St. Lucy's Home For Girls Raised By Wolves Short Story

The short story of “St. Lucy's Home for Girls Raised by Wolves” By Karen Russell has an interesting character that brings up a big question. Claudette is the middle sister between Mirabella being the youngest and Jeanette being the oldest. Just as her name suggests she is stuck with deciding if she wants to be a wolf or a human. As the story progresses Claudette does make progress on the surface because the nuns would like to eradicate this type of behavior from the girls ,but Claudette’s mindset and temptations are like a wolf . These struggles and temptations come up constantly in the short story.
The struggle of them trying to feel as home is a struggle for most of them. The initially thought of the girls was that this place was new and …show more content…
When she is in Kyle’s presence during the ball then Claudette recoiled from her fear and “Kyle looked panicked, trying to remember the words that would make me act like a girl again,”. This shows that she isn’t completely human yet if it is that easy to trigger and change her state of mind. This means she isn’t fully conformed and adapted to human society. As the ball progresses, her mind attacks her heart it’s like her mind is fighting her lycanthropic heart. Claudette’s heart wants to be herself but her mind is full of wanting to please like a wolf as stated in the first part the story. “Uh-oh. I tried to skulk off into Mirabella’s corner, but Kyle pushed me into the spotlight. “No,” I moaned through my teeth, “noooooo.” All of a sudden the only thing my body could remember how to do was pump and pump.,”. On the surface, this may seem just like a part in the story examining closer though a new way of looking at this scene comes to the table. The way Kyle pushes back Claudette from Mirabella symbolizes how Claudette’s heart is. Claudette still wants to be a wolf and she doesn’t want to get “Shunned by both species though”so to please like a wolf would do she tries to be a human, but this can lead to proving she isn’t fully habilitated to normal. The biggest example of her true wolf self showing is when Claudette was about to fail her Salsita dance Mirabella jumps onto her to save her sister and her learning. After she jumped onto Claudette she wanted to “roll over and lick her ears, I wanted to kill a dozen spotted fawns and let her eat first.,”. This shows , once again, she is not fully confirmed yet . As stated earlier, her mindset is still focused on a wolf and she is only “learning” to please because that is what wolves or dogs