Theme Of Transience In Housekeeping

When given the option to choose a life of transience or permanence, what does Ruth decide and why?

Marilynne Robinson's Housekeeping represents the benefits of being labeled a deviant by society. With the inclusive aspects of women's marginality and domesticity, Robinson uses Ruth’s character development to portray the cost of being rule-breaker in the 1950’s. Ruth is handed a life of permanence, but with the entrance of Sylvie and the reflection of past key figures in her life, Ruth is able to attain a craving for transience and,therefore ultimately decides for a life of transience in order to obtain freedom. The theme of transience in Housekeeping is indicative of women in society and allows for the shift in perception in relation to family

and domesticity.
Marilynne Robinson Housekeeping is a story of two sisters, raised by different relatives. During their adolescent years Ruth and Lucille fall under the care of Sylvie, their eccentric aunt and mother’s sister who lives in a state of transience. Housekeeping is set in the small town of Fingerbone, a town that has carved the path for Ruth to become a transience. It is a town infiltrated by the norms of society and proves to be so burdensome that it helps in the development of Ruth as a nonconforming and liberated women.
It is not until the entrance of her aunt, Sylvie’s arrival to Fingerbone, a town she grew up in where Ruth commences her fletching metamorphosis.

Their Aunt’s persona is obscure before she arrives, and once she is their full caretaker, they begin to realize that her behavior is contrasting to their formulated notion of domesticity. The entrance of Sylvie puts a strain on the two inseparable sisters. Sylvie represents the opposite of Lucille, who mimics the ideals and values of Fingerbone,therefore; She represents the paragon of a female within the 1950’s. With opposing views such as the matters of schooling ,feeding, cleaning, and responsibilities the relationship is severed between the sisters. For example, the heaps of unwashed dishes, burnt curtains, opened cans reflecting trash to Lucille and art to Sylvie, and the lights that are rarely turned on. Lucille set on finding an escape from her grandmother’s house and rejecting transience, allows Ruth to no longer base her identity to the one her sister and the town has construed for her. With the severing of the relation and Lucille leaving to home economics teachers house, Ruth is liberated from the bondage of her sister who expected her to be her shadow. With the diversion of ideals between Sylvie and Lucille, the differences between permanence and transience is highlighted through the use of the two. This is noted when Ruth says “Lucille hated everything that had to do with transience”(103).And after this statement we

begin to see the keen accepting nature of Ruth to transience and become aware that she doesn’t regard the same sentiments as her sister, Lucille. And thus, with Lucille distaste for Sylvie , a unspoken ultimatum is to be made: to continue living a life of permanence or embracing one of transience.
In the beginning of the story we are introduced to Ruth by her name , as a key identifier into who she is and towards the end of the story Ruth begins to add onto that identity.

Ruth says “Sylvie was an unredeemed transient, and she was making a transient of me.”(189) This is the first time we see Ruth classify herself as a transient. Although, she was surrounded by figures in her life that reflected some qualities of transients, Sylvie is the first she is able to recognize without having to look back and didact from her memories after the person is gone (ex: her grandmother, her mother, her grandfather) Ruth was aware that making the decision was crucial in order for her to disengage from the static life she had. In obtaining a transient life, Robinson uses the past and allows the reader to understand that Ruth’s desire for a transient lifestyle began long before the entrance of Sylvie, but with her grandfather Edmund. Her grandfather entrance into fingerbone was not of a meticulous manner Ruth says “One spring my grandfather quit his subterraneous house, walked to the railroad, and took a train west. He told the ticket agent that he wanted to go to the mountains, and the man arranged to have him put off here, which may not have been a malign joke, or a joke at all, since there are mountains, uncountable mountains”(9). The decision would foreshadow her departure of fingerbone through the use of the

lake.
The lake is symbolic of the coming and passing of key figures in the Stone family, FIngerbone was never meant to be a permanent fixture ,but with the lake claiming her mother and grandfather, as she decides to pass through the lake a task noted before as seemingly too cold, it will test her willingness to transition into the life of a transient or whether she will cower back into the obscurity of what is Fingerbone. Upon crossing Ruth is expressing her agency and finally being able to do something willingly. It is with transience that Sylvie gains an exuberant amount of freedom by mustering the courage to leave Fingerbone again and for Ruth it is when her past, future, and present align to what it is supposed to be.

Robinson uses dreams to show that Lucille departure began the shift to commence, but Ruth’s dreams descriptively unravel what is needed to happen in order to fully embrace this deviant notion of transience. Ruth admits that she was “never able to understand between thinking and dreaming”(228).Even at the end, Ruth is unsure of where her identity lies, as it is not rooted to a specific place like Lucille's is to Fingerbone, she knows her identity is based on association. It is because her identity is based off of association that she is able to join Sylvie and lead a life of transience. By associations to her aunt Sylvie, her mother Helen and her grandfather Edmund her dreams that we see how transient individuals molded Ruth to be a transient even without their presence , but by the mereness of a memory. Her journey began with her Grandfather legacy who was a proclaimed migrant who would explore the national geographic, cut clippings, and had a eye for the mountains. But, her grandfather and her mother got stuck in Fingerbone and the only way out was death. The reason for Ruth’s dreams become apparent. Her Mother and Grandfather perished on the icy cold slate of the frozen lake and in her dream the lake itself pulls itself apart. Pulling the foundation from under her apart and laying a new foundation when it re-freezes for her to gravitate to the inevitable transient life. The Lake highlights Ruth’s journey as she evolves into a transient. The Lake claims the lives of her mother Helen and of her Grandfather. Both had demonstrated qualities of transient with their absent mindedness. But, under these circumstances death would be the only way they would ultimately have a transient life.

There was nothing left in Fingerbone for Ruth anymore. Robinson’s leaves the reader wondering if there ever was anything for Ruth in Fingerbone, had her family not been. She would most likely fallen into the inevitable fate young women face in places like fingerbone had she not developed a perspective shift. Ruth’s life would have been much of what she imagined Lucille's to be of childbearing and compliance to societies excruciating roles. Marilynne Robinson's Housekeeping represent the journey of combating patriarchy with transitory nature. And how combating the ideals of mainstream society can be burdensome and evoke loss ,but ultimately leads to a transient life of happiness. Housekeeping dissected the need for traditionalism of women and the need for a social construction of family (atomic family) by relying on the pursuit of freedom.