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By Chapter 22, Westover writes that her life was often “narrated for me by others. How do these journals inform the book?ġ0. Sometimes, she recorded events as they really felt, but many times, she says she presented events as less traumatic than they really were, or used “vague, shadowy language” to obscure how she’d been hurt. Throughout the book, Westover refers back to journals she kept growing up.
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Early on, Westover writes that she thinks “all the decisions that go into making a life - the choices people make, together and on their own, that combine to produce any single event.” What do you think she meant by this? How does this insight apply to your own life?ĩ. Over the course of this book, the Westover family deals with a number of accidents: Westover’s brother Tyler falling asleep and driving off the road, Westover’s brother Luke catching on fire, and later, a very serious accident for their father. In her first class at college, Westover recounts not knowing what the word “holocaust” means. By part two of “Educated,” Westover has decided she wants to get an education, has found a way to take the ACT, and has left the mountain to go to college at BYU, despite her father’s objections. When Westover starts crying over one of these early incidents, she writes that she is crying from the pain, not from Shawn hurting her, and that she sees herself as “unbreakable.” She also writes that his abuse not affecting her “ was its effect.” Why is this insight important?ħ. By Chapter 12, “Fish Eyes,” we are introduced to Shawn’s abuse of Westover and the other women in his life, which recurs throughout the book. What did you make of Chapter 8, “Tiny Harlots,” which moves from Gene’s distrust of Westover’s dance recital uniform to his pride over her singing in church?Ħ. But her father Gene’s faith is a sort of character in this book, informing how he sees the world.
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In the Author’s Note, Westover cautions that this memoir is not about Mormonism or “any form of religious belief,” and that she rejects a negative or positive correlation between believing or not believing and being kind or not being kind. (The two brothers who have left the mountain drive semis and weld scrap.) Why does Westover’s father Gene object to formalized education? How does Tyler’s leaving impact Westover?ĥ. In Chapter 5, Westover’s brother Tyler announces that he’s going to college, something none of her other siblings have done. How does this incident cast a shadow over the Westover parents and children, and the survivalism that characterizes their upbringing?Ĥ. marshals and a heavily armed family on an isolated homestead.
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We are also introduced early in the book to the standoff at Ruby Ridge, a 1992 gunfight between FBI agents and U.S.
#EDUCATED A MEMOIR PATCH#
In the first pages of “Educated,” we are introduced to the mountain in rural Idaho where the Westover family lives, described as a dark, beautiful and commanding form in a “jagged little patch of Idaho.” How does this setting inform their experience?ģ. It expands later, and thus we don’t have complete emotions about the present, only the past.” What do you think Woolf meant by this? Why do you think Tara Westover chose to begin her memoir this way?Ģ. “Educated” starts with an epigraph from Virginia Woolf: “The past is beautiful because one never realizes an emotion at the time. (Spoiler alert on questions further down, which mention specific scenes in the book.)ġ. The questions are broken into three parts, to match the three parts of the book. Credit: Random Houseīelow are questions to help guide your discussions as you read the book over the next month.