The book Educated is a memoir about Tara’s life as she grows up in the rural mountains to a family of survivalists. She is one of seven children in the family and she is homeschooled by their mother, who is an herbalist and midwife. While her father salvages scraps and metal from his junkyard, who is helped by most of his children when they are not being taught by their mother. Tara’s father believes they should live strictly by word of God and that anything other than what God says should be considered wrong. Westover is excluded from the rest of the world due to her family beliefs and how their beliefs affect their lives. While Westover is beginning to grow up and discover who she is, separated from her family beliefs and values. She is being opposed and brought down by her brother Shawn, who makes her feel bad for wanting to discover who she is and not what they tell her to be. The relationship between Shawn and Westover has impacted Westover emotionally and physically causing her to break herself down and to question herself.

Throughout certain chapters in the book Educated we are shown a character who is portrayed as the antagonist, but oftentimes he can be seen as the good in the protagonist’s life. The character being described is Shawn, who is the brother of Tara Westover. The reader is first introduced to Shawn’s character in chapter 10 of Educated, he is described by the people in town as being ”a bully, a bad egg, and that he was always hunting or being hunted by hooligans from Utah or even further afield”(Westover 96). Westover’s first memory where she had experienced the violent personality of Shawn was when Shawn had asked her to hand him a glass of water but instead, she threw it on his head. This causes him to physically abuse Westover, once it’s over she locks herself in the bathroom and says to herself “I’m only crying from the pain…not from anything else”(Westover 111). She doesn’t want to see Shawn as the opposer so she starts blaming herself for everything that happens between them. This is shown when she says” I begin to reason with myself, to doubt whether I had spoken clearly”(Westover 195). She didn’t want to feel powerless and seen as weak so she keeps telling herself “ It didn’t affect me”(Westover 111). 

Throughout several chapters, Westover keeps getting physically abused by Shawn and every time it happens she breaks herself down even more than before. There is another incident where she is having dinner with her family and she had invited Charles. Shawn and Westover get into a physical fight, where Charles witnesses the incident. Westover and Charles meet up after the dinner and get into an argument, where Westover “surrendered to rages, venting all my savage anger, every fearful resentment Id ever felt toward Dad or Shawn”(Westover 190) and she let it out of him, causing them to break up. Shawn’s aggravating and violent behavior started bothering Westover, causing rage and anger to start building up. Shawn is the reason that Westover’s relationship with Shawn had been broken. She isn’t just being physically abused but also emotional to the point where she is believing every word he says about her to be true. 

Shawn whats to have control over Westover just like he has over his girlfriend Sadie. Shawn plays a game to test his control over Sadie, which could be seen as something he does to Westover, but instead, he knows that his actions are taking a toll on her so he is controlling her in away. Westover did not “think of her brother as that person; I doubt I will ever think of him that way”(Westover 180). She believes this because she saw an expression on Shawn’s face that was” unforgettable”(Westover196). His expression “was not anger or rage. There is no fury in it. Only pleasure, unperturbed”(Westover 196). Westover saw in his expression pleasure, which scares her because he finds her pain pleasurable. This is making her changer her view on him and she is starting to see who he really is. Shawn does not see the pain Westover goes through, he sees the whole situation as a game and he says” next time we’re having fun, I should tell him if something is wrong”(Westover 195). The quote helps the reader understand that Shawn does not understand the damage he is doing to his sister. He does not see the pain he is causing and he thinks of it all as a game, which he is the only one enjoying it. After the situation, Westover writes in her journal and writes about what really happens and includes every detail. This is her standing up to him and telling herself that she is done protecting Shawn.

Overall, the relationship between Shawn and Westover is a contributor to how Westover perceives herself throughout the book. Shawn is one of the antagonists tearing Westover throughout the book, making her feel self-conscious and always questioning herself throughout the book. The emotional abuse is shown throughout the book and so is the physical abuse she is faced with when Shawn is present. This toxic relationship between her brother and her is also affecting her relationship with Charles. Westover starts to believe that her brother is not her brother anymore, she starts seeing him as something that is not human. She finally starts realizing that she has power in her words and she writes in her journal what really happened in one violent incident between her and Shawn. 

Work Cited

Westover, Tara. Educated. Random, 2018.