Unfit Caretaker

I've been wanting to talk about Sylvie for a while now, but I wasn't quite sure how to start until I read this passage from chapter 8:

"Sylvie?"
She smiled. "Shhh."
"Where's our lunch?"
"Still in the boat. You're probably right. It would be good if they saw you eating."
I found a bag of marshmallows among the odds and ends that Sylvie had bundled into a checkered tablecloth and brought along for lunch--a black banana, a lump of salami with a knife through it, a single yellow chicken wing like an elegant, small gesture of defeat, the bottom fifth of a bag of potato chips." (p. 151)

This interaction displays why I have come to dislike Sylvie: she is incapable of being a good parent figure to Ruth and Lucille. Not only does she bring an unhealthy and insufficient mix of food on their outing, but she also only sees value in Ruth eating lunch if it will help them accomplish the task of luring in wild children. Sylvie is, whether she likes it or not, Ruth's guardian, and as such, she needs to have Ruth's health and wellbeing as a priority. It was hard at first to pinpoint why Sylvie came across as a frustrating character because Ruth doesn't care that she is unreliable, inconsistent, flighty, etc., and Lucille, the one who does initially realize Sylvie's faults, is portrayed as a brat. When Sylvie first arrived, everyone--Lily, Nona, Ruth, Lucille, me-- had high hopes for her and she seemed to understand kids and their needs. When she promised the girls that she would get them presents the morning after she arrived, I felt optimistic about her abilities to take care of them because she knew how to talk to them and make them happy. However, as I've continued reading the novel and seen Sylvie get progressively worse at being a caretaker, I have started to identify more with Lucille. As we mentioned in class today, it is a bad sign when the teenager is angry at the guardian for not having a stricter hold over what they can or can't do. If I were Sylvie, I would have been furious and scared after the girls spent the night in the woods. Maybe I'm being harsh, because Sylvie has definitely had hardships in her life and didn't have to come back to Fingerbone to watch over the girls, but part of me wishes that she hadn't.

The years between her husband's death and her eldest daughter's leaving home were, in fact, years of almost perfect serenity. My grandfather had sometimes spoken of disappointment. With him gone they were cut free from the troublesome possibility of success, recognition, advancement. They had no reason to look forward, nothing to regret. Their lives spun off the tilting world like thread off a spindle, breakfast time, suppertime, lilac time, apple time. 

--Marilynne Robinson, Housekeeping, p. 13

Ruth gives an idyllic portrayal of life in Fingerbone that reminds me a lot of the time I have spent in Clarksdale, Mississippi. When we are down there, we hear a lot of jokes about Delta time, which is the slow paced, carefree way of living that is a signature of Mississippi. We are discouraged from bringing and using our phones on the trip, so we are more isolated from the rest of the world. Everyday while I'm there, my thoughts are on what I am doing in that moment. Occasionally, I wonder what will be for dinner that night or if I will get to work more on hammering after lunch, but there is a very simple routine that happens each day and the students who go on the trip form a close group as we eat, sleep, work, breathe together, similar to Sylvia and her daughters. However, the feel of the trip is still different than that of life in Fingerbone because we have a goal in mind, something we are looking forward to: finishing building the house. This makes me wonder if there were small goals while the four women were living together in their serene home. Maybe this is just because I have the mentality of always moving forward ingrained in my mind after spending years working towards each new milestone, but I can't imagine a life in which there are no goals at all. Mr. Mitchell mentioned in class today that the description of these years was reminiscent of adulthood in that it is easy to get caught up in the routine and believe that nothing will change. However, even if you have a career and a set routine for each day, most people are still working towards improvement of some sort, whether it is a more varied syllabus for a class or the best route to deliver newspapers. The idea of living in a setting in which no personal improvement is expected sounds kind of nice, because sometimes I feel overwhelmed with the pressure that is always on me to move forward and get better at things, but if improvement and moving forward, even in a minuscule way, is not present, maybe even discouraged, I don't think I could be happy there either.

Esther's Road to Recovery

While I was reading the chapters in The Bell Jar that focus on Esther's time at the private hospital, I had some mixed emotions. At first I was kind of upset that Esther was being forced to be there. I sympathized with her and I didn't think that it was fair that her family was dragging her to a mental institution because some random lady decided that this place was what was best for her. I was also upset with the hospital and with society in general. There is no doubt about it that the second hospital is a much better fit for Esther-- she likes her psychiatrist, she isn't forced into painful shock therapy, and she feels more at ease-- but I still felt that she was unhappy and didn't want to be there. Esther's mother is more harsh than I would deem appropriate when it comes to Esther's move,
"My mother told me I should be grateful. She said I had used up almost all her money, and if it weren't for Mrs. Guinea she didn't know where I'd be."
Esther is shamed for having tried to kill herself, which seems to reflect on the attitude of not only her mother, but also the majority of society. When news of Esther's suicide attempt gets out, the media eats it up and publishes it in the newspapers, giving Joan the motivation to also try killing herself. Esther encounters blame for Joan's suicide attempts, as well as hostility from her family and others. 

However, once I started to think about it and continued reading the novel, I realized that most of the issues that I had with the second hospital were not actually with the institution, but rather with outside forces that could have happened anywhere, and my opinion of the place changed. I think that the second hospital was a beneficial stepping stone for Esther. She encountered love and support from Dr. Nolan and the nurses, as well as the permission to take her life into her own hands. One part that really stuck out to me was when the nurse told Esther that she was being moved up to the next level of recovery:

"'I'm not ready. I'm not well enough.' 'Of course, you're well enough. Don't worry, they wouldn't be moving you if you weren't well enough.' After the nurse left, I tried to puzzle out this new move on Doctor Nolan's part. What was she trying to prove? I hadn't changed. Nothing had changed.

Esther is wary of Dr. Nolan because she doesn't believe in herself, which is one of the factors that contributed to her downward spiral earlier in the novel, but the nurse does. She gives Esther the confidence that is necessary to continue down the road to recovery. Despite my initial wariness, I've realized that the second hospital was indeed salutary and that without it, Esther may never have reached the point where her future would be full of optimistic question marks.