Educated: A Memoir

Gene Westover is Tara Westover’s father. He grew up his whole life in Buck’s Peak, Idaho, where the Westover family lives throughout the memoir. As a young man, Gene is described as jovial, charismatic, and deeply confident in his beliefs and intelligence. Gene never attends college and never leaves Buck’s Peak; he meets his future wife, Faye, in the town nearby his family’s land on the mountain. They fall in love, and he brings her to live on the mountain with him. Although Gene was more amiable as a young man, his interpersonal issues began when he married Faye. Faye’s family members did not want them to marry and were disturbed by the rough and somewhat violent culture of Gene’s family life on the mountain. This disagreement resulted in Faye’s frequent estrangement from her family in town.

Gene’s interpersonal issues only increased as he got older. Although never confirmed by medical professionals because Gene refuses to see doctors, Westover believes that he developed bipolar disorder in adulthood. She justifies this belief through story after story of Gene’s massive mood swings—from lying catatonic in bed for weeks to working from dawn till dusk, lecturing animatedly about conspiracy theories for hours on end, and excitedly attempting dangerous tasks repeatedly. She also cites his intense paranoia about the government and the medical establishment as well as his delusions of grandeur. Although Gene’s apparent mental health issues repeatedly put his entire family in danger, resulting in different family members getting injured on several occasions, he is proud. He never apologizes, acknowledges his wrongdoing or poor judgment, or admits that he may need professional help. In Gene’s world, he is something like a god—his word is the final word, he is the final authority, and everyone in the family must follow his word or risk the consequences.

Gene’s religious fanaticism, mental health issues, and toxic views on masculinity and education are the primary conflict in Westover’s journey to finding herself through her education. In Gene’s world, there is one right way to do everything, according to God’s will combined with the authority of Gene’s intelligence. Anyone who suggests another way of doing anything—of receiving medical care, of getting an education, of being a woman—is directly defining his authority and is therefore a threat. Westover defies Gene on each of these issues and others. Through her experiences in the outside world, she learns that there are multiple approaches to being a good person, but Gene cannot stand for multiplicity. In order for his version of reality to remain intact—which the memoir appears to suggest is Gene’s utmost goal in life—he must stamp out any and all dissension, even if it means cutting out his own family members.

However, Gene’s behavior is not unique to him or to the Westover family. He is an example of what can happen when fundamentalism is given free reign, and what can happen when mental health issues go untreated. From the beginning to the end of the memoir—over the course of 20 years’ worth of memories—Gene never changes. He remains the same while Westover moves forward, and his life and reality on the mountain are frozen in time. 

Faye Westover is Tara Westover’s mother. Faye grows up in the town nearby the mountain where the Westover family lives throughout the memoir. When she meets her future husband, Gene, while working in town, she is eager to be swept away from the respectable life her mother desires for her by an unconventional young man in order to live an unconventional—or what she perhaps saw at the time as rebellious—lifestyle.

In Gene’s family, everyone has a role to perform, and Faye’s role is dictated both by the beliefs of the Mormon church, and by Gene’s extremist interpretations of those believes. In practice, this means that Faye spends her time in the kitchen, doing “women’s work” and caring for the family. For a time, she is not allowed to hold a job of any kind since Gene perceives women who work as defying their divine purpose, but Gene adjusts his interpretation of a “woman’s work” so as to include midwifery as an acceptable job for his wife to have. Throughout the memoir, Faye works as a midwife and does other caregiving-type work, like making her own herbal remedies.

Perhaps to Gene’s surprise, his idea that Faye should work as a midwife—an idea that comes to him solely because the family needs more income—results in occasional contestations of his authority. When Westover gets older, Faye becomes the primary breadwinner in the family due to a successful essential oils business. Given this change, Faye wants to start calling some of the shots in the family, making decisions about how the family lives and what rules they follow. Faye becomes more assertive due to her financial success, and she occasionally pushes back on Gene when he commands her to do a certain thing simply because she is a woman.

However, Faye is invested in performing the role of the perfect, submissive Mormon wife. Her security and wellbeing as a woman living in a fundamentalist religious community depends on her family remaining intact and on having Gene by her side as the head of her household. As a result, she supports Gene’s authoritarianism in his interactions with the children; at times, she even lies to the children to preserve Gene’s ego or to support his authority. When Gene makes decisions, however cruel, Faye always backs him up.

More than anyone else in the family, Faye has internalized Gene’s view of how a woman and wife should be. At times, she shows glimpses of doubt or hesitance in response to some of Gene’s particularly harsh decisions, yet in the end, she supports him in his goal of maintaining his authority and sustaining his version of reality.

Shawn Westover is Tara Westover’s older brother, the second oldest of the Westover children. Shawn is featured in the memoir more than any other Westover sibling in Westover’s memories of her life growing up, perhaps because he played the most significant role in opening her eyes to not only her family’s deep-seated issues, but to the fact that they probably will never acknowledge their wrongdoing and change their ways.

Shawn arguably suffers more consequences than the other Westover children at the hands of Gene and Faye’s questionable decision-making. He suffers extremely severe injuries by way of near-death accidents on multiple occasions. But Shawn is also the only Westover child who will openly defy Gene when he believes Gene is in the wrong; their yelling matches appear to be a contest of who is the most masculine, of who will be in charge and have the authority. And Gene is not the only family member Shawn attempts to dominate. He physically and emotionally abuses his sisters throughout their teenage years, causing significant emotional harm to Westover in the process.

Shawn is never held accountable for his actions, even though multiple family members have witnessed Shawn’s abusiveness on different occasions. Although Shawn is clearly abusive, he still conforms to the family way of life and supports Faye and Gene’s beliefs and values. No matter how bad Shawn acts, he is still an insider; when Westover begins exhibiting the characteristics of an outsider, there is no question who Faye and Gene will support.

More than anything, Shawn demonstrates the intergenerational consequences of fundamentalism and poor education. It is clear that Shawn will pass down the toxic, damaging features of Westover family culture to his own children, continuing the cycle of warping the notion of education so that it serves his preexisting belief system. 

Tyler Westover is Tara Westover’s older brother, the fourth oldest Westover child. He is Westover’s only ally in the family after Westover is cut off by her other family members. He is also the only one to fully escape the family’s insular culture and beliefs, besides Westover. Growing up, Tyler is quieter and more subdued than the rest of his siblings. Although quiet, he persistently defies Gene’s control, making time for his own studies even when Gene insists he work in the junkyard from dawn till dusk. Tyler’s difference seems to be what ultimately helps him escape. Tyler is the first Westover child to go to college. He gets into BYU and then goes to Purdue to get his PhD. Tyler marries a “normal” girl and raises his family away from Buck’s Peak. He rarely comes home. While Westover does not see him often for several years, she and Tyler connect again when the rest of the family cuts her off. Tyler and his wife are Westover’s main source of support as she grieves the loss of her family, her home, and her past. Tyler validates Westover’s memories, but most of all, he validates her present and future. Tyler supports Westover’s new life, her education, and her rejection of Gene’s fundamentalism, bigotry, and conspiracy theories. He lives in the same reality as Westover, the one that their family will never be able to acknowledge or accept. 

Audrey Westover is Westover’s older sister, the third oldest Westover child. Although Audrey does not play a key role in Westover’s early memories, she appears more often as Westover gets older and becomes curious about her siblings’ view of the family culture and practices. Audrey rebels for a time during her teenage years; she gets a job in town, secures a car, and refuses to work for Gene. However, she eventually succumbs to her parents’ way of life. She gets married as a teenager and begins having children. She lives near the family land with her own family and is a stay-at-home mom; like Faye, the only work she does involves making herbal remedies and assisting with midwifing duties.

After Westover goes away to college and graduate school, Audrey contacts her about Shawn’s abusiveness. During this time, Westover learns that Shawn abused Audrey before he abused her. Audrey wants to confront Shawn about this with Westover’s help; she insists that the only way they will be successful will be if they do it together. But when they actually talk to Faye and Gene about Shawn’s behavior, it becomes clear that neither will support Audrey and Westover. Beyond refusing to help, Faye and Gene even question Audrey’s credibility and accuse her of being the one in the wrong. When this occurs, Audrey makes a complete switch. She turns against Westover and accuses her of being the source of the family’s strife.

Audrey makes these decisions as an act of self-preservation. On one level, Shawn threatens to kill her, so it seems that she is afraid for her life. But on another level, Audrey seems to be more afraid of the threat of being cut out of the family. Audrey has no education, no marketable skills, and no social network outside of the family. If Faye and Gene cut her out, she would have an extremely difficult time making it on her own. It is not entirely clear if Audrey chooses to side with Faye and Gene because she does not want to suffer the consequences that come with defying them, or if she truly believes that they are in the right.

What is clear is that Audrey’s upbringing has left her in a position from which she cannot make decisions for herself; she has very little agency. Readers might question whether this is by design—a key function of Gene’s constant attempts to keep his reality intact—or if it is merely an unfortunate, albeit incidental, consequence of being raised in a fundamentalist home. 

Dr. Kerry is Westover’s Jewish History professor at BYU and the first real educator who advocates for her in her educational journey. Learning about her background, he encourages her to apply to a study abroad program at Cambridge and fights for her when she does not get into the program initially. While Westover is at the study abroad program, Dr. Kerry encourages her about the ways that she is different from the other students; he is the first adult to suggest to Westover that her past experiences—her “education” at home, from her family—gives her a unique perspective that her classmates do not have. When Westover doubts that she will ever fit into the academic world at Cambridge, Dr. Kerry is the first to assure her that, despite her feelings about her background, she belongs in that world as much as anyone else. 

Luke Westover is Tara Westover’s older brother and the fifth Westover child. He is frequently represented in Westover’s memories of her adolescence, not because they spent a significant amount of time together, but because he and Westover were forced to work on Gene’s crew together in the junkyard for several years. Luke’s most memorable moment in the memoir is when he suffers an extremely severe burn on his legs during an accident while working for Gene. Faye is gone when the accident occurs, so 11-year-old Westover is left to tend to Luke’s garish injury alone. Luke suffers frequent injuries, both big and small, throughout Westover’s adolescence. Although she and Luke are not close and rarely talk, after Westover becomes estranged from her parents and half of the family, Luke remains kind and civil when they do see each other. He mostly keeps to himself, living life with his wife and a slew of children on Buck’s Peak working for Gene. 

Richard is the next-youngest Westover child, before Tara Westover. After Westover leaves home, Richard has a difficult time dealing with Gene’s obsessiveness and conspiracy theories. Gene becomes obsessed with the idea that Richard is a genius—the next Einstein—and that he will use his genius to disprove all the false scientific theories that the Illuminati have developed. Gene’s constant talk about Richard’s abilities makes Richard extremely anxious; although he wants to leave home and go to college like Tyler and Westover did, he does extremely poorly on the ACT and confesses to Westover that he will never be able to live up to Gene’s expectations. Richard does eventually get into a state university in Idaho and, like Tyler and Westover, goes on to pursue a PhD in chemistry. He also moves away from home to Oregon. When Gene and Faye cut Westover out, Richard believes her side of the story. 

Tony is the eldest Westover sibling. He is so much older than Westover that he barely factors into her memories from her childhood and youth because he had already moved away from home when she was a child. Although Tony did not take the education route like Westover, Tyler, and Richard, he still took measures to put some distance between himself and the rest of the family. He got married at a young age, had children, and worked as a truck driver. However, with only a GED, he could not bounce back from the 2008 recession when his trucking business failed; at the end of the memoir, Tony and his family have moved home, and he is working for Gene.

Charles is a local town boy who Westover meets at theater rehearsals, a “normal kid,” and Westover’s first crush. Charles eventually becomes Westover’s boyfriend, until he witnesses Shawn physically abusing her at a family dinner at the Woodward home and claims that he cannot handle her denial of her circumstances any longer. Charles’s character highlights the differences in values, beliefs, behaviors, and customs between the fundamentalist Woodward family and the rest of the townspeople. His perspective contributes to Westover’s crumbling reality, and her growing realization that, as Charles says, “the only person who can save her is herself” (196). As Westover meets people outside of her family circle like Charles, she begins to see her family, her upbringing, and her beliefs in the way that an outsider would.