Marilynne Robinson’s novel Housekeeping stands out for its evocative, rhythmic language and distinctive narrative style. In this work, Robinson revitalizes readers’ perceptions of reality, transforming simple metaphors such as house, lake, and train into profound reflections on themes like security, loss, and transience. The story is a meditation on the nature of belonging and the impermanence of life, capturing the struggle to find stability amid chaos.

Ruth’s Journey of Survival and Identity

The protagonist, Ruth, emerges as a survivor, beginning her narrative with the simple declaration, “My name is Ruth,” reminiscent of Ishmael’s assertion in Herman Melville’s Moby-Dick. Both stories are Bildungsromans, exploring the protagonists’ transitions from adolescence to maturity. Ruth’s journey is marked by mourning her mother’s death, with the ever-present lake symbolizing the changes and dislocations precipitated by her mother Helen’s suicide. Nature, with its inherent changeability, mirrors Ruth's fear of impermanence. During an outing with Sylvie, Ruth imagines her mother’s return from the lake, yearning for the completeness her mother represents, yet recognizing the futility of this longing.

Conflicting Memories and Coping Mechanisms

A pivotal scene in the novel highlights the differing memories Ruth and her sister Lucille have of their mother. Ruth recalls her as indifferent, while Lucille imagines her as orderly and sensible, embodying the ideal mother. This divergence reflects their contrasting ways of coping with their mother’s suicide and the resulting instability. Lucille retreats into a structured social order, whereas Ruth, along with Sylvie, drifts between towns, symbolically connecting to her past every time the train passes through their hometown of Fingerbone.

Transience versus Traditional Housekeeping

The novel’s title, Housekeeping, presents an ironic contrast between Sylvie’s transient lifestyle and conventional housekeeping. Traditional housekeeping involves maintaining clear boundaries and order, but Sylvie’s approach blurs these lines, allowing outside elements to intermingle with the indoors. This unconventional way of living is a metaphor for how a conformist society may exclude those who do not fit its mold, as symbolized by the forgotten transients who died in a train derailment. Ruth, feeling similarly marginalized, learns from Sylvie that life’s richness exists outside conventional norms. Her transition into transiency with Sylvie is a rite of passage, where she discovers that embracing the world allows her to carry her sense of home with her wherever she goes.

Reimagining the West and Female Legacy

Set against the backdrop of the American West, Housekeeping challenges the simplistic cowboy imagery popularized by figures like John Wayne. The narrative begins with the matriarchal lineage of Ruth’s family, critiquing her grandfather Edmund for uprooting the family and settling in Fingerbone. However, Edmund’s mysterious death in the lake becomes a catalyst for Ruth’s imaginative exploration beyond the confines of her home. Through this exploration, Ruth gains an appreciation for life’s natural processes and embarks with Sylvie on a journey toward a new realm of female experience and identity.