Marilynne Robinson’s novel, Housekeeping, is a coming of age story featuring two sisters who must deal with an unconventional lifestyle as they grow. Throughout the entire novel, the sisters lack a loving household and family, specifically the love and comfort of a mother when they need her the most. While living with eccentric relatives, the girls also face isolation from society; they only have each other for a time. In her novel, Robinson exaggerates the importance of a stable and loving family life and the impact it has on the growing generations. At the same time, she incorporates housekeeping in both a literal a figurative manner; literally, the importance of keeping a clean a sanitary household, and figuratively, the importance of keeping a more spiritual household when dealing with tough situations.
Growing up, Ruth and Lucille have encountered many guardians: first their mother, then their grandmother, their grandmother’s sisters-in-law, and finally, their eccentric, isolated Aunt Sylvie. Through this rapid and constant lifestyle change, the girls have never experienced a completely stable lifestyle—each guardian acts differently toward them and requires them to perform different duties. Therefore, the sisters could only seek consolation in each other because they understood how the other was feeling. When the final guardian, Aunt Sylvie, came to the house, the girls noticed both her eccentric demeanor and her isolation from others. Sylvie was constantly doing housework to give the girls a clean environment to grow up in, and she was always worried about their health. However, she did not always seem to notice how the girls were affected by her example---isolation. She was not aware that the girls were missing school because they felt they did not fit in. Therefore, Robinson proves that the instability of the girls’ childhood has affected their place in society by separating them from others.
As the girls grow older, Ruth becomes closer with Aunt Sylvie while Lucille begins to notice their detachment from society. Lucille reaches a point where she can no longer stand the instability and derangement of her family and decides to move in with her teacher and make friends at school. After her leaving, Ruth is left with no consolation except her own thoughts and her housekeeping. Although the house does not necessarily represent a home, she will always have someplace to turn to: Aunt Sylvie, especially since they are much more alike. However eccentric Aunt Sylvie may be, she has been the most stable figure in her life and comes to regard her as her family, her comfort zone. Through the housekeeping, Ruth is able to understand the significance of family, regardless of their actions or thoughts or placement in society. Lucille, on the other hand, cannot accept the true meaning of family and decides to leave to conform to her specified role in society.
In her novel Housekeeping, Robinson explains the importance of both family as well as the stability of a family, however unorthodox it may be. After all, family is an important part of life because they are the only people that someone should be able to truly love, care for, trust, and seek consolation in while looking past their flaws. The girls’ coming of age parallels with them finding the meaning of family. Ruth is able to understand and finally accept her place in both her family and society; her commitment to her family life is justified when she runs away with Aunt Sylvie at the end of the novel and leaves their burning house, and Lucille, in the past. Lucille, on the other hand, is not able to accept her place in her eccentric, alienated family and chooses to leave her family behind. In the end, Lucille is the one who is alone because she has no family to return to.
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