Educated is a memoir by Tara Westover, where she explicitly describes her challenging way toward education. Born in a conservative family isolated from mainstream society in the mountains of Idaho, Tara decides that a university education is the best way for her to start a new life full of opportunities. Educated is a retrospective story about the transformation of a person whose will and determination led her to Cambridge University. Dealing with multiple aspects, such as the role of knowledge and the conflict of identities, the author pays special attention to the theme of the past. This essay aims to prove that one’s past is shaped by biases and personal experiences and that knowledge provides a new perspective on perceiving reality.
The story is written in the form of the author’s memories about her childhood and struggle against her family and their old-fashioned, sometimes paranoid views. However, at the end of the story, Westover admits that “even the past could be different from the past” (Westover 336). The first argument proving this idea is that memories are always subjective, and people may view the past from their own perspective. For Tara, many truths about the past were hidden from her or presented in a completely different way. The hatred for doctors, the “brainwashing” government, and the constant preparation for “The End of the World” were some of the ideas supported by her family and shaped her childhood memories (Westover 114).
She especially emphasizes the influence of her father, whose paranoid perception of reality allowed him to affect the rest of his family. Therefore, since people are subject to being influenced by their social environment, and especially family, their past can also be seen from these people’s perspectives.
Another essential idea of the story is that Tara could not define if her memories belonged to her or somebody else. For example, she admits that she does not remember the details of her older brother’s accident when Luke’s leg caught fire at their father’s scrapyard. The narrator states that the story was retold so many times that it “became family folklore” (Westover 93). Since Luke remembers the story differently, Westover concludes that “perhaps our memories are in error” (Westover 101). Indeed, influenced by the shock and desperation of the narrator, in addition to the different perceptions of the reality of her family, her memories became vague and unclear. This incident convinced the author that one’s memories do not always reflect the truth, and the imagined past can be different from the real past.
Since the story is based on the idea of the power of knowledge, it is important to emphasize that education became one of the reasons why Westover’s perception of her past changed. According to the author, her university education transformed her “into someone who believed she belonged in Cambridge” (Westover 336). It allowed Tara to understand universal truths that were hidden from her during her childhood. Moreover, the major change that happened to the narrator was that she stopped being ashamed of her past and her family history (Westover 336). She was able to speak openly about her childhood in poverty and ignorance without “the slightest prick of shame” (Westover 336).
The author admits that her perception of the people around her also changed with time. She remembers her brother calling her “nigger” and confirms that as an educated adult, she does not consider it a joke (Westover 228). “We had been sculpted by a tradition given to us by others,” explains Westover (228). These examples contribute to the idea that ignorance and the influence of others prevent one from understanding apparent things.
Finally, an essential message of the author is that accepting the unclear nature of the past allows understanding that people’s knowledge about their history is limited. “Now I needed to understand how the great gatekeepers of history had come to terms with their own
ignorance and partiality,” writes Westover about biased history (297). She suggests that she could construct her own view of the past based on her father’s perspective and the history she was taught. “Only the future had weight,” says Tara, implying that the past influenced by biases and ignorance became insignificant for her (337). The author emphasizes that one’s past is never precise and authentic.
It is possible to conclude that in her memoir, Westover presents the past as something vague and inaccurate. Firstly, her past was shaped by her family’s views and isolation from the rest of society. Secondly, her memories did not always reflect reality and were affected by different people’s interpretations of the same situation. Finally, university education provided a more reliable perspective of looking at the world, and the author understood that even human history cannot be considered a universal truth. These factors contributed to the change in Tara’s perception of reality and the people around her. She realized that she should not be ashamed of her family history but rather be open-minded and oriented toward the future.
Work Cited
Westover, Tara. Educated: A Memoir. Random House, 2018.