Abstract: The key issue in the controversy concerning community narrative is how commonality coordinates with individuality. The novel Housekeeping by Marilynne Robinson, an American novelist and essayist, is hailed as a new addition to the contemporary literary canon. The mainstream literary criticism stresses feminine subjectivity, but neglects the exploration of the relation mode between community and individuals. Based on the cultural logic of the mainstream white race, the narrative in Robinson’s Housekeeping starts from internal attributes like bloodline and locality and puts an emphasis on the spiritual reality in constructing community. Meanwhile, the novel critiques the oppressive discourse of homogeneity and standardization in community through a writing of femine individuality without the denial of self-placement in national construct. What her narrative demonstrates is a careful consideration over the construction and deconstruction of community and a representation of a fictionalized community that accommodates heterogeneity.

Key words: Marilynne Robinson, Housekeeping, community, individuality, homogeneity