Housekeeping

by

Marilynne Robinson

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Housekeeping: Chapter 9 Summary & Analysis

Summary
Analysis
In the weeks following Ruth and Sylvie’s excursion to the lake, the sheriff comes by the house twice. Though the sheriff has many ceremonial duties in town such as leading the parade each year, Ruth knows that Fingerbone can be a dangerous place—there are “pitiable crime[s]” and “appalling accident[s]” all throughout the county. He does not come to the house because of Sylvie’s theft of the boat or Ruth’s truancy, but rather because Sylvie was seen riding the rails with Ruth in tow. The sheriff worries that Sylvie is “making a transient of [Ruth.]”
At the start of this chapter, Ruth tells some truth about Fingerbone she’s been holding back. It’s not the sleepy and idyllic place it seems to be—instead it’s a rather violent one. Sylvie and Ruth have both gotten into various kinds of trouble, together and separately, and yet in spite of their other infractions—and the very real violence the sheriff apparently has to worry about—their transient behavior and riding a freight car is highest on his list of gripes. This shows just how much Fingerbone fears transience.
Themes
Women and Sisterhood Theme Icon
Transience and Impermanence Theme Icon
Ruth suspects that transients are so “terrifying” to the citizens of Fingerbone because they are not all that different from them. Fingerbone is subject to floods and fires, violence and calamity, and “a diaspora threaten[s] always”—this, Ruth believes, is why transients are so frightening to her neighbors. Fingerbone is full of transients and drifters, but most residents attempt to ignore their presence and “consider their histories complete.”
Ruth reveals that transience is such a feared thing in Fingerbone because people are afraid to imagine what it would be like to be forced out of their hometown by flooding or violence. Being placeless, homeless, or stateless is a very real fear to Fingerbone’s citizens, and they attempt to shun or punish anyone who willingly lives in the way they most fear living.
Themes
Transience and Impermanence Theme Icon
Nature Theme Icon
Neighbor women begin bringing casseroles and cakes by the house, as well as knitted socks and caps for Ruth. They ask polite but probing questions about Sylvie’s odd methods of housekeeping, and Ruth finds herself feeling grateful that Lucille, still living with Miss Royce, is “spared these scenes.” The house has fallen into disrepair—the magazines, cans, and paper bags Sylvie hoards have bred mice, and so Sylvie has acquired a cat which has littered twice and whose kittens have begun killing the swallows nesting upstairs. The small corpses of birds are visible throughout the house, and thirteen or fourteen cats and kittens mill about at any time.
This passage shows just how concerned Ruth and Sylvie’s neighbors are becoming—and also suggests that they have a right to be. The house is overgrown, overstuffed, and filled with vermin and animals. It is not the orderly, swept, light-filled place Sylvia Foster kept it—it is a monument to carelessness and impermanence, living in the moment and fixing things as they need fixing rather than thinking long-term about any one solution.
Themes
Women and Sisterhood Theme Icon
Transience and Impermanence Theme Icon
Nature Theme Icon
Quotes
Sylvie and Ruth’s neighbors are disturbed but not panicked, and often try to visit with Sylvie and ask her about her life. When one of them asks if she’s made any friends in Fingerbone, Sylvie replies that Ruth is her friend, and in fact “like another sister.” Ruth overhears this and becomes startled when Sylvie adds that Ruth is “[Helen] all over again.” Ruth knows that the women who come by are pious and generous but not tactful, and that though they fear Ruth’s “social graces [are] eroding away” and she will soon “be lost to ordinary society,” they do not know how to help her.
This passage makes it clear that Sylvie does see Ruth as a kind of sister and equal. The true sisters both of them have had—Helen and Lucille, respectively—have avoided and abandoned them. Ruth and Sylvie have one another, though, and share feelings and interests neither of them shared with their own real sisters. This important connection doesn’t matter to the townspeople of Fingerbone, though—they can’t understand why Ruth and Sylvie need each other so much.
Themes
Women and Sisterhood Theme Icon
Abandonment and Loss Theme Icon
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One day, Ruth overhears a neighbor ask Sylvie about whether Ruth is all right leading a life that is not “orderly,” and whether she’s feeling sad. Sylvie answers blithely that Ruth is of course is sad—but that she “should be.” Sylvie insists that “families should stay together,” and that she and Ruth have had “trouble enough” with loss and grief.
Sylvie doesn’t treat Ruth like a child, and doesn’t try to mollify her complicated emotions. She knows that Ruth is wrestling with her mother’s abandonment and doesn’t want to erase whatever painful feelings she might have. Sylvie believes in emotional truth and togetherness above all.
Themes
Women and Sisterhood Theme Icon
Memory Theme Icon
Abandonment and Loss Theme Icon
The next day, when Ruth comes home from school, she finds that Sylvie has begun cleaning up the living room and emptying it of detritus and debris. There is a bouquet of flowers on the kitchen table, and Sylvie is frying up chicken for dinner. Sylvie asks Ruth how school was, and Ruth lies and says it was good—in reality, she is outgrowing her clothes and losing her ability to focus in class. Sylvie asks if Ruth sees Lucille at school, and Ruth says she does—but doesn’t mention that she and Lucille never speak anymore. Sylvie says that after dinner she’ll bring Lucille some chicken and have a visit with her.
In spite of the emotional support Sylvie gives her, Ruth is flailing and falling into a depression. She has lost her sister, and she is on the verge of losing Sylvie, too. Sylvie is trying her best to take up housekeeping in earnest and stave off the inevitable—they both know that Fingerbone will not tolerate their odd arrangement much longer. Both women are trying to push the truth away from the surface and continue living in a “dream” a while longer.
Themes
Women and Sisterhood Theme Icon
Transience and Impermanence Theme Icon
Abandonment and Loss Theme Icon
It is late when Sylvie returns from Lucille’s. She sits down with Ruth and tells her that “women have been talking to Lucille”—Sylvie implies that the women in town want to enlist Lucille’s help in taking Ruth away from Sylvie’s care. The next morning, Sylvie helps Ruth with her hair for school, insisting she needs to look her best. Ruth realizes how much is at stake, and begins to fear the two of them are “doomed.” Ruth arrives home that evening to find Sylvie in a “swept and catless parlor, speaking softly with the sheriff.” Ruth overhears the sheriff informing Sylvie that there will soon be a hearing, but when he spots Ruth listening, he sends her up to her room. Ruth feels “no curiosity about what [is] destined for [her,] and no doubt.”
Sylvie realizes that no matter how quickly she spiffs up the house and acts like a socially acceptable woman, it is too late—the tides of society have turned against her, thanks in large part to Lucille. Ruth shares in Sylvie’s sorrow as they both realize that their time together is about to come to an end, but Ruth is so accustomed to being abandoned that she mostly feels numb.
Themes
Women and Sisterhood Theme Icon
Transience and Impermanence Theme Icon
Abandonment and Loss Theme Icon