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...

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...

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...

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,...

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...

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 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 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...

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...

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...

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...

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...

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....

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...

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...

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...

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...

As is so poignantly demonstrated in Westover’s memoir, vulnerability and isolation can cause unhealthy relationships and force people to face remarkable demons in the pursuit of happiness and...

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...

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...

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...

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....

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...

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...

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...

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...

This passage occurs in Chapter 19, as Tara returns home for the summer after her liberating year at Brigham Young University. Tara wants to earn money working where she has been hired, at a local...

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;...

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...

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...

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...

Part of Tara Westover's memoir Educated is concerned with her efforts to gain admission to a college or university. In the quoted passage from chapter 16, Tara is relaying the information that she...

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'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...