Educated

Virginia Woolf was an English author born in 1882. She was one of the first writers to use the narrative technique known as stream of consciousness. Woolf is quoted often in today's world. One of...

There are several purposes of Educated: A Memoir. One key purpose, as other educators have noted, is to stress the importance of obtaining a conventional structured education, as Tara, the...

Tara admired her mother, Faye, while she was growing up, even when her mother was refusing to protect her from her cruel brother. Once Tara moved away from the family and worked to get an...

In Educated, Tara's realization that she has a voice of her own signifies her mental and emotional emancipation from her family. Throughout much of the narrative, she's told by her parents and the...

By personifying the mountains—especially the Princess—Tara adds a layer of literary symbolism to her memoir. The Princess is a real, tangible element of Tara's physical landscape, but by leveraging...

Early in Westover's memoir, we learn that her father is very anti-establishment and wants his family to live "off the grid" -- so much so that the children don't even have birth certificates....

This is by no means a definitive answer, but I would argue that the central idea of Educated is the power of the human spirit to overcome the greatest adversity. Just look at all the struggles that...

One important event was her brother Tyler’s break from the family over the idea of higher education. Tyler decided to go to college, an idea that their parents sternly opposed. Tara had not...

This extract from the Prologue immediately immerses the reader into the world of the Westover family. And, as the above lines make clear, it's a very small world indeed—a world created by Tara's...

Despite the close bond between brother and sister, Shawn starts acting abusively towards Tara, both physically and mentally. A prime example comes in chapter 12 of Educated, "Fish Eyes". One night,...

The deadly stand-off between the Weaver family and the authorities had a profound impact on the Westovers. For one thing, the deaths of Randy Weaver's wife and son during the stand-off further...

The obstacles that Tara Westover was forced to overcome to receive an education were numerous, but none were so oppressive and challenging as her incredibly unusual family. Living in an...

Educated is a memoir that was written by Tara Westover. The story covers the struggles she went through to get her college degree after growing up in a survivalist Mormon family. Westover starts...

Educated is a memoir written by Tara Westover. In this memoir, Westover describes her childhood growing up in a rural town in Idaho with her family. Her parents, Gene (her father) and Faye (her...

The reason why education is incompatible with Tara’s family is the fact that her family is extremely religious. As radical Mormons and isolationists, the Westover family do not believe in any kind...

Educated is a memoir by Tara Westover. It was first published in 2018 and describes the life of Tara Westover and her family. Tara grows up in a very religious Mormon family in rural Idaho but...

One could read Educated as a classic “coming-to-be” story of a young girl who emancipates herself from the stifling traditions and parochialism of her home town by pursuing higher education, but...

Tara Westover is the youngest child of a Mormon fundamentalist named Val Westover (who is given the pseudonym "Gene" in her memoir, Educated). Gene Westover and his wife were paranoid survivalists...

I began to experience the most powerful advantage of money: the ability to think of things besides money. Now that Tara has a good job and a place of her own, she can think of other things...

Certain doctrines and faiths have developed codes of conduct for their followers. These codes or rules often set believers away from nonbelievers and help members adhere to a common set of norms....

In Educated, Tara Westover relates her journey from childhood in a dysfunctional isolationist family, with a domineering father who saw education as the work of Satan, to studying for a PhD at...

The hand-washing episode illustrates a few important things about Tara and her father, Gene. For Tara, it demonstrates just how isolated she is from the outside world. The issue isn't just that she...

Aunt Debbie, the sister of Tara's mother Faye, plays an important part in supporting her nieces and nephews. This is despite the fact that Faye has pretty much been ignoring her ever since she...

Tara's father, Gene, is a crazed conspiracy theorist and ultra-right-wing survivalist who homeschools his children as he believes that if they attend public schools, they'll be brainwashed by the...

For Tara's parents, it's easier to live in ignorance and to pretend that their son isn't abusive. For Tara, however, the fear of someone else being hurt—or forcing her sister to stand alone when...

Tara Westover, the author of Educated, not only received no moral or financial support from her parents in pursuing her education but was actively discouraged and sabotaged by them, particularly...

On any given day, a person will be involved in countless situations over which they have no control. These include natural phenomena or “acts of God,” such as hurricanes or tornados, as well as...

There are several instances throughout the memoir where we see Tara’s internal struggle between her devotion to her family and wanting to discover who she is. When Shawn initially returns to the...

An underlying theme of Educated deals with how experiences outside of family life have a transformative effect on Westover. Throughout the novel, Westover struggles to define her own ambition and...

Tara Westover shows the reader that self-actualization and identity development are both distinguished from and tightly intertwined with formal education. In her view, both are equally necessary;...

In both cases, the lines blur between accident and neglect primarily because of the parents' response. After the car accident, Tara's father refuses to take her mother to the hospital. Professional...

Homeschooling in the Westover household is based on religion. To be more precise, it's based on the variant of Mormon fundamentalism practiced by her parents. Above all, this means that Tara and...

Educated is a memoir written by Tara Westover. It is a true story of finding one's identity and purpose, even though this journey can sometimes include loss. In the memoir, Westover describes her...

Tara Westover's memoir complicates our idea of what it means to be educated. As a young girl, she was "homeschooled," but she reveals that her parents really did not insist upon learning from...

One of the themes of this remarkable book is the way we often retreat into fantasy and delusion to mitigate the harshness of the real world. Tara's father is completely at odds with that world. His...

As Westover's story is a memoir, the characters are real people from her life. The predominant characters are members of her large, fundamentalist Mormon family, of which she is one of seven...

Gene is Tara's father; when she is in college, he suffers from a bad accident while working in the mountain. Due to Gene's constant recklessness and carelessness, he starts a fire while in the...