There are lives that need some form of exorcism to change and move on. There are several ways to do this, but I think, there is always a constancy in these changes and it is having to leave situations, places and people behind, or at least to one side, in order for your life to work. the direction you choose.. Therefore, Tara Westover, a 32-year-old very young woman socially and professionally involved in the university environment, has to tell her own story and expose her misery in front of the whole world, and above all, the whole world. Her origins with her parents and siblings in Una Educación (Lumen, 2018).
In the course of 40 short chapters, divided into three unequal parts in first person singular and more or less temporal chronology, the author tells us what his story is from his current situation: “No, I understand why. one of my children was not allowed to get a good education” (p.239).
For this reason, it is an autobiography that is not limited to telling what happened, but to give an idea about the event through short and concise diaries and to interpret it according to what they remember. This is one of the great literary themes, the theme of memory, because it makes clear that there are facts that he remembers in one way and that his brothers remember in another way; therefore, to what extent is it certain that what we remember is one hundred percent reality.
The author/narrator/hero’s family is Mormon in faith and belief, so his life is governed by the ethical principles that guide the Latter-day Saints Movement. They live on a farm in Idaho. Her father is a scrap dealer and her mother, who has always been submissive to her husband, will first become a housewife, but then a midwife and later a successful businesswoman in the medical oil business. All siblings are subject to the father’s bipolarity, who confuses and interprets reality. Tara doesn’t go to any school, but she needs to learn like her two brothers, so that she will go straight to Brigham Young University (UBY), do her confession, even her doctorate. Cambridge University.
He tells his whole story from this cultural perspective. His very good education and professional development is always against his origins, his father, whose religious aggression is mistaken for mental illness, his brother Shawn, a true psychopath who abuses his siblings, girlfriends and wife; but in that family, as almost always, there is nothing that is not said and accepted. In fact, he spent most of his life trying to understand that what happened did not happen; So much so that when he faced his brother’s mistreatment in public, he laughed and laughed despite the pain, so everyone would think they were playing games. Tara will go so far that she will need others to verify her story as her parents spread the version that she is stubborn and evil, far from her beliefs. So obviously, the entire novel might be the perfect public account with his entire family, even if the author doesn’t say so.
And why should you read this novel? Since it is a good example of the signature type and form in which fact and fiction are mixed according to the memories and interests of the author; and because it is a wonderful story of overcoming and personal self-affirmation, showing a dose of truth in all that gets lost in terms of content and purpose, depending on what one wants. You can call it transformation. Metamorphosis. lie. betrayal. I call it education” (p.462).