Educated: Chapter 27 Summary & Analysis

Tara enrolled in BYU as a music major in hopes that she’d one day return home and direct the church choir. Now, though, as she enters the fall of her junior year, she drops all of her music classes and begins taking classes in geography, politics, and Jewish history. She begins learning about history, government, and current events, and by the end of the semester, the world feels “bigger” to Tara. At the same time, she feels that studying history and politics is not a “womanly” pursuit—and her conversations with some of her more conservative Mormon friends at BYU confirm the idea that it is “wrong” for women to have interests in certain things.

Confused and conflicted, Tara decides to meet with Dr. Kerry, the professor of her Jewish history class. They talk about her background, and Tara admits that she was kept away from school all her life and only learned about the Holocaust when she arrived at BYU. She tells Dr. Kerry the truth about her parents and her family, and he encourages her to “stretch herself” by pursuing whatever topics and interests call to her. He suggests she apply to a study abroad program he runs each year at Cambridge—a university Tara has never heard of. 

When Tara returns home to Buck’s Peak for Christmas, she learns that Emily is in the midst of a very difficult pregnancy. She is having contractions at only twenty weeks, and yet is not on bed rest or receiving any special treatment—she works in the kitchen with a half-dozen other women, straining herbs for Mother’s oils. Six months after Dad’s accident, he is faring better, but has trouble breathing and frightens people with his scarred, twisted hands and facial features. Nevertheless, Dad describes the explosion as a “blessing” and a “miracle” straight from God, meant to show people “there’s another way besides the Medical Establishment.”

Tara notices a shift in the employees who work in Mother’s kitchen straining herbs and blessing oils. They listen to Dad’s speeches with reverence and awe. They are “followers” of Mother and Dad’s doctrine now, converted by Dad’s trial and Mother’s role in curing him with salves, herbs, and tinctures. Tara sees that her mother is not the meek woman she once was—emboldened by Dad’s rhetoric, Faye sees herself as being in direct communication with the Lord Himself.

Tara is rejected from the Cambridge program a few weeks after Christmas, but Dr. Kerry tells Tara that he has written to the committee on her behalf and appealed the decision; she is going to be able to go. Tara cannot believe her good fortune—but is frightened, as the obstacle of obtaining a passport still stands in her way. Because of her conflicting documents and delayed birth certificate, she has some trouble, but her aunt Debbie signs an affidavit on her behalf and soon Tara has a key to the rest of the world.

In February, Emily gives birth. Though she is only twenty-six weeks along, Mother insists it is “God’s will” that Emily have the baby early. When the baby comes out “still, and the color of ash,” Mother realizes that the baby needs to be in a hospital, and the Westovers load up the van and drive through a blizzard to get there. The baby, Peter, undergoes “countless” surgeries on his heart and lungs over the subsequent months, and when his doctors send him home, they warn Shawn and Emily that he will always be frail. Dad and mother, however, insist that “Peter was supposed to come into the world this way.” He is a “gift from God,” and it is up to God alone to choose how he “gives His gifts.”