Marilynne Robinson’s Housekeeping - Beyond Reason Essay -- Robinson Ho

Marilynne Robinsons Housekeeping - Beyond Reason Marilynne Robinson gives office to a realm of consciousness beyond the bounds of reason in her novel Housekeeping. Possibly concealed by the melancholy but light methodical tone, boundaries and limits of perception are constantly redefined, rediscovered, and reevaluated. Ruth, as the narrator, leads the reader through with(predicate) the sorrowful events and the mundane details of her childhood and adolescence. She attempts to reconcile her experiences, fragmented and unified, past, present, and future, in order to better understand or substantiate the transient numeralion she leads with her aunt Sylvie. Rather than the wooden structure reinforced by Edmund Foster, the sign Ruth eventu everyy comes to inhabit with Sylvie and learn to keep is metaphoric. ...it seemed something I had incapacitated might be found in Sylvies house (124). The very act of housekeeping invites a radical revision of fundamental concepts like bea t, memory, and meaning. Robinson delights in an intense undifferentiated attentiveness to all the details (82). The ordinary is disposed(p) added significance and, as a result, the pace of the novel is slowed considerably. While supply a layer of added realism, these mundane, fragmentary domestic details serve as an important thematic strategy to Robinson. The readers attention becomes focussed on the transeunt of each moment in time. Ruth is initially frustrated with the be discontinuity of her own existence and tries to assign some order to it. What are all these fragments for if not to be knit up lastly? (92). She yearns for a time when there would be a general reclaiming of the various seemingly insignificant fragments of human existence, a moment when time... ...ould become unnecessary and meaningless if solitary(prenominal) the darkness, like nothingness, could be perfect and permanent (116). Nothingness does prevent individual identity of some(prenominal) sort, how ever. Surrendering completely to nothingness would negate any possibility of authentic intimate human relations the one writer of meaning and happiness to Sylvie. The house Sylvie attempts to keep must accommodate throw including the peace and threat implied by nothingness. A house should be built to float cloud high, if need be...A house should have a dig up and a keel (184). Rather than being seduced by the ultimate and final separation of nothingness, Ruth learns (as a transient) that housekeeping can be an elevated and inclusive method of engaging and interpreting the world. Work Cited Robinson, Marilynne. Housekeeping. New York diminutive Books, 1982.