Housekeeping by Marilynne Robinson
"Housekeeping" by Marilynne Robinson is a novel centered around the lives of two sisters, Ruth and Lucille, who navigate their upbringing as orphans in the small town of Fingerbone, Idaho. After a series of caretakers, including their grandmother and great-aunts, the girls come under the unconventional guardianship of their aunt Sylvie Fisher, a drifter with a nontraditional approach to life. As Ruth and Lucille grapple with their identities and the pressures of societal norms, they embody contrasting desires—Lucille seeks stability and conformity, while Ruth is drawn to Sylvie's transient lifestyle and the freedom it offers.
Set against the backdrop of a lake and the mountains, the story explores themes of family, belonging, and the complexities of womanhood. The narrative delves into the tensions between order and chaos, as Ruth finds solace in Sylvie's eccentric ways, which often clash with Lucille's yearning for a conventional existence. As the sisters' paths diverge, the novel poignantly captures the struggles of growing up amid loss and the search for personal identity. Ultimately, "Housekeeping" presents a rich exploration of memory, love, and the concept of home, while inviting readers to reflect on the nature of familial bonds and individual choices.
On this Page
Housekeeping by Marilynne Robinson
First published: 1980
Type of work: Novel
Type of plot: Bildungsroman
Time of plot: Mid-twentieth century
Locale: Fingerbone, Idaho
Principal characters
Ruth Stone , an orphaned girlLucille Stone , Ruth’s younger sister, also orphanedHelen Stone , Ruth and Lucille’s motherSylvia Foster , Ruth and Lucille’s grandmotherSylvie Fisher , Ruth and Lucille’s auntLily andNona Foster , Ruth and Lucille’s great-auntsEdmund Foster , Ruth and Lucille’s grandfather
The Story:
Ruth and her sister Lucille grew up together as orphans, first under the care of their grandmother, Sylvia Foster. They were then cared for, briefly, by their two unmarried great-aunts, Lily and Nona Foster. Finally, their mother’s younger sister, Sylvie Fisher, took them in after Lily and Nana could not handle caring for them. The girls were raised—by these different women—in the house built by Ruth and Lucille’s grandfather, Edmund Foster. Longing for the mountains, Edmund had taken a train west to Fingerbone, Idaho, worked for the railroad, and prospered. He died in a train derailment on the bridge that crosses Fingerbone’s large glacial lake.
Ruth tells the following story about her family: Her newly widowed grandmother stays in Fingerbone and raises Molly, Helen, and Sylvie. After five years of quiet, orderly routine, the girls leave home. Molly goes to China as a missionary; Helen elopes with Reginald Stone to Seattle, becomes a single mother, and raises Ruth and Lucille with the help of a neighbor; and Sylvie marries a man named Fisher and becomes a drifter.
More than seven years later, Helen returns to Fingerbone with Ruth and Lucille, leaves them on their grandmother’s front porch, drives a borrowed Ford into the lake, and drowns. Grandmother Sylvia cares for the girls for five years before dying. Her unmarried sisters-in-law, Lily and Nona, come to care for the girls, but are overwhelmed. They send for Sylvie, the girls’ aunt, and flee when she arrives.
One week later, Fingerbone has a massive flood, and the waters reach the Fisher house. The extended family lives on the second floor for several days. Conflicts surface, as Lucille desires order, answers, and a conventional life and Sylvie desires a transient and unconventional life.
Lucille is falsely accused of cheating on a test at school and stays home “sick” for one week. When Sylvie writes a note to the school explaining that Lucille always feels better by midmorning, Lucille and Ruth keep the letter and spend the next week “playing hooky” at the lake. One day, they see their aunt walk onto the bridge. They fear that she is going to commit suicide. Although reassured by their aunt that she is not going to kill herself, they begin to think she is not stable. They return to school. Sylvie’s housekeeping eccentricities soon become apparent to the girls. Their aunt allows leaves and paper to gather in the corners of the home and takes the sofa outside to air out. She eats an odd assortment of cold foods with her fingers, in the dark.
By the second spring, Lucille is increasingly critical of Sylvie. She and Ruth stop going to school in March. They explore the woods—Ruth for her love of nature and Lucille to hide from the townsfolk. One Saturday, Ruth and Lucille spend the night in the woods rather than try to find their way back home in the dark after staying out too late. Lucille is anxious and fidgety; Ruth embraces the darkness, finding a balm to life’s losses. In the morning, Sylvie welcomes them home with quilts and tea. Ruth accepts, but Lucille does not. Lucille now embarks on a course of self-improvement and conformity, and Ruth finds comfort in Sylvie’s odd world. Conflicts continue, until one Saturday night Lucille leaves for good, moving in with her unmarried home-economics teacher.
The following Monday morning, Sylvie wakes Ruth very early. “Borrowing” a boat, Sylvie rows far out on the lake to a valley in the woods with a decaying house that Sylvie says is full of children. Ruth, left alone in the woods most of the day, knows the children do not exist. Reflecting on her own loneliness and losses, she imagines how she would save them if they did appear. Sylvie rejoins her late in the day, and they spend the night in the boat, watching a train pass over them on the bridge. They drift and get lost on the lake. In the morning, they hop a box car back to Fingerbone.
The sheriff comes to the house to talk to Sylvie. Concerned neighbors and church women visit, too, bringing food, clothes, and the wife of the probate judge. They all notice the home’s parlor filled with newspapers, magazines, cans stacked floor to ceiling, and bird parts left by the cats. When Sylvie tells a visitor that she and Ruth had spent a night on the lake in a rowboat, the town begins action to remove Ruth from her care.
Sylvie begins to vigorously clean the house, and Ruth returns to school, hoping she can stay with her aunt. The sheriff tells Sylvie that there will be a hearing. Ruth burns boxes in the orchard, and Sylvie joins her, feeding the fire into the night with things from the house. Sylvie sends Ruth in from the cold, puts out the fire, and goes inside. However, Ruth tricks her and hides in the orchard. Meanwhile, the sheriff comes to the door and asks to see Ruth. Sylvie stalls until Ruth joins her on the porch. The sheriff pressures Ruth to come home with him, but she refuses. He leaves, saying he will be back tomorrow.
Ruth and Sylvie set fire to the house and flee. They cross the bridge, and the townspeople assume they have drowned. No one contacts Ruth’s sister Lucille. Sylvie and Ruth now live as drifters in the Pacific Northwest, occasionally passing through Fingerbone. Ruth imagines Lucille thinking about their absence.
Bibliography
Bohannan, Heather. “Quest-tioning Tradition: Spiritual Transformation Images in Women’s Narratives and Housekeeping, by Marilynne Robinson.” Western Folklore 51, no. 1 (January, 1992): 65-79. This journal article examines how women have changed the traditionally male coming-of-age story, or bildungsroman, from heroic quest to inward soul quest.
Galeshouse, Maggie. “Their Own Private Idaho: Transience in Marilynne Robinson’s Housekeeping.” Contemporary Literature 41, no. 1 (Spring, 2000): 117-137. An informative journal article that examines the ideas of transience and domesticity in Housekeeping.
Robinson, Marilynne. “Interview with Marilynne Robinson.” Interview by Sarah Fay. Paris Review 186 (Fall, 2008). An excellent overview of Robinson’s work, including Housekeeping. Discusses the novel’s origins, Robinson’s major themes and ideas, and her working process.
Ryan, Katy. “Horizons of Grace: Marilynne Robinson and Simone Weil.” Philosophy and Literature 29, no. 2 (October, 2005): 349-364. Examines Housekeeping through the lens of Simone Weil’s spiritual writings.
Wilson, Christine. “Delinquent Housekeeping: Transforming the Regulations of Keeping House.” Legacy 25, no. 2 (2008): 299-310. Argues that Robinson’s novel revises conventional ideas of how women relate to domestic space.
Wyatt, Jean. “Housekeeping: The Impossible Poetry of the Preoedipal.” In Reconstructing Desire: The Role of the Unconscious in Women’s Reading and Writing. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1990. This chapter argues that by transforming the conventional bildungsroman, Housekeeping embraces multiple, fluid, and transient identities.