St. Lucy's Home for Girls Raised by Wolves

Fiction | Short Story Collection | Adult | Published in 2005

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Summary

Story Summaries & Analyses

“Ava Wrestles the Alligator”

“Haunting Olivia”

“Z. Z.’s Sleep-Away Camp for Disordered Dreamers”

“The Star-Gazer’s Log of Summer-Time Crime”

“from Children’s Reminiscences of the Westward Migration”

“Lady Yeti and the Palace of Artificial Snows”

“The City of Shells”

“Out to Sea”

“Accident Brief, Occurrence # 00/422”

“St. Lucy’s Home for Girls Raised by Wolves”

Character Analysis

Themes

Symbols & Motifs

Important Quotes

Essay Topics

Tools

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Discussion Questions

Symbols & Motifs

Loss as Trauma

The concept of loss recurs frequently throughout the stories in this collection. In some cases, the child characters have lost a parent, and in others they find themselves lost.

Perhaps the most direct example of loss is in “Haunting Olivia,” where the loss of their sister Olivia looms large in the lives of Wallow and Timothy. In searching for her, they find that they themselves are also metaphorically lost and unable to properly cope with their grief.

In “Accident Brief, Occurrence # 00/422,” Tek becomes lost on the glacier when Rangi pulls him away from rescue and smashes his transponder. Although the situation is grim, he still “feels certain that my family will hear my absence at the bottom of Aokeora, thousands of feet below us, and realize that I am lost” (224). In a way, Tek seems to be living out Olivia’s side of the story, hoping that his family will sense where he is.

Again, in “The City of Shells,” Big Red becomes lost when she is trapped in the giant conch and no one realizes she is gone. Later when questioned by Barnaby about when her parents might start to miss her, she explains that her stepfather is not usually lucid, her real father is unknown, and her mother is always in and out of the house. Her family will not sense her disappearance and come looking.

In “Out to Sea,” Sawtooth loses Augie’s company and has no way of looking for her at all. Like Tek, all he can do is hold out a small hope that she will return to him, somehow.

Conversely, Ava senses her sister Ossie’s disappearance almost immediately in “Ava Wrestles the Alligator,” and even has an intuitive sense of where to look for her. In a way, Ava is the most heroic figure due to this sense and the fact that she saves her sister from drowning.

The Island

A major motif that draws almost all of the stories together is an unnamed island that functions as a setting and shared universe for all but two of the tales. The exceptions are “Accident Brief, Occurrence # 00/422” and “from Children’s Reminiscences of the Westward Migration,” which take place in a town bounded by glaciers and on the Trail to the West in a fictional 1840s America, respectively.

All of the other stories feature the same tropical island that appears to be off the coast of Florida. The island has swamps, beaches, and several distinct landmarks. For example, the Bowl-a-Bed hotel appears in several stories and is where Ollie and his family are staying in “The Star-Gazer’s Log of Summer-Time Crime.”

The island has several surreal and supernatural features that are seen as more or less normal by the residents, contributing to the magical realism of the stories. For example, the giant shells in “The City of Shells” are fantastically huge and said to be “a megalithic formation of Precambrian Giant Conchs” (158). Giant shells also appear in “Haunting Olivia,” as a main feature of the story is Herb’s business which rents sleds made of “the upended exoskeleton of a giant crab” to children, who slide down the beach into the ocean for fun in the summer (31).

The wolf-girls in “St. Lucy’s Home for Girls Raised by Wolves” themselves are fantastical creatures, being the daughters of werewolves. Additionally, the concept of most of the dream disorders in “Z. Z.’s Sleep-Away Camp for Disordered Dreamers” are larger than life, particularly Elijah’s own “postmonitions” (66).

Russell never names this island, but it seems to be something of a tourist destination, perhaps similar to the Florida Keys.

Animals

Several of the stories feature animals as prominent symbols, usually related to animal instincts or savagery in human nature.

The alligators in “Ava Wrestles the Alligator” symbolize the danger that Ava lives with every day as, essentially, a girl alone in a swamp. The Bird Man is a kind of alligator—a predator who lulls Ava into a false sense of security before, presumably, attacking her. The ghostly suitor Luscious is also a kind of alligator who almost takes Ossie away from Ava. Ultimately, Ava successfully wrestles with these dangers and emerges on the other side, though the story does not explore the long-term effects of these traumas. Notably, Ava does not fear the real ‘gators or “Seths” as much as the human threats in the story.

“Z. Z.’s Sleep-Away Camp for Disordered Dreamers” features a trio of sheep, two of which are slaughtered by a person implied to be Annie. However, it is the dogs that Annie dreams of in her sleep that are the most powerful symbols. These are the fears and traumas that Annie attempts to ignore; however, they come back to haunt her and ultimately lead to her enacting the violence upon the sheep.

The vulnerable baby turtles in “The Star-Gazer’s Log of Summer-Time Crime” represent Ollie’s childhood, in a sense. At the end, Raffy lures them away into a dark sack and presumably to their deaths. The narrative reinforces this symbolic connection as initially Ollie thought Raffy wanted him to get into the turtle sack.

In “Lady Yeti and the Palace of Artificial Snows,” the skating apes contrast several times with the skating adults during the Blizzard and even wear human clothing. When Reg accidentally unleashes them, he feels a certain kinship with these apes, bred in captivity and trapped in the cold. They link symbolically to the adults, who are giving in to their baser, animal instincts under cover of snow.

The stingrays in “Out to Sea” symbolize the retirees’ (including Sawtooth) desire for companionship. Sawtooth’s neighbor feeds the rays like stray cats and calls them her babies, echoing how Sawtooth feels about Augie. In the end, the feeding of the rays leads to the destruction of the machine that controls the rays, just as Sawtooth’s enabling of Augie’s theft contributes to her decision to leave when he sees her stealing.

In “Accident Brief, Occurrence # 00/422,” the pet bear that Rangi cares for and which gets murdered symbolizes friendship and love. Taken from Rangi, he became mute by choice and adopted more animalistic qualities. When Tek is trapped in the cave with him, he imagines Rangi becoming the bear and being perfectly content.

The wolves in “St. Lucy’s Home for Girls Raised by Wolves” symbolize the girls’ former lives as outcasts. During the course of the story the girls become more human but, in many ways, their existence as wolves working as a pack was more civilized.