https://padlet.com/cmoulson2022/inu0j2ekq0esvpl1 Charlotte Moulson en-us 2022-05-11 12:20:11 UTC 2024-03-31 04:05:34 UTC hello@padlet.com cmoulson2022 https://padlet.com/cmoulson2022/inu0j2ekq0esvpl1/wish/2181274930 Tara Westover's memoir follows her journey away from her extreme survivalist family and presents the challenges she faced due to her upbringing. As she moved out into the mainstream world and away from her radical parents, Tara realized that the beliefs enforced on her from a young age shaped her struggles as an adult. ]]> 2022-05-12 13:40:21 UTC https://padlet.com/cmoulson2022/inu0j2ekq0esvpl1/wish/2181274930 cmoulson2022 https://padlet.com/cmoulson2022/inu0j2ekq0esvpl1/wish/2181302166 Tara Westover grew up on the side of a secluded mountain in Idaho with her large, mormon family. Due to his religious beliefs and superstition, Tara's father kept his seven children at home instead of allowing them to attend public school. As a result, the first classroom she entered wasn't until Tara was seventeen years old. In her memoir, Tara narrates her experience as a child of a radical, survivalist family and the journey she took to break free from the constraints of her upbringing. Before leaving home, Tara worked alongside her siblings in her father's junkyard, aided her midwife mother, and suffered the physical and emotional abuse of one of her older brothers. After self-studying for the ACT, Tara gained admission to Brigham Young University. However, she didn't end her education there, as she eventually earned a PhD in history from Trinity College. Tara's story teaches the world about the importance of surrounding ourselves with people who support our passions. Educated gives insight into Tara's struggles to break free from the ideals that had been forced upon her from birth by her radically mormon parents.


]]> 2022-05-12 13:55:30 UTC https://padlet.com/cmoulson2022/inu0j2ekq0esvpl1/wish/2181302166 cmoulson2022 https://padlet.com/cmoulson2022/inu0j2ekq0esvpl1/wish/2181312700 In his self-reflective poem, "Alone", Edgar Allan Poe describes the troubles that arose in his childhood due to his tendency to see things in a different light. He is isolated from others in his unique outlook, and this uniqueness causes him sorrow and despair. He ends his poem by comparing himself to the rest of the universe and concludes that he will never break free from his curse. 

While Tara Westover ends her story on a higher note than Edgar Allan Poe, readers can relate the journeys of the two writers. The first four lines, in particular, pertain to Westover's origin. Poe narrates, "From childhood's hour I have not been/ As others were- I have not seen/ As others saw- I could not bring/ My passions from a common spring-"(1-4). In a similar manner, Tara explains in her memoir that, as she grew older, her personal beliefs did not align with those of her family. When she decided to pursue an education and go against her father's wishes, she isolated herself to the same degree felt by Poe. ]]> 2022-05-12 14:01:13 UTC https://padlet.com/cmoulson2022/inu0j2ekq0esvpl1/wish/2181312700 cmoulson2022 https://padlet.com/cmoulson2022/inu0j2ekq0esvpl1/wish/2181365439 In response to her daughter's memoir, LaRee Westover released Educating to shine a light on homeschooling, herbal medicine, and living a conservative and Christian way of life. Westover explains how she tailored her homeschooling to fit the different styles of learning of several of her children and describes herself as a teacher at heart. Readers may infer that Tara herself would disagree with the way her mother holds herself in a positive light, as the education Tara received at home did little to prepare her for the outside world. In fact, in a college classroom, she had to ask other students what the Holocaust was.

While she hopes her book "may inspire those who have chosen to live their lives differently from their neighbors," she also realizes that it may upset her daughter. The narrative presented in Educating differs from Tara's memoir, as LaRee believes she is better able to accurately represent herself. ]]> 2022-05-12 14:30:00 UTC https://padlet.com/cmoulson2022/inu0j2ekq0esvpl1/wish/2181365439 cmoulson2022 https://padlet.com/cmoulson2022/inu0j2ekq0esvpl1/wish/2181377241 In her painting, Frida Kahlo, an artist who taught herself to paint in recovery from a bus accident, reflects a period in her recovery when she was bedridden and had to endure a force-feeding diet. The woman in the bed is Kahlo herself, and the lack of control she has over her life at the time was represented with her arms restrained under the sheets. She has no power over what is being put into her body, similar to how Tara Westover had no control over her parent's choices during her childhood. These restraints persist in Tara's life as she ventures out on her own and finds herself unprepared for the world outside of Idaho due to her isolated upbringing. Kahlo paints the sun in the background of her piece to allude to the fact that the sun signifies human sacrifice in Aztec mythology. Just as Kahlo feels as though she is being sacrificed due to the accident she faced, Tara Westover's father sacrificed her education due to his personal beliefs.  ]]> 2022-05-12 14:36:22 UTC https://padlet.com/cmoulson2022/inu0j2ekq0esvpl1/wish/2181377241 cmoulson2022 https://padlet.com/cmoulson2022/inu0j2ekq0esvpl1/wish/2181480876 In her interview with Ellen, Tara discusses how her memoir highlights the difference between intention and effect; despite her parents having well-meaning intentions, the way they believed they were protecting their children turned out to be harming them. She also explains to Ellen that, as she grew older and attended college, she was drawn into mainstream society, while her parents became more radical. This difference in beliefs, according to Tara, made maintaining a relationship increasingly difficult. ]]> 2022-05-12 15:34:57 UTC https://padlet.com/cmoulson2022/inu0j2ekq0esvpl1/wish/2181480876 cmoulson2022 https://padlet.com/cmoulson2022/inu0j2ekq0esvpl1/wish/2181483917 Tara's story starts in her childhood home located at the base of Buck's Peak Mountain in Idaho. Due to her family's isolation from society, Tara's father had complete control over the lives of his children, as he didn't have to worry about intervention from the outside world. Gene, the name Tara gives her father in Educated, had grown up himself on the mountain and had developed hardline Mormon beliefs over the course of his lifetime. Not only did he insist that all injuries sustained by his children be treated by their midwife mother, but he also refused to send them to school. 

Tara was born in the year 1968, a time when the Civil Rights and Women's Liberation movements alarmed Mormon leaders by representing the erosion of traditional values. To counter these movements, Mormons emphasized more strongly the importance of family life, thus becoming more conservative. ]]> 2022-05-12 15:36:58 UTC https://padlet.com/cmoulson2022/inu0j2ekq0esvpl1/wish/2181483917 cmoulson2022 https://padlet.com/cmoulson2022/inu0j2ekq0esvpl1/wish/2186016301 Mary Oliver wrote "The Journey" to highlight the importance of taking one's life into their own hands. Over the course of the poem, she describes the challenges that go along with breaking free from the negative influences in our lives, explaining that "the voices around you kept shouting their bad advice... the whole house/ began to tremble/ and you felt the old tug/ at your ankles." Readers can relate this to Tara's journey away from the isolation of her childhood, as her parents didn't accept her desire to attend college. However, as the poem continues, readers can see that the hardships faced along the journey are not without reward. Oliver mentions near the end of her poem that "there was a new voice/ which you slowly/ recognized as your own."]]> 2022-05-16 16:16:05 UTC https://padlet.com/cmoulson2022/inu0j2ekq0esvpl1/wish/2186016301 cmoulson2022 https://padlet.com/cmoulson2022/inu0j2ekq0esvpl1/wish/2196734867 2022-05-24 01:18:03 UTC https://padlet.com/cmoulson2022/inu0j2ekq0esvpl1/wish/2196734867