Analysis of St. Lucy’s Home for Girls Raised by Wolves by Karen Russell

In the story, St. Lucy’s Home for Girls Raised by Wolves, by Karen Russell, the program is successful.  Claudette and the other girls change a lot in their time at St. Lucy’s and by the end of the story, most all of them have adapted to society. They grow into adequate girls that can behave in public and private scenarios. 

In the second stage, Claudette and her peers have started walking on just their feet. Mirabella hasn’t, but they don’t know why because they think it's much easier to walk on their feet. The story states, “She was still loping around on all fours (which the nuns had taught us to see looked unnatural and ridiculous- we could barely believe it now, the shame of it, that we used to locomote like that!)”(pg. 231)  The nuns taught the girls how to walk on their two feet and they like it much better than crawling. 

In the third stage, Claudette sees Jeanette crying about something she’s reading in a book. “‘Why you cry?’ I asked her, instinctively reaching over to lick Jeanette’s cheek and catching myself just in the nick of time.” (pg. 239) Wolf behaviors that were natural to the girls still seem to find their way into the girls’ heads but they start to realize that those things aren’t acceptable and stop themselves before anyone else sees their almost mistakes. This is good and a sign of maturing because they’re self-correcting. 

In stage four, Mirabella is making a mess with Jeanette’s stuff and Jeanette was asking Claudette for help. Claudette ignores her and explains why to the readers, “I had only four more hours to perfect the Sausalito. I was worried only about myself. By that stage, I was no longer certain of how the pack felt about anything.” (pg. 241) Claudette saying this means she’s starting to think more like a human, in a conceited way. The nuns tell the girls that they should worry about themselves only, and Claudette has definitely succeeded with that. Also, she says that she’s not sure how the pack thinks anymore, which is definitely an achievement in the nuns book because they want the girls to think for themselves. 

In the last stage, stage five, Claudette gets a special pass to go and see the cave that she spent some of her childhood in, “The woodsman had to accompany me; I couldn’t remember how to find the way back on my own.” (pg. 246)  Claudette forgetting things about the cave and about her time in the cave means that St. Lucy’s has pushed those things out of her brain the way that it was supposed to.

As much as Claudette and most of the girls were successfully rehabilitated during their time at St. Lucy’s, a certain girl by the name of Mirabella, was not successful at St. Lucy’s. Some people might believe that if St. Lucy’s was victorious in their efforts, then all of the girls would be fully rehabilitated. Not all of the girls were, though. So some think that it was not a success. Mirabella was never fully removed from her origins, and the text proves that, “In the morning, Mirabella was gone. We checked under all the beds. I pretended to be surprised. I’d known she would have to be expelled the minute I felt her weight on my back.” (pg. 245) Mirabella couldn’t comply with the rules so she was expelled. 

All in all, the girls at St. Lucy’s changed a lot. At the end of the story, if they were set off into the world they would be able to behave like real girls and get real jobs. They wanted to let the wolf side of them go and live civilized lives, and they did that.