More Than a Place

What is home? Throughout time home has been changed many times. It started with home where the heart is? Then, where you feel most comfortable? Finally, to where you family is? But overall home is very personal and can be a very touchy subject for some people. In Marilynne Robinson’s “Home” it’s discussed and examined quite often. It is considered one of the key parts of the novel overall. When figuring out what exactly makes a home or when trying for a more formal definition of home you can ask many different questions to try to accomplish this task such as, can you ever go home? Do our homes and histories define us? How do we create or destroy a home? How should we behave at home? Jack in the novel Home is struggling with what he truly feels home is for him. Throughout the story he goes through a lot of mental hardships and uncertainties on what he should do with these hardships. Overall he makes the decision that is best for him, which is to leave once again and be away from the town that he grew up. Because he believes that home is not a place. Home is a feeling which is far greater than a place.

In “Home” Jack was trying to figure out what truly was home for him, and he questioned if his childhood home was still considered his home or if it was just another stop in his travels. Though out the novel Jack seems to be constantly struggling with himself, his father, Glory, and the people of the town. At first when he arrived back home he felt that while he was welcomed back to Gilead but, there was always that slight strange look from the people of the town, because they hadn’t forgot how much of a rebel and a troublemaker he was. His father was truly elated to see his only son return home because he had been gone for so many years with no contact or explanation why it is that he truly left in the first place. A quote that helps to explain one of the reasons why he left is that “Our society puts pressure on us to have it all figured out. That’s unfortunate, because I think it’s okay to be on a journey.” –Chad Butler. This is a great quote that attempts to figure out how people react to pressure from society and often in life the ones that put the most pressure on us is the people at home. Jack never really had his life figured out and he believed in order to be an important member to the community he had to get his mind right. This relates to the sense home because often home is where you feel that you can be more yourself than anywhere else in the world. Jack never really felt that, he understood that everyone loved him very much and he wanted to be comfortable there but he needed to get away from all the people that he just couldn’t let down. I’m sure that he thought long and hard about his decision but, in the end he just felt like what most people would call his “home” just wasn’t the right fit.

In the novel it often discussed how and why Jack left, and does him leaving truly define him. In this case he was absolutely defined by his actions and so was his family. Due to the fact that Jack left the house his father was always looked at a little different because he had a “runaway son”. So Jack would always be defined by him leaving. Robinson assumes that all people know what it is like to be living at home and how outrageous it would be for us to leave ours. But, in argument to that home isn’t always about the physical place of living. It is more about how you feel when you are at “home”. Jack never felt like he fit in he always believed that he was considered the outsider of the community but over all other things he felt he was the outsider of the family. When he came back everyone had forgiven him and it was almost like it never even happened. But, the ones that never forgot would be his father and Glory. These two seem throughout the novel to be just waiting for the moment when they no longer see Jack anymore and he just disappears for the second time. No one understood just why he left in the first place but, his father had these wise words to Glory when Jack came back “You must forgive in order to understand. Until you forgive, you defend yourself against the possibility of understanding.”- Robinson (84). This quote could not be truer. Jack was never really understood and was just liked because of his father’s high standing with in the community. Glory always saw Jack as trying to take the spotlight and seems to remember jack in the moments before he left instead of the good times they had shared together. With Jack he was always defined by his “home” because he was a pastor’s son. He could never do wrong and if he did do something wrong it would be pardoned by the town. Overall we are defined by are home. It could be in money, home décor, family, or in this case standing in the community. No matter what type of home you come from there will always be a part of you that is being defined by your “home”.

Jack assumedly came back to be with his family again and when his father saw him again he said “Weary or bitter of bewildered as we may be, God is faithful. He lets us wander so we will know what it means to come home.” This speaks to his father being a reverend and how much faith he has in God. Jack deep down assumed this too. But, quickly realized that this wasn’t his home and it was a place that he didn’t feel he could be himself. He understood the love his family had for him but, he just couldn’t be himself around them.

If you look at Home you will see that for Jack it is much more than a place. “The ache for home lives in all of us, the safe place where we can go as we are and not be questioned.”- Maya Angelou. Jack looks for that and finds that it isn’t where his father and sister are but rather with his wife. So, can you ever go home? Yes you can but it isn’t a place it is a feeling of safe haven. Some find this right away others it takes time. Jack took his time but found it thankfully and now should feel the most comfort in his new “HOME”.

Works Cited Page

Robinson, Marilynne. Home. New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2008. Print.

"Maya Angelou Quote." BrainyQuote. Xplore. Web. 03 Apr. 2016.

"SUCCESSPATH CAREER DEVELOPMENT: Duck to Water." SUCCESSPATH CAREER DEVELOPMENT: Duck to Water. Web. 03 Apr. 2016.

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