Navarrete-Perez 1

Seluani Navarrete-Perez

Prof Pettay

ENG 112

10 May 2022

Breaking the Cycle: An Analysis of Educated

In reflection to Educated, Westover stated “you can miss a person every day, and still be

glad that they are no longer in your life.” In Tara Westover’s memoir, Educated, she details her

childhood upbringing through recollections and describes the dynamic of herself with her family.

Tara’s family are devoted Mormon’s but their beliefs fall into extreme ideals that cause physical,

mental, and societal harm to the entire family. However, once she begins to develop an interest in

education, Tara begins to unpack the world of abuse that she was living in constantly. In the

memoir Educated, Tara Westover expresses through past experiences of how the cycle of

indoctrination can be broken with independence and education.

Westover sets the tone and stage for the story through various motifs and descriptions of a

despaired Tara living in her manipulative home. Throughout the memoir, Westover recalls the

“Junkyard” (41, 43), “Buck’s Peak” (5), and the “Indian Princess mountain” (11,12). These

settings become essential to the timeline of Tara’s reflection venture in which Westover begins to

show a unique perspective to Tara's usual life. The tone of the story begins with content and

naiveness about the family’s behavior and way of living. However, as the story progresses the

usual comfort of past encounters such as the Junkyard and the work the family completes there
 Navarrete-Perez 2

used to be a place she would go but then Tara describes it as “I didn’t even consider it. I said I

was finished with the junkyard, finished for life…” (201). Westover relates the way her mother

and father treated her siblings. In a specific scene Tara, Luke, and Benjamin are “scrapping” in

the Junkyard when their father presents them the “Shear '' (138). The machine was vividly

described by Westover as a “three-ton pair of scissors'' with blades that “cut not by sharpness but

by force and mass” (138). Luke is described as approaching the machine as his father motions

but minutes later “Luke’s arm was gashed to the bone” and ran back to the house (139).

Westover reveals Tara’s inner thoughts through figurative language that she hoped she would get

injured “like Luke’s wedge of flesh” and be allowed to “go to the house too” (139). The imagery

that Westover uses gives a deeper visual of the injuries that Tara and her family suffered through

without the medical assistance they needed. Harold Koenig, a member of the Department of

Medicine and Psychiatry at Duke University Medical Center, describes how Sigmund Freud

encouraged the separation of religion and psychiatry (Koenig, 2012). Freud believed in parting

the way religion began to fuse together with modern medicine and decided to publish his own

work in writings which range from “Religious Acts and Obsessive Practices” to “Future of an

Illusion.” However, these claims began to cause doubts and mistrust from devoted individuals

based on their religion. Westover uses the inner dialogue of Tara to show how normalized the

extent of severe injuries were in her family without the use of any medical assistance but instead

took natural remedies and waited out the side effects.

Throughout the memoir, Westover includes moments where Tara begins to advocate for

herself through the use of inner dialogue and symbolism. In the following quote, Westover

reflects on the family’s well-being and behavior:

 Navarrete-Perez 3

“When Grandma had been alive, she had, by nagging, shouting, and threats, kept my

father’s junkyard contained. Now refuse covered the farm and was creeping toward

the mountain base. The rolling hills, once perfect lakes of snow, were dotted with

mangled trucks and rusted septic tanks”

As Westover progresses throughout the story the aspects of certain places and situations that

have left a scar on Tara begin to take a different outlook as she continues to educate herself and

take the time to reflect. There begins to be a mirrored appearance from the visuals of how the

junkyard and the family’s house look like. This ultimately shows how her family has been

dealing with the accident that Gene suffered. It shows how the family has become chaotic and

has struggled in taking responsibility for the tasks that Gene would do. Tara is shown that in her

journey towards independence there are different points of view when dealing with sensitive

topics. For example when Tara faces an external conflict with society about her “retold” story of

the Holocaust and the Civil Rights Movement she has to figure out how to educate herself

through things that were believed in while growing up. Westover utilizes the inner dialogue to

help convey the way Tara’s point of view has evolved through the inner and outer conflicts that

she confronts. The specific word choice that Westover uses proves how Tara's intellectual

abilities are increasing which is a result of her breaking free from the veil that covered her eyes

throughout her unusual childhood upbringing. Desire and motivation were expressed deeply in

the development of the character to bring back a full-circle moment of how the character is

evolving.

During the final part of Educated, Westover shows the improvement that Tara has

overcome her controlling childhood through the use of mood and specific word choice as Tara’s
 Navarrete-Perez 4

education furthers. At the beginning of the memoir, Tara uses a limited vocabulary as she was

not taught further her parent's education. Westover demonstrates this through the way Gene

reasons that the “government leads children away from God” through the method of schooling

(5). There is even more supportive material that Tara was lacking fundamental skills such as

reading because she was made an outcast at her “Sunday school” where “none of the [girls]

would talk” to her (6). Tara decides that schooling isn’t for her but Westover includes the

influential sayings that Gene would tell her such as the “brainwashing” that occurred to children

in public schools or being a part of the “Illuminati spies” that affected her decision. Despite these

attempts to try and act unaffected by the extreme situations that she encounters. As Westover

narrates her memories, she provides reflective insight into how her “paranoia and

fundamentalism” were taking over her life because of her family’s beliefs (30). She quotes that

“what was happening now had happened before” like her mother, Faye, and maternal

grandmother's relationship was severed after Faye decided to turn to extreme religious paranoia.

Gene’s behavior can only be described as manipulation just as David Buss, a psychologist at the

University of Texas, stated “manipulation deals with the tactics that individuals use intentionally

to alter, shape, exploit, or change the social environments they inhabit” (Buss, 1987). This

ultimately led Tara to be subdued into “selection [which] deals with how individuals choose to

enter or avoid existing environments” (Buss, 1987). There was a relationship between father and

daughter that became estranged when Westover became conscious of how different others lived.

This ultimately led Westover to effectively portray that through a“modest way” and attempt to be

courageous.
 Navarrete-Perez 5

Westover was able to convey the message that through education and independence there

can be a way to break the cycle of indoctrination. Using the way of symbolism, word choice, and

figurative language Westover was effective in being able to portray through Tara the way she

was vulnerable in the extreme situations that affected her upbringing. The inner dialogue and

character conflict that are described by Westover further prove how there was an inner conflict

with the character throughout the story about the way society is. Although Tara had decided to

reject the idea of going to school she began to attract curiosity about what lies beyond Bucks

Peak.
 Navarrete-Perez 6

Works Cited

Buss, David M. “Selection, Evocation, and Manipulation.” Journal of Personality and Social

Psychology, vol. 53, no. 6, 1987, pp. 1214–1221.,

https://doi.org/10.1037/0022-3514.53.6.1214.

Dean, Michelle. “Educated by Tara Westover Review – Escape from a Mormon

Fundamentalist Family.” The Guardian, Guardian News and Media, 14 Feb. 2018,

https://www.theguardian.com/books/2018/feb/14/educated-tara-westover-mormon-family-r

eview.

Koenig, Harold G. “Religion, Spirituality, and Health: The Research and Clinical

Implications.” ISRN Psychiatry, vol. 2012, 2012, pp. 1–33.,

https://doi.org/10.5402/2012/278730.

Rees, C A. “Understanding Emotional Abuse.” Archives of Disease in Childhood, vol. 95, no.

1, 2009, pp. 59–67., https://doi.org/10.1136/adc.2008.143156.

Westover, Tara. Educated. Random House, 2018.