Educated

by

Tara Westover

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Faye Westover / Mother Character Analysis

Tara’s mother is a meek and subservient woman who studies midwifery to please her husband, Gene, and never questions his paranoia or his intense, survivalist, misogynistic religious beliefs. Throughout their marriage, Faye is subjected to emotional and physical violence, baseless cruelty, and horrible injuries sustained in accidents for which Gene refuses to allow her to seek medical help. As a result, Faye begins relying on homeopathic and faith-based or energy-based “cures.” She develops a method called “muscle testing,” by which she crosses her fingers, asks a question, and tries to make her fingers uncross in order to determine a “yes” or “no”—she believes the answers she divines through muscle testing come straight from God. Unable to midwife after suffering a brain injury and resulting migraines and memory loss during a car accident, she turns to a homeopathic essential oil business. It starts modestly and is meant to simply provide at-home cures for her children to use when they sustain cuts, bruises, or burns in the scrap yard, but eventually booms into a large operation that makes her something of a holy figure throughout the small rural Idaho county she calls home. Mother is defined by her obedience and indifference—she allows Dad to control her and her children’s lives, she allows Shawn to abuse his siblings and effectively rule the roost, and she allows Tara to suffer physically, psychologically, and emotionally as a result of both men’s constant cruelty. In the end, Mother is just as delusional and convinced of her righteousness as her husband—the lines between them have blurred, and Tara realizes that she can no longer lean on her mother for any kind of support or solidarity.

Faye Westover / Mother Quotes in Educated

The Educated quotes below are all either spoken by Faye Westover / Mother or refer to Faye Westover / Mother. For each quote, you can also see the other characters and themes related to it (each theme is indicated by its own dot and icon, like this one:
Memory, History, and Subjectivity Theme Icon
).
Chapter 4 Quotes

Dad had always believed passionately in Mother’s herbs, but that night felt different, like something inside him was shifting, a new creed taking hold. Herbalism, he said, was a spiritual doctrine that separated the wheat from the tares, the faithful from the faithless. Then he used a word I’d never heard before: Illuminati. It sounded exotic, powerful, whatever it was. Grandma, he said, was an unknowing agent of the Illuminati.

God couldn’t abide faithlessness, Dad said. That’s why the most hateful sinners were those who wouldn’t make up their minds, who used herbs and medication both, who came to Mother on Wednesday and saw their doctor on Friday—or, as Dad put it, “Who worship at the altar of God one day and offer a sacrifice to Satan the next.” These people were like the ancient Israelites because they’d been given a true religion but hankered after false idols.

“Doctors and pills,” Dad said, nearly shouting. “That’s their god, and they whore after it.”

Related Characters: Tara Westover (speaker), Gene Westover / Dad (speaker), Faye Westover / Mother, Grandma-down-the-hill
Page Number: 33
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 10 Quotes

“Shouldn’t we drive slower?” Mother asks.

Dad grins. “I’m not driving faster than our angels can fly.” The van is still accelerating. To fifty, then to sixty.

Richard sits tensely, his hand clutching the armrest, his knuckles bleaching each time the tires slip. Mother lies on her side, her face next to mine, taking small sips of air each time the van fishtails, then holding her breath as Dad corrects and it snakes back into the lane. She is so rigid, I think she might shatter. My body tenses with hers; together we brace a hundred times for impact.

It is a relief when the van finally leaves the road.

Related Characters: Tara Westover (speaker), Gene Westover / Dad (speaker), Faye Westover / Mother (speaker), Richard Westover
Page Number: 93-94
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 19 Quotes

But I couldn’t do the job, because to do it would be to slide backward. I had moved home, to my old room, to my old life. If I went back to working for Dad, to waking up every morning and pulling on steel toed boots and trudging out to the junkyard, it would be as if the last four months had never happened, as if I had never left.

Related Characters: Tara Westover (speaker), Faye Westover / Mother (speaker), Gene Westover / Dad
Page Number: 168
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 25 Quotes

I came back to Buck’s Peak when I was sure the strep was gone. I sat by Dad’s bed, dripping teaspoons of water into his mouth with a medical dropper and feeding him pureed vegetables as if he were a toddler. He rarely spoke. The pain made it difficult for him to focus; he could hardly get through a sentence before his mind surrendered to it. Mother offered to buy him pharmaceuticals, the strongest analgesics she could get her hands on, but he declined them. This was the Lord’s pain, he said, and he would feel every part of it.

Related Characters: Tara Westover (speaker), Gene Westover / Dad, Faye Westover / Mother
Page Number: 222
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 35 Quotes

My parents said he was justified in cutting me off. Dad said I was hysterical, that I’d thrown thoughtless accusations when it was obvious my memory couldn’t be trusted. Mother said my rage was a real threat and that Shawn had a right to protect his family. […]

Reality became fluid. The ground gave way beneath my feet, dragging me downward, spinning fast, like sand rushing through a hole in the bottom of the universe. The next time we spoke, Mother told me that the knife had never been meant as a threat. “Shawn was trying to make you more comfortable,” she said. “He knew you’d be scared if he were holding a knife, so he gave it to you.” A week later she said there had never been any knife at all.

“Talking to you,” she said, “your reality is so warped. It’s like talking to someone who wasn’t even there.”

Related Characters: Tara Westover (speaker), Faye Westover / Mother (speaker), Gene Westover / Dad, Shawn Westover
Page Number: 291-292
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 36 Quotes

While they plotted how to reconvert me, I plotted how to let them. I was ready to yield, even if it meant an exorcism. A miracle would be useful: if I could stage a convincing rebirth, I could dissociate from everything I’d said and done in the last year. I could take it all back—blame Lucifer and be given a clean slate. I imagined how esteemed I would be, as a newly cleansed vessel. How loved. All I had to do was swap my memories for theirs, and I could have my family.

Related Characters: Tara Westover (speaker), Gene Westover / Dad, Faye Westover / Mother
Page Number: 300
Explanation and Analysis:
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Faye Westover / Mother Quotes in Educated

The Educated quotes below are all either spoken by Faye Westover / Mother or refer to Faye Westover / Mother. For each quote, you can also see the other characters and themes related to it (each theme is indicated by its own dot and icon, like this one:
Memory, History, and Subjectivity Theme Icon
).
Chapter 4 Quotes

Dad had always believed passionately in Mother’s herbs, but that night felt different, like something inside him was shifting, a new creed taking hold. Herbalism, he said, was a spiritual doctrine that separated the wheat from the tares, the faithful from the faithless. Then he used a word I’d never heard before: Illuminati. It sounded exotic, powerful, whatever it was. Grandma, he said, was an unknowing agent of the Illuminati.

God couldn’t abide faithlessness, Dad said. That’s why the most hateful sinners were those who wouldn’t make up their minds, who used herbs and medication both, who came to Mother on Wednesday and saw their doctor on Friday—or, as Dad put it, “Who worship at the altar of God one day and offer a sacrifice to Satan the next.” These people were like the ancient Israelites because they’d been given a true religion but hankered after false idols.

“Doctors and pills,” Dad said, nearly shouting. “That’s their god, and they whore after it.”

Related Characters: Tara Westover (speaker), Gene Westover / Dad (speaker), Faye Westover / Mother, Grandma-down-the-hill
Page Number: 33
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 10 Quotes

“Shouldn’t we drive slower?” Mother asks.

Dad grins. “I’m not driving faster than our angels can fly.” The van is still accelerating. To fifty, then to sixty.

Richard sits tensely, his hand clutching the armrest, his knuckles bleaching each time the tires slip. Mother lies on her side, her face next to mine, taking small sips of air each time the van fishtails, then holding her breath as Dad corrects and it snakes back into the lane. She is so rigid, I think she might shatter. My body tenses with hers; together we brace a hundred times for impact.

It is a relief when the van finally leaves the road.

Related Characters: Tara Westover (speaker), Gene Westover / Dad (speaker), Faye Westover / Mother (speaker), Richard Westover
Page Number: 93-94
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 19 Quotes

But I couldn’t do the job, because to do it would be to slide backward. I had moved home, to my old room, to my old life. If I went back to working for Dad, to waking up every morning and pulling on steel toed boots and trudging out to the junkyard, it would be as if the last four months had never happened, as if I had never left.

Related Characters: Tara Westover (speaker), Faye Westover / Mother (speaker), Gene Westover / Dad
Page Number: 168
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 25 Quotes

I came back to Buck’s Peak when I was sure the strep was gone. I sat by Dad’s bed, dripping teaspoons of water into his mouth with a medical dropper and feeding him pureed vegetables as if he were a toddler. He rarely spoke. The pain made it difficult for him to focus; he could hardly get through a sentence before his mind surrendered to it. Mother offered to buy him pharmaceuticals, the strongest analgesics she could get her hands on, but he declined them. This was the Lord’s pain, he said, and he would feel every part of it.

Related Characters: Tara Westover (speaker), Gene Westover / Dad, Faye Westover / Mother
Page Number: 222
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 35 Quotes

My parents said he was justified in cutting me off. Dad said I was hysterical, that I’d thrown thoughtless accusations when it was obvious my memory couldn’t be trusted. Mother said my rage was a real threat and that Shawn had a right to protect his family. […]

Reality became fluid. The ground gave way beneath my feet, dragging me downward, spinning fast, like sand rushing through a hole in the bottom of the universe. The next time we spoke, Mother told me that the knife had never been meant as a threat. “Shawn was trying to make you more comfortable,” she said. “He knew you’d be scared if he were holding a knife, so he gave it to you.” A week later she said there had never been any knife at all.

“Talking to you,” she said, “your reality is so warped. It’s like talking to someone who wasn’t even there.”

Related Characters: Tara Westover (speaker), Faye Westover / Mother (speaker), Gene Westover / Dad, Shawn Westover
Page Number: 291-292
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 36 Quotes

While they plotted how to reconvert me, I plotted how to let them. I was ready to yield, even if it meant an exorcism. A miracle would be useful: if I could stage a convincing rebirth, I could dissociate from everything I’d said and done in the last year. I could take it all back—blame Lucifer and be given a clean slate. I imagined how esteemed I would be, as a newly cleansed vessel. How loved. All I had to do was swap my memories for theirs, and I could have my family.

Related Characters: Tara Westover (speaker), Gene Westover / Dad, Faye Westover / Mother
Page Number: 300
Explanation and Analysis: