Elizabeth EliasDr.CarrEnglish 12008 December 2017 Society definition of a “normal” family is to have a perfect family and to follow accepted standards.  There is one thing these three texts; “We have always lived in a castle,” “Housekeeping,” and “Captain fantastic,” have in common, and is that they all vary from what we expect in a family and what the standard norm is. In terms of conventional domesticity, the family structure is not typically what we expect from a family and what we call is  “abnormal.” They’re many events that cause the three families in the stories to have not the typical domestic home.  In the story “we have always lived in a castle,” they go through many events that any other family would go through. The only way Merricat can embrace her new domestic situation is to reminisce about her old domestic household. In the text “housekeeping,”  they go against major domestic norms and is not the typical family one expects because both Ruth and Lucille inner lives are revealed by the way in which they keep and live in their house and lives. Lastly, “Captain fantastic” the family has a very different idea on domesticity in which everyone is against in the movie, but the family who make a habit of doing rigorous daily things, seem quite happy in their unique domesticity. Each family challenges domestic and community norms in different ways in which many do not accept and go against the “norms.” In the text “We Have Always Llived in a Castle,” the family challenges domestic and community norms throughout the whole book, in which many do not expect in society. The family is not what we call “normal” and have many challenges and odd aspects. One way is that someone in their own family poised their whole family leaving only Merricat and Constance alive and healthy, they stay locked in their homes and never leave. The whole community dislikes them and always talk about then whenever Merricat goes and gets groceries. It is through her eyes and memories that we view them from the norms of society as embodied in the lives of the townspeople that Merricat hates and that Constance views as beneath them socially – “You will not ask them…We do not ask from anyone. Remember that” she tells Merricat. These things the family does are questioned because they are typically not “normal” for the villagers. They need to be challenged because they are also not acceptable or healthy in one’s family. The villagers recede as the sisters as they break and break more norms as Constance dresses up in a suit and Merricat in a tablecloth which is typically not socially acceptable. Both Merricat and Constance find freedom after burning down the house while Merricat tries to get rid of Charles. She finds freedom after having only her sister Constance to herself and their uncle died during the fire. After the destruction of their domestic come they find freedom in their own domestic home living how they want. In “Housekeeping,” the family also challenges domestic and community norms because of how Ruth and Lucille live from home to home, never in a stable home. The two sisters grow up in the isolated home and their mother’s suicide has delivered them to the care of her sister Sylvie, a wanderer, whose “housekeeping” is a hodgepodge of inabilities to come to terms with domesticity.  As the two sisters grow older, they become more aware of Sylvie’s withdrawals from ordinary human society. They battle over an allegiance to Sylvie, on the one hand, and the pressures of societal norms. The way Sylvie acts is not what we call normal and Lucille especially thinks so because she always seems embarrassed when she does something like when she is sleeping in the park bench with a book on her face or when she is leaning over the bridge, seeming like she was going to kill herself. Ruth says “when did I become so unlike other people? Either it was when I followed Sylvie across the bridge, and the lake claimed us, or it was when my mother left me waiting for her, and established in me the habit of waiting and expectation which makes any present moment most significant for what it does not contain.” since Lucille isolated herself from Ruth and Lucille because she looked for a more a normal domestic home, Ruth started to question when her actions were not normal because she followed her Sylvie footsteps. These norms were questioned because the people in that time new the quality the girls were living with was unsafe because Sylvie never noticed if they went to school or not nor she did not notice or seemed to care what they were doing, people worried and it was questioned their domestic life. The way Lucille comes to term with “freedom” and destruction of the domesticity condition she was living with at Sylvie, she managed to get adapted to a normal living home and have a normal domestic home. As for Ruth and Sylvie, they both at the end, reject domesticity in favor of freedom and travel and they both run away in the boat together for freedom, escaping the norms of domesticity. “Captain Fantastic” mostly vary from what we expect in terms of conventional domesticity. The family challenge domestic and community norm a lot throughout the whole movie. The life in the woods and their domestic home mostly takes place in nature. They are children with made-up names, stalking their prey for food. They do activities that most normal families do not do and seem quite happy in their unique domesticity. Most people find the way they live dangerously and think the kids should belong to a real school like a regular kid. The father made the decision to shun society, in favor of a more open-minded existence in nature. They hunt for their food and their own dad teaches them which is against community norms. People overlook them and Ben, the father’s, sister thinks he is doing an awful job raising the kids and that it is dangerous on how they are raised in the wild and how they hunt for food and basically how they live. Ben preaches freedom, but who has a hard time leaving anyone else to their own belief, he believes what he believes so strongly, and who loves who he loves so much. When his wife dies she wanted to be cremated but her father held a funeral for her. He wanted to do what he believed what was right and make her desires come true so he was on a mission to set her free via the subversion and destruction of domesticity because everyone believed what he was doing was wrong. After the funeral he goes to the graveyard with his kids and digging her out and finally set her free by cremating her, making her death wishes true after keeping his word. After his mission, he comes to the idea of freedom with his kids and comes into a domestic home, not exactly what people call a normal domesticity but his come becomes more in terms of society. The film overlooks the idea of domesticity by living how they desire in freedom.