St. Lucy's Home For Girls Raised By Wolves

Throughout the short story, “St. Lucy’s Home for Girls Raised by Wolves,” Karen Russell, the author, shows the unity of the wolf-raised girls as they were so close together, until their unity later disintegrated as each character distinguished themselves as separate entities instead of one character. Near the end, these girls reunite towards a new culture: our culture. This all happens throughout the three stages of the assimilation process, in which Karen subtly presents this essential information by showing these girls redefining themselves. We see that one is outstanding and nearly perfect at the tasks given to her for rehabilitation for the human world while an aforementioned, struggling other contrasts highly by sticking to her roots …show more content…
She goes on to state that “the whole pack was irritated, bewildered, depressed” (Russell 229). Stage two’s emotions compared to stage one’s emotions isn’t exuberant joy; it is confusion, frustration and depression. It also seems apparent that the girls are uncomfortable with these changes as they are struggling to transition to English. This is mainly shown here: “We were all uncomfortable, and between languages” (Russell 229). An example of comparisons given by Karen through the narrator is when she states, “The pack hated Jeanette. She was the most successful of us, the one furthest removed from her origins” (Russell 232). The quote shows that the pack is distinguishing themselves, especially Jeanette; compared to the rest, she evolved into a separate being by being more successful than everyone else. Note at this point, she is the oldest of the pack which could be the reason why she is more skilled than the others. Karen also states that Jeanette removed her past self from her present self as much as she could, unlike the others. This proves that the separation of the pack is inevitable in stage