beliefs on blind faith. In chapter 24 “a knight, errant” an event is mentioned, ruby ridge, these words seemed very familiar to her as she's searching her mind for the answer a sudden vivid scene comes through of her mother and her hiding behind the cabinets, her mother was thirsty and went to reach for water as tara was trying to stop her there was gunfire and tara screamed. When tara snapped out of that vision she went to the computer lab and reluctantly searched up ruby ridge, she found out the whole story and not just the distorted version her father told them. Tara is angered at her father for not telling her the whole story but also because of his erratic “bipolar disorder” behavior, Tara now realizes the manipulation she was put through and that her father was so concerned with pushing his beliefs and fears on them rather than protecting them from real threats. This is important because tara uses the