Sylvie's often described within Housekeeping as seeing the world in a very dream-like state. Everything she does seems to be imitating how "real people" do it rather than coming from a place of instinct - when she cleans, it's only partly; she eats dinner in the dark; she decorates the house with weird boxes and cans to make it seem like a real living space. We often commented that it seemed like the narrator also described everything around her with a strange detachment and with an artistic, dreamlike quality - we wondered how Ruth got to the point she did in her narration. At some point in discussion, we settled in that she was like Sylvie, in that way, and that she got her strange narration style from Sylvie. However, one could argue that it doesn't make her a very dependable narrator.
Ruth doesn't seem to mind Sylvie's strange transient habits, and with Ruth's own dream-like narration, it's hard at time to pick out the realities of how Ruth and Lucille are living under Sylvie's care. However, Lucille's actions often serve as a rude awakening. I always think about the scene where they're eating dinner in the dark and then suddenly Lucille turns on the lights, illuminating the sort of conditions they live under. I as a reader also fell under the charm of Sylvie's transient lifestyle and the almost magic of her ways, and was beginning to view Lucille as a traitor in a way similar to how Ruth and Sylvie did. However, as Lucille turned on the lights, revealing the condition of the kitchen, I realized how unhygienic and truly uncomfortable the conditions they live under are. I continued to notice it throughout the rest of the book and could no longer disagree with Lucille. I wouldn't want to live with Sylvie as my parental figure. Sylvie consistently puts the girls in possibly unsafe situations.
However, I was still captivated by Sylvie's charm through Ruth's narration, and it did not miss me how important Sylvie had become to Ruth. I ended up in a strange juxtaposition by the end of the book - wanting both Ruth to leave the house and find a better place to live, but also rooting for Sylvie to be able to keep Ruth. Sylvie's love for Ruth is apparent, and while she may live an unusual lifestyle, does that inherently make her a bad parental figure, especially considering Ruth's embrace of Sylvie's lifestyle? Then a second question emerged for me, about whether Ruth, as a child, should have the ability to choose for herself who she lives with and how she lives? I'm not quite sure if I'll ever reach satisfying answers for these questions.
--
(I apologize for this blog post being so late).
I think this is a good question to pose, whether Sylvie's different philosophy and lifestyle makes her a bad parental figure. It certainly makes her an unconventional one, in a way that seems concerning at points, especially since we readers are usually thinking from the "common perspective". I think it also makes sense to note that Sylvie never intended to be a parent in the first place, and that impacts how invested she is. However, in her own way, she does take on at least some of the responsibilities of parenting, trying to keep the girls safe and fed and clothed, and definitely cares about them.
ReplyDeleteYou raise a good question about how much we see Ruth being influenced by Sylvie, and what this might mean for the reliability of her narration (if she is indeed inhabiting "Sylvie's dream" with her). It's clear that Lucille would likely question Ruth's account of things--they can't even agree on what their mother looked like, or whether her death was an accident (although Ruth seems the more clear-eyed of the two on this one). It's an interesting question to contemplate, though, because for my money Ruth's narration seems SO reliable, so honest and clear-eyed and "true" in its straightforward confrontation of transience and what it means for human life and relationships. It's so easy to see Ruth as the one who is in touch with these deeper truths, and her narration presents these unflinchingly. It's the 'housekeepers' who are deluding ourselves with our illusions of permanence and "human strongholds."
ReplyDelete