Marilynne Robinson Criticism
Marilynne Robinson, an acclaimed American novelist, first gained prominence with her 1980 debut novel, Housekeeping. The novel is celebrated for its profound exploration of themes such as loss, transience, and the social constructs surrounding family and domesticity. Set in a remote Idaho town, it follows the lives of two sisters, Ruth and Lucille, as they navigate abandonment and insecurity following their mother's suicide. Critics such as Judith Gies highlight the novel's pervasive sense of loss, describing their world as familiar yet strange, akin to a town glimpsed from a moving train at night. Rather than seeking comfort in domestic order, the novel offers a vision of freedom through nonconformity and transience, as explored by Marcia Aldrich.
The narrative is driven by Ruth’s perspective, recounting her upbringing amidst female relatives in the absence of a stable male figure. The novel’s lyrical prose and intriguing plot have been praised by critics like Carolyn Banks. Rosaria Champagne observes that the characters’ unconventional lives present a feminist postmodern critique of domesticity, subverting traditional gender roles and highlighting female autonomy. The narrative challenges societal norms by illuminating the arbitrariness of social boundaries, as articulated by Rosaria Champagne.
Robinson's work is steeped in literary and biblical allusions, drawing parallels with classic American literature like Herman Melville’s Moby Dick and biblical narratives such as the story of Ruth. This intertextuality enriches the novel's examination of themes like wandering and transcendentalism, offering a feminist revision of the American journey motif, as discussed by Maureen Ryan.
Housekeeping has been widely acclaimed for its poetic language and philosophical depth, with reviewers noting its emphasis on female subjectivity and spiritual evolution. The narrative’s embrace of ambiguity and non-linearity reflects its postmodern sensibilities, challenging traditional views on memory, language, and gender. Martha Ravits explores how Robinson’s novel remains a significant contribution to contemporary American fiction by offering a potent female perspective within the canon. Critics like Anatole Broyard appreciate Robinson's language for its unexpected capacities, noting the novel’s intertwining of life’s transience with a celebratory acceptance of change. The novel’s poetic precision and evocative descriptions have been commended by critics like Le Anne Schreiber and Alan Brownjohn. Through its exploration of human disconnection and the authenticity of its narrative style, Housekeeping remains a significant work in understanding the complexities of family, freedom, and the metaphysical aspects of domesticity, as highlighted by Julie Kavanagh and Rosemary Booth.
Contents
- Principal Works
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Robinson, Marilynne (Contemporary Literary Criticism)
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Castaways: 'Housekeeping'
(summary)
In the following essay, Paul Gray examines Marilynne Robinson's first novel, Housekeeping, highlighting the novel's unique narrative perspective, the passive yet vivid characterization, and the effective use of language, ultimately recognizing its success in portraying themes of impermanence and the elusive nature of beauty and happiness.
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Pleasure and Loss
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In the following essay, Le Anne Schreiber contends that Marilynne Robinson's debut novel "Housekeeping" is marked by its poetic precision and melancholy, drawing parallels to John Keats, but notes a lapse in maintaining its lyric intensity as the narrative progresses, likening this challenge to those faced by Romantic poets.
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'Housekeeping'
(summary)
In the following essay, Anatole Broyard contends that Marilynne Robinson's "Housekeeping" transcends its ostensible theme to explore the profound transience and isolation of its characters, emphasizing Robinson's masterful use of elemental descriptions to evoke the impressionistic nature of human disconnection and the authenticity of her narrative style.
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Glaswegian Phantasmagoria
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In the following essay, Hermione Lee commends Marilynne Robinson's novel Housekeeping for its meticulous prose and successful integration of family dynamics with the evocative setting, concluding that the novel's unique handling of themes such as memory and impermanence results in a compelling narrative achievement.
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Escaping into Flux
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In the following essay, Julie Kavanagh argues that Marilynne Robinson's novel "Housekeeping" explores themes of transience and the metaphysical through the lens of domesticity, contrasting the stability of routine with the freedom of change, while employing poetic language and Christian allegory to emphasize the characters' complex relationships and personal transformations.
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Breaking the Rules
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In the following essay, Alan Brownjohn commends Marilynne Robinson's novel Housekeeping for its unconventional narrative style and superb prose, highlighting its exploration of themes such as family, freedom, and the precariousness of life in a transient community.
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Three Insiders, One Outsider: 'Housekeeping'
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In the following essay, Rosemary Booth examines Marilynne Robinson's novel Housekeeping as a profound exploration of selfhood and existential resilience, highlighting its thematic intertwining of personal and domestic order, as well as its elemental imagery and narrative precision.
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Fiction Chronicle: January to June, 1981
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In the following essay, Thomas LeClair argues that Marilynne Robinson's Housekeeping employs an elegant and metaphorical style that transcends traditional realist fiction, offering a powerful meditation on themes of loss and transiency through unique narrative rhythms and a subtle examination of gender codes.
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Castaways: 'Housekeeping'
(summary)
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Robinson, Marilynne (Contemporary Literary Criticism)
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Housekeeping
(summary)
In the following review, Gies lauds Housekeeping as a “sensuous, funny, and mythic” novel. This extraordinary first novel is populated by women and by ghosts. It is narrated by Ruth, who grew up with her younger sister Lucille near the shores of a “bitter, moon-pulled lake” under the care of a series of relatives. The circumstances of their childhood are at once familiar and unfamiliar, like a town seen at night from a moving train.
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Everything in Its Place
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In the following review, Banks praises Housekeeping for its lyrical prose, strong plot, and interesting point of view.
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History, Critical Theory, and Women's Social Practices: ‘Women's Time’ and Housekeeping
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In the following essay, Foster examines Julia Kristeva's feminist critique of women's liberation in her essay “Women's Time” and applies Kristeva's theoretical perspective toward a critical analysis of Robinson's Housekeeping.
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Sojourning Women: Homelessness and Transcendence in Housekeeping
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In the following essay, Mallon explores the significance of the biblical allusions in Housekeeping, asserting that the novel utilizes homelessness as a metaphor for transcendence.
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The Poetics of Transience: Marilynne Robinson's Housekeeping
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In the following essay, Aldrich examines the mother-daughter relationship in Housekeeping, particularly how Sylvie and Ruth evade patriarchal ideologies through language, female relationships, and unconventional actions.
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Extending the American Range: Marilynne Robinson's Housekeeping
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In the following essay, Ravits demonstrates how Robinson draws on the American literary tradition in Housekeeping and further extends the tradition by writing from a female perspective.
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Border Crossings in Marilynne Robinson's Housekeeping
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In the following essay, Burke contends that Housekeeping may be interpreted as “an unconventional primer on the mystical life,” wherein transience serves as the primary metaphor and Ruth's spiritual preparation is portrayed by the expansion of her consciousness through a series of “social, geographic, and perceptional” border crossings.
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‘Sighs Too Deep for Words’: Mysteries of Need in Marilynne Robinson's Housekeeping
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In the following essay, Toles addresses problematic aspects of language and artistic expression while examining Robinson's approach toward questions of being, nature, and transcendence in Housekeeping.
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Marilynne Robinson's Housekeeping: The Subversive Narrative and the New American Eve
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In the following essay, Ryan argues that Housekeeping subverts the traditional American myth of wandering—as presented by such canonical male writers as Herman Melville and Mark Twain—offering a feminist revision that reflects the difficulties faced by women who attempt to escape traditional roles in patriarchal society.
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Women's History and Housekeeping: Memory, Representation and Reinscription
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In the following essay, Champagne contends that Housekeeping is a feminist postmodern text in which transience and relativity subvert traditional notions of fixity, linearity, and truth. This essay examines one important and idealized theme in women's literature in the context of postmodern literature: a woman's relationship with the domestic sphere. In Marilynne Robinson's Housekeeping (1982), the townspeople of Fingerbone banish Ruth and Sylvie from their family home because they fail to read and follow the social prescriptions for female domesticity; that is, they refuse to read the social text which polices and maintains the boundaries that separate private and public conduct and discourse for women. Sylvie's housekeeping is abysmal, and in her displacement and reinscription of housekeeping, feminist readers can identify the historical burdens that constitute the “crisis” of female representation.
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To Caption Absent Bodies: Marilynne Robinson's Housekeeping
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In the following essay, Booth examines the significance of bones, artifacts, and the story of Noah's wife in Housekeeping, arguing that these elements reflect Ruth's attitude toward physicality and her effort to preserve a connection to her deceased and absent loved ones.
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Sheltered Vagrancy in Marilynne Robinson's Housekeeping
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In the following essay, Smyth discusses the sociological discovery of female homelessness during the 1980s and contends that Housekeeping reflects a redefinition of the home, wherein traditional domesticity is not merely juxtaposed with vagrancy, but rather shows the home to be a “transient structure” that is neither wholly secure nor permanent.
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Their Own Private Idaho: Transience in Marilynne Robinson's Housekeeping
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In the following essay, Galehouse examines the portrayal of homes and vagrancy in Housekeeping, drawing attention to how Robinson's narrative and language evoke the social, physical, and temporal conditions of female marginality and transience.
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Housekeeping
(summary)
- Further Reading