Ruth's Coming of Age

To the eyes of modern society, Ruth seems to have failed her coming of age since she has become a transient. The grandmother told Ruth and Lucille to keep the house and the title of the book is literally Housekeeping yet Ruth and Sylvie burnt down the house and left Fingerbone. Although Ruth’s coming of age may have failed according to society, it’s successful according to Ruth.

One important aspect of one’s coming of age is independence whether it be from society in general or one’s parents. Throughout the course of Housekeeping, we see Ruth distancing herself from her family. At the beginning of the story Ruth and Lucille are one unit. At the end of the story, Ruth has left with Sylvie to live a life of transience while Lucille has not fully accepted the transient nature of life. Lucille “smears her initials in the stem on her water glass” (219). These initials of Lucille’s will eventually fade away but Lucille still writes them anyway. Nothing in life is permanent and Lucille and Ruth deal with this fact in different ways. Ruth doesn’t put down roots while Lucille continues putting down roots despite their impermanence. I think that by making decisions independent from Lucille, Ruth becomes more mature. Ruth starts to make decisions for herself. In another world, I could see Ruth and Lucille growing up to be similar to Lily and Nona. However, Lily and Nona feel more like a unit than two individual people and as a result don’t feel like good coming of age role models.

Ruth also crossed the lake, which was a life-changing event for her. The lake symbolizes a lot of things for Ruth.  Many of Ruth’s family have died in the lake. Her grandfather’s train crashed into the lake and her mother sailed into it. Ruth seems to follow in her family’s footsteps. She too crosses the lake and is presumed dead by society. Also, by leaving the lake, Ruth leaves her family history behind. From a young age, Ruth was aware of the impermanence of family since her mother and grandmother died and Lily and Nona left them in Sylvie’s care. As such, Ruth leaves her family history behind because she’s aware of its transience. However, Ruth does still form a connection with Sylvie. Throughout her life, Ruth has been expecting her family members to disappear yet Ruth is still close to Sylvie. Although, Ruth lives completely in the present she still formed a connection with Sylvie even though Ruth must know Sylvie won’t be around forever. Ruth doesn’t let the transience of life stop her from making meaningful connections with at least one person. I don’t think Ruth uses transience as a coping mechanism to protect herself from future loss.

Also this is completely off topic, but I find it amusing to consider Ruth writing or narrating the story of Housekeeping. The story and book itself although not completely permanent will still exists for a long time after Ruth and Sylvie are gone. Also, Sylvie talks about how transients are an invisible class of people and how many of them could have died in the train crash that killed Ruth’s grandfather but no one would no. In a sense, Housekeeping shines a bit of light on transient people.