Educated: A Memoir Summary and Analysis

Section Six Summary: A Divided Family (Chapters 35–40)

Tara flees Buck’s Peak and spends the rest of Christmas break with Drew in Salt Lake City before returning to England. Over the following months, Shawn continues to threaten Tara over email. Gene manages to convince Audrey to forgive Shawn, and Audrey tells Tara that she must do the same. Confused by this reversal, Tara begins to doubt her own memories.

In the fall of 2010, Tara starts a one-year fellowship at Harvard. Gene and Faye show up for an unexpected visit, hoping to pressure Tara into recanting her accusations against Shawn. Tara stands her ground, but she soon experiences a mental breakdown and is unable to make progress on her research for more than a year. Back in England, Tara begins to see a therapist and process her family traumas. Tara’s brothers Tyler and Richard reach out to Tara to hear her version of the story. Both ultimately choose to side with Tara, resulting in their semi-estrangement from the family.

Tara finishes her dissertation on her 27th birthday and successfully defends it shortly thereafter, making her now officially an academic. She returns to Buck’s Peak for her maternal grandmother’s funeral and reflects on her divided family.

Section Six Analysis: A Divided Family (Chapters 35–40)

Having spent years learning to trust her own memory, Tara is faced with a painful choice in this section: Deny what she knows to be true (namely, that Shawn is violent and dangerous) or lose her family. Unlike Audrey, who capitulates to her parents and is welcomed back into the fold on the condition of pretending nothing is wrong with Shawn, Tara manages to stand her ground even when her parents show up at Harvard to pressure her in person. While she is outwardly strong, however, Tara is mentally devastated. She finds herself unable to work and doubts her own mental facilities; she is only able to move forward when she commits to seeing a therapist. In the final pages of the book, Tara returns to Buck’s Peak as a true adult, secure in her own reality.