The word family has different meanings to everyone. Families come in all different shapes, sizes, races, and ages. A lot of families are related by blood, but that does not mean that they have to be. In the novel Plainsong by Kent Haruf, Victoria Roubideaux and the McPheron brothers are part of an unconventional family. Victoria has never been accepted by the people who are blood related to her. This amount of rejection has left her in a very vulnerable state. The McPheron brothers live a remote life on outskirts of Holt, Colorado. They have a very simple life and a standard routine. There world is shaken when Maggie Jones asks them if Victoria, a seventeen year old pregnant girl, can live with them. The relationship between Victoria and …show more content…
Their routine completely changed when Victoria came into the picture. They had to start looking after a teenage girl that they did not know very well at all. Their isolated life has made them very observant. They start picking up on social cues that Victoria gives off. The first night after they ate dinner together, the brothers talked about Victoria after she left “She didn’t eat very much supper… I reckon maybe she just don’t like steak. Oh, she ate enough. She’s just a small eater” (Haruf 133). This shows how concerned they are that Victoria is comfortable. They also double, even triple check to make sure that Victoria has enough blankets for the night. When Raymond and Harold find out the Victoria is feeling a little lonely they go out of their way to make conversation “We just was wondering… what you thought of the market” (Haruff 163). Most seventeen year old girls know nothing about the market, but the brothers just want to make conversation. The brothers seem to be overanalyzing everything, which may have been something they learned in their life of …show more content…
They use their knowledge from the farm and apply it to Victoria and her pregnancy. The brothers confide in Maggie Jones about how they are going to buy a crib. Maggie responds in a joking manor “I’m to understand that you don’t mean a corn crib” (Haruf 177). They obviously do not mean a corn crib, but since they are farmers it was a good joke. One example of when they really used their farm knowledge to help Victoria was when she came back from Denver. Victoria was worried she may have harmed the baby by drinking and smoking marijuana. Raymond quickly put her mind at ease “I knew of this heifer we had one time that was carrying a calf, and she got a length of fencewire down her some way and it never hurt her or the calf” (Haruf 264). Later that day Harold accused Raymond of not being truthful about the story about the heifer. Raymond said he did make it up, but he will lie about whatever he has to to protect Victoria. This part in the book shows how Victoria and the brothers went from just being housemates to being an unconventional