Attributions In The Whore's Child By Richard Russo

The Whore’s Child is a famous short story in a collection published in 2002 by Pulitzer Prize winning author, Richard Russo. The story follows the life of a nun, Sister Ursula, as she joins a college fiction writing course and begins writing her life story. As she writes her story, with the help of her professor and the feedback of her class, she discovers more about herself and the truth about her life. This story is particularity unique because although the narrator is a character in the story, they are not the protagonist, which provides for an interesting perspective on the plot. Another key element to this story is the depth to which the characters are explored, given the limited amount of time for characterization. So, when looking at …show more content…
They are defined as “assessments of the cause of an action or behavior,” and can be both internal and external. Internal meaning that the behavior is attributed to qualities such as “disposition, mood, or character traits”, whereas external factors are “environmental or situational factors.” An example of this in Russo’s novel is when Sister Ursula described when her father dropped her off at the convent and “assured Mother Superior that she was not at all wicked.” (8) This demonstrates how people attributed Sister Ursula’s “wickedness” to the fact that her mother was a prostitute (which is an internal factor because she and her mother are connected through genes – which is internal), however, her father supposedly convinced the convent that her mother being a prostitute was an external factor. This is also an example of ultimate attribution error, which is “people’s tendency to assume another’s actions were caused by something internal especially when the behavior is negative.” Another instance of this is when Sister Ursula wrote about a time in which she was “unable to recite prayers with the other children” which was “further evidence, if any were needed, of the moral depravity inherent to being the offspring of a whore.” (Russo 10) Again, ultimate attribution error is seen here since the people at the convent attributed the negative trait of not being able to recite prayers to the internal factor of Sister Ursula’s genetics. Overall, these negative attributions of Sister Ursula’s behavior most likely contributed to her cold and authoritative disposition as she was forced to create a hard mask to hide her feelings as a child, which was a skill she consequently took with her into her