Housekeeping (Cyclopedia of Literary Characters)
At a glance:
- Author: Marilynne Robinson
- First Published: 1980
- Type of Work: Novel
- Type of Plot: Allegory
- Time of Work: The 1960’s to the 1970’s
- Setting: Fingerbone, Idaho
- Genres: Long fiction, Psychological fiction, Bildungsroman
- Subjects: 1960’s, 1970’s, Child rearing or parenting, Family or family life, Mothers, Parents and children, Traveling or travelers, Suicide, Gender roles, Abandoned children, Women, Small-town life, Trains, Tramps or hoboes, Lifestyles, Pacific Northwest, Gossip, Homemakers
- Locales: Northwest (U.S.), Fingerbone, ID
Characters Discussed
Ruth Stone, the protagonist and first- person narrator. An awkward adolescent during much of the novel, Ruth is often silent and likes to read. Like the biblical Ruth, she is destined to follow others; first her sister Lucille in a search for acceptance from the town, then her aunt Sylvie in a search for identity. Ruth, though passive and interior, carefully considers the world around her and is a keen observer. She gradually abandons the conventional world of Fingerbone, Idaho, for the lure of a transient lifestyle with Sylvie. As Ruth recollects the...
[The entire page is 879 words long]
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