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World Lit Infographic Kingsolver
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Barbara Kingsolver               April 8, 1955- Present                     Virginia, USA

Major Works:

Fiction

Essays

Poetry

Nonfiction

Major Themes:

Kingsolver explores the following themes:

Struggles for social equality, such as the hardships faced by undocumented immigrants, the working poor, and single mothers

The balancing of individuality with the desire to live in a community

The interaction and conflict between humans and the ecosystems in which they live

She writes about food and sustainable, organic, local food production

Novel Choice Plot Summary:

My Novel is called Unsheltered. The book is about two different protagonists.

The first is Willa and she is an out-of-work journalist in 2015. She has a very handsome husband Iano who has spent roughly the last 20 years trying to get tenure at various colleges where he works. Because he is so handsome, there are often complications at work (accusations of promiscuity with students) that threaten his tenure. When the book opens, Willa and her husband have just moved into a house in New Jersey (after both she and her husband lose their jobs in Virginia) that they inherited after her mom passed away. After a 10 year stint in Cuba, her daughter Tig has shown up at their doorstep without any explanation of her absence. She moves in. Willa’s racist father-in-law Nick is dying from COPD and after wearing out his welcome in his four daughters’s homes, he has moved in with Willa and Iano. In the first chapter, Willa recieves a phone call from her son. His wife has just killed herself 5 days after the birth of their son. All of this is made worse when Willa discovers that the house they have just inherited is “a shambles”.

The second protagonist is Thatcher. He has recently moved in to the same house in New Jersey in 1875. He has married a young beauty named Rose who has very litte in common with him, but who cares a lot about money and status. Thatcher lives with Rose, her younger sister Polly, and their mother Aurelia. Aurelia’s husband built the house. Turns out- he did a crap job. THe house is already falling down. To make matters worse, Thatcher has just gotten a job at a high school as a Science teacher. He wants to teach Darwin’s new theories of evolution but his principal wants Bible stories only. One day, Thatcher visits his next door neighbor, only to discover that she is Mary Treat, a scientist who is in correspondence with Darwin himself!

Both protagonists deal with the loss of the same house as well as the madness of a society in flux. In the end, after losing it all, they find that it is the people in their lives who make it worth living. In the end, both Thatcher and Willa abandon the house (actually, they both have it torn down - so it turns out, it was never the same house…) and realize that the value in their lives is not actually in the things they have. At the end, Thatcher tells Mary Treat, “without shelter, we stand in daylight.”

Analysis of Main Characters:

Willa: Named after Willa Cather, Willa is a sad woman who misses her mom. Her mom died recently, and it left Willa reeling. For most of the novel though, even though we hear her innermost thoughts, we dont get to know her that well because she is too busy dealing with never ending catastrophe. Her son’s wife kills herself leaving him with a boat load of student debt and a newborn baby. Willa takes the baby in while her son goes to Boston to try to find work and money (he basically abandons his baby in search of money. Its a pretty typical misunderstanding of value). Willa is tasked with caring for her dying father in law, even though she pretty much hates him (he loves trump and she is a liberal so, nuff said). Her husband works as a professor and has young girls throwing themselves at him constantly. Her house is falling down.

In an effort to find a historical preservation grant, she begins to learn about the house. She learns about Mary Treat and also about Thatcher. In the end, her father in law dies, she reunites with her daughter, her daughter takes in the baby, the son stays in Boston, and she and her husband move to a small apartment near his university. In the end, Willa comes to recognize that the people in her life hold more value than all the things she worked so hard to get. In the end, the “things” abandon her, disappoint her, stress her the hell out, and nearly destroy her. But, the people in her life never do. They are the value she has created with her life- even though she has no physical things to show for…

Thatcher: This was my favorite character in the novel. I loved reading about a teacher with administrators who just dont understand him and and his moral quest for truth and beauty (cant imagine why I relate to that…). His wife doesnt love him and he doesnt really love her. They have a miscarriage in the beginning, and after that, their relationship is eh, not so great. Rose cares mostly about climbing social ladders and also getting a horse. She never takes her husband’s side when he is at odds with the crazy pants guys who run the town in which they live. He has only two companions: the journalist who aims to take down Landis (the town owner) and Mary Treat, the scientist next door. In the end, Landis gets away with murder, literally, of the journalist, and Thatcher’s wife leaves him for a rich man. In the end, his house must be torn down. In the end, though, he is finally able to pursue his two great loves: Mary and Botony. In the end, he gets to revel in truth and beauty, even though he had to lose all his nice things to get there.

Theme:

The most significant theme of my novel Unsheltered by Barbara Kingsolver is that humans are all the same, despite their differences. In the novel, Kingsolver tells the stories of two different families living in the same house in two different time periods: 1876 and 2016. Despite the overwhelming differences in these two time periods, each family faces the same dilemmas and conflicts. Both families desperately seek one of life’s most basic needs: shelter. Without it, each protagonist learns to love, and live their lives freely. They both learn that shelter is not the key to safety. Instead, love and family keep us safe. I chose the two different colored hands holding each other, and also looking like a heart. This shows the commonality between the two different families in different times, and also represents how love is what saved each of them.

How did the author’s life influence his writing in this novel? (2-3 paragraphs)

Barbara Kingsolver is constantly criticised for writing her life over and over into books. She claims that this book is entirely fiction. She even claims that the characters in the current timeline are entirely fictitious even though she directly quotes Trump.

Well, this book is no different. After learning more about her life and her beliefs, I see them everywhere in this book! First of all, the Willa character loves Virginia and misses it and hates New Jersey. In real life, Kingsolver runs an organic farm in the Shenendoah Valley in Virginia which she describes as her dream life. So there’s that. Also, she married an environmentalist scientist- there is a lot of botany in the book. There is also a lot of environmentalism from the character Tig. Her whole life’s environmental work shows up throughout this book in various ways.

Her political views rang loud and clear. She never said it, but by reading this book I will tell you, she definitely did not vote for Trump. I went back and forth about this in my own mind and in my conversations about the book the whole time I read it. I could not decide if the overly-real details in the current timeline (facebook, trump quotes, etc) took me out of the story, or just accurately documented the time in which we live. I still dont know how I feel about that.

Works Cited:

“Barbara Kingsolver.” Wikipedia, Wikimedia Foundation, 20 Nov. 2018,

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barbara_Kingsolver#Literary_style_and_themes.

Haas, Lidija. “Barbara Kingsolver: 'It Feels as Though We're Living through the End of the World'.” The Guardian,

Guardian News and Media, 8 Oct. 2018,

www.theguardian.com/books/2018/oct/08/barbara-kingsolver-fells-living-through-end-of-world.

Kingsolver, Barbara. “5 Writing Tips: Barbara Kingsolver.” PublishersWeekly.com, 12 Oct. 2018,

www.publishersweekly.com/pw/by-topic/industry-news/tip-sheet/article/78305-5-writing-tips-barbara-kingsolver.html.

Kingsolver, Barbara. “Autobiography.” Barbara Kingsolver: The Authorized Site, 2018,

www.kingsolver.com/biography/autobiography.html.

Rafter, Michelle V., et al. “6 Writing Lessons from Barbara Kingsolver.” WordCount, 7 Dec. 2012,

michellerafter.com/2012/11/19/6-writing-lessons-from-barbara-kingsolver/.