Educated - A Memoir
Tara Westover
Contributed by Micheal Celestin
Chapter 37
Summary

In this chapter, Westover recounts an evening when a person was screaming so loudly they woke her up from her sleep. The night seemed different from others as a result of this strange event. She noticed the street lights, pavements, and the rumble of cars from outside more acutely than normal. She decided to go outside barefoot, wearing only her pyjamas, and stood in the middle of Oxford Street. She could feel people staring at her. She, somehow, went back to her room and could not construct what had happened. She did not recall how she had made it out of her bed and into the street.

On that particular night, she also dreamt of her home. In the dream, her father had made a maze at Buck’s Peak and trapped her inside. “The walls were ten feet high and made of supplies from his root cellar—sacks of grain, cases of ammunition, drums of honey” (Westover 306). Despite all the provisions that were at her disposal, Westover was still trapped inside the maze searching for something precious. In the dream, however, she was not aware of what she was searching for.

Analysis

In the strange dream, Westover had a reflection of her past life, which somehow served as a trap for her. Her dream depicted the enormous impact that her family’s life had had on her. Although she was educated and out of the environment in which she was brought up, her past life still haunted her (Westover 306). The scenes described in the dream suggested that she had an unpleasant childhood. Despite the opportunities that she had, she was still lost in the maze of her family’s life.

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