Educated

by

Tara Westover

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Educated: Chapter 35 Summary & Analysis

Summary
Analysis
Back at Cambridge, Tara withdraws from her friends. She is waiting for Shawn to put the pieces of what happened over the holidays together and realize that she and Audrey have been trying to make their family see the truth about him. Just as Tara predicted, in early March, she gets an email from Shawn: a single Bible passage with the phrase “O generation of vipers, how can ye, being evil, speak good things?” bolded. An hour later, Shawn calls Tara. She picks up the phone, and he asks her if she can help him make a decision. He tells her that he’s trying to decide whether he should come to England and kill her himself or hire an assassin to do the job—he can’t tell which would be “cheaper.”
Tara, reeling from the trauma of her last trip home, is unable to focus on her studies, or on building the happy life she’s making for herself in Cambridge. She’s simply waiting around for the other shoe to drop—and when it does, it just confirms all of Tara’s worst fears. Shawn’s behavior is just as delusional and couched in high-minded religious superiority as Dad’s, but even more directly violent.
Themes
Learning and Education Theme Icon
Devoutness and Delusion Theme Icon
Family, Abuse, and Entrapment Theme Icon
Tara hangs up the phone, but Shawn calls again and again, leaving messages to tell Tara that his assassins are coming for her. Tara calls Mother to tell her what’s going on, but Mother says only that Shawn “doesn’t have that kind of money.” Tara tries to tell Dad, but Dad demands proof and asks why Tara wouldn’t have recorded the calls. Shawn eventually stops calling, and sends Tara a thousand-word email announcing that he’s cutting her out of his life.
Tara’s parents are, again, profoundly unhelpful when she comes to them in fear for her life. They try to minimize her pain, and even accuse her of breaking up the family and inflicting pain on Shawn when things are the other way around entirely.
Themes
Memory, History, and Subjectivity Theme Icon
Devoutness and Delusion Theme Icon
Family, Abuse, and Entrapment Theme Icon
When Tara tells her parents about the email, they tell her he’s “justified” in his actions. Dad accuses Tara of hurling “thoughtless accusations when it was obvious [her] memory couldn’t be trusted.” Mother tells her that her anger on the night of the confrontation with Shawn was “twice as dangerous as Shawn has ever been.” Tara feels her reality becoming “fluid.” Months later, in another conversation with her mother about the confrontation, Mother denies there having been any knife in the room at all, and describes Tara’s memories as “warped.”
Tara’s parents may or may not be trying to deliberately warp and liquefy her memories for their own gain. Tara allows herself to be confused by her family’s cruel inversions of the truth, heading down a slippery slope that will make her question her memories, her identity, and her place in the world for years to come.
Themes
Memory, History, and Subjectivity Theme Icon
Devoutness and Delusion Theme Icon
Family, Abuse, and Entrapment Theme Icon
Quotes
That summer, Tara receives a grant to study in Paris. Drew goes along with her, and Tara rejoices in having a “new life” somewhere else, just for a little bit. Her happiness comes crashing down, however, when she checks her email one day to discover a message from Audrey, explaining that after a lecture from Dad, she has decided to forgive Shawn and cut off Tara. Audrey accuses Tara of being “dangerous” and “controlled […] by the Father of Fear, Lucifer.”
Tara’s family is abandoning her, one by one, finding it easier to believe the lies about Tara, who’s already on the fringes of the family, than to stand up for what’s true or right.
Themes
Memory, History, and Subjectivity Theme Icon
Devoutness and Delusion Theme Icon
Family, Abuse, and Entrapment Theme Icon
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Tara feels she has lost her family. She knows that with the loss of Audrey’s support, they will all turn against her—no one will ever believe her. Despite her despair, Tara receives a letter telling her she’s won a  visiting fellowship to Harvard. Despite the prestigious post, Tara accepts the news with “indifference.” She has begun to “resent” what her education is costing her.
Tara’s despondency over her fractured family life prevents her from feeling joy about her own accomplishments, even when she is admitted to yet another one of the most prestigious institutions in the world. She is pursuing her dreams—and achieving them—but the joy is dulled by her inescapable past.
Themes
Learning and Education Theme Icon
Family, Abuse, and Entrapment Theme Icon
Tara feels her memories of the past changing. She cannot picture any member of her family without feeling an “ominous, indicting” sensation overtaking her associations with them. Tara begins to believe she’s going insane, and stops trusting her own memories. She relies on Drew to confirm simple facts about their lives together: whether they saw a certain friend the week before or two weeks ago, which block their favorite pastry shop sits on. Tara even begins questioning the detailed journals she’s kept for years.
As a result of her family’s emotional and psychological abuse—whether deliberate or incidental—Tara’s own image of herself and confidence in her memory, beliefs, and choices begins breaking down. She is losing her grip on reality, unable to accept that her family—her only source of truth or knowledge for most of her life—could be so wrong.
Themes
Memory, History, and Subjectivity Theme Icon
Devoutness and Delusion Theme Icon
Family, Abuse, and Entrapment Theme Icon
Desperate to unravel the past she feels folding in on her, Tara emails Erin, one of Shawn’s old girlfriends to ask whether her memories of Shawn’s abuse are “deranged.” Erin confirms that Shawn was violent and cruel, and tells Tara about a time he “ripped her from her house and slammed her head against a brick wall.” In spite of Erin’s vivid account, Tara finds herself questioning it, too—perhaps, she thinks, Erin is just as “crazy” as she is.
Even when she’s able to secure another person’s independent account of Shawn’s abuse, Tara remains skeptical of her own memories. Her family’s delusions and excuses have had such a profound effect on her psyche that she barely trusts herself anymore.
Themes
Memory, History, and Subjectivity Theme Icon
Devoutness and Delusion Theme Icon
Family, Abuse, and Entrapment Theme Icon