this type of narration, there is also an emotional and intellectual distance
between the character as a younger person and the character at the time
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but not the second.z Jane Eyre, for example, looks back on her struggles as a young woman
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But Jane doesn’t write very critically or objectively about herself as
a younger woman—we’re encouraged to root for her throughout the
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requirements is Ruth in Marilynne Robinson’s novel +RXVHNHHSLQJ.
Much of this book is about how Ruth and her sister, Lucille, two young
girls who have either been abandoned or orphaned by all the other
adults in their family, end up being looked after by their unconventional
aunt, Sylvia.
o Sylvia makes an attempt to create some stability for her nieces
in the family home in Idaho, but she can’t resist the pull of a
restless life, and in the end, the young Ruth chooses to run off
with her aunt while Lucille chooses to stay behind and live a
more conventional life. The story is told many years later by
the grown-up Ruth, who is now a vastly different person from
the young girl she had been.
o Ruth looks back on her childhood without regret or nostalgia
but, instead, with a kind of bemused, mysterious calm that
passes no judgment and does not require the reader to make a
judgment either.o Written in limpid, poetic prose, Ruth’s narration takes readers
on a spiritual journey that requires us to reconsider everything
we may have thought was true about family life, motherhood,
and the relations between sisters. Ruth’s voice puts us in the
mind of an unusual character and shows us the world in a
whole new light.