Summer Break

In the words of Porky the Pig, "That's all folks!" I hope you've enjoyed my "Quality Project" for English 2. If you've become a fan, please bookmark this blog, and check back in a year or two, because I do plan on continuing to do this for books I read in college and later in my life. Don't forget to check out my previous posts, if this is the first one you see. And as we go into our summer vacations (some of us, at least), may we not forget the beauties of nature. As we say in Hawaii, Mahalo nui loa. Thank you very much.
As the rain moves
from the mountain to the sea,
so shall words move,
such that they always move me.

~Father Nature, Editor

Animal Dreams: Stunning Similes

"I'd seen photographs of lighting frozen in its terrible splendor, rippling like a knife down the curtains of the sky" (Animal 305-6).

"But the letters ended, finite as a book or a life" (Animal 300).

"The flowers were beaten down, their bent-over heads bejeweled with diamond droplets like earrings on sad, rich widows" (Animal 272).

"In the past, the two-week delay of her letters had caused me to keep a distrustful eye on Hallie, like a star so many light years away it could have exploded long ago while we still watched its false shine" (Animal 270).

"I walked downtown among strangers, smiling, anonymous as a goldfish" (Animal 200).

"My life is a pitiful, mechanical thing without a past, like a little wind-up car, ready to run in any direction somebody points me" (Animal 199).

"Bugs swirled in the headlights like planets cut loose from their orbits, doomed to chaos" (Animal 191).

"He looked at me, his eyes searching back and forth between my two pupils as if he were trying to decide which door concealed the prize" (Animal 183).

"Leaves and aborted fruits fell in thick, brittle handfuls like the hair of a cancer patient" (Animal 173).

"The picture slowly gives up its soul to him as it lies in the pan, like someone drowned at the bottom of the pool" (Animal 142).

"I kept turning my mind away from the one thought that kept coming back to me, persistent as an unwanted lover's hand, that I'd saved a life" (Animal 117).

"I know that a woman's ambitions aren't supposed to fall and rise and veer off course this way, like some poor bird caught in a storm" (Animal 107).

"The end was always curled up between us, like a sleeping cat, present even in our love-making" (Animal 105).

"Her eyes were pale as marbles" (Animal 105).

"Kissing Loyd was delicious, like some drug I wanted more of in spite of the Surgeon General's warning" (Animal 105).

"His family is a web of women dead and alive, with himself at the center like a spider, driven by different instincts. He lies mute, hearing only in the tactile way that a spider hears, touching the threads of the web with long extended fingertips and listening. Listening for trapped life" (Animal 98).

"The mother had been tortured and her eyes offered out that flatness, like a zoo animal" (Animal 93).

"I went home to read it, like a rat scurrying back to its hole with some edible prize" (Animal 86).

"Slowly it grew to a force as strong and untouchable as thunder" (51).

"Hallie thrived anyway--the blossom of our family, like the one of those miraculous fruit trees that taps into an invisible vein of nurture and bears radiant bushels of plums while the trees around it merely go on living" (Animal 49).

"I stood still for a minute, giving Hallie's and my thoughts their last chance to run quietly over the wires, touching each other in secret signal as they passed, like a column of ants" (Animal 34).

"I could see just how we'd look to somebody, hanging on to each other by the elbows: like two swimmers in trouble, both of us equally likely to drown" (Animal 31).

"His brain gets jostled and things move around inside his head like olives in a jar of brine" (Animal 20).

"Acacias lean into the river with their branches waving wildly in the current, like mothers reaching in for lost babies" (Animal 19).

"I tended to drift, like a well-meaning visitor to this planet awaiting instructions" (Animal 10).

"Hallie and I were so attached, like keenly mismatched Siamese twins conjoined at the back of the mind. We parted again and again and still each time it felt like a medical risk, as if we were being liberated at some terrible cost: the price of a shared organ. We never stopped feeling that knife” (Animal 8).

“His two girls are curled together like animals whose habit is to sleep underground, in the smallest space possible” (Animal 3)

~Father Nature, Editor

Animal Dreams: Meticulous Metaphors: Rapacious Rivers

"The river won't flow for you no, no, no" wrote Jason Robert Brown in his album, "Songs For A New World." I wonder if Brown knew the significance of his lyrics as he wrote these words. The rivers present in Kingsolver’s mind definitely won’t flow for us, but rather of their own accord….

In Animal Dreams, Kingsolver uses a pretty straightforward idea of the pollution of our rivers and rainforests to assert a much more unusual claim. How could she create a deep metaphor using an idea that the everyday person thinks about? She’s Barbara Kingsolver, that’s how.

Before twisting our thinking, Kingsolver uses rivers with their everyday metaphor meaning: an obstacle. Homero has his own “river [that] he can’t cross,” and on the other side of it is his children” (Animal 4). This isn’t meant literally; it’s metaphor, so of course the idea should have more depth than the idea of crossing a road! Something about Homero’s personality distances him from connecting with others, even his own flesh and blood. Whether these are feelings of angst because of his wife’s death, narrowed and aimed toward his daughters, or whether he’s going through hard times since his daughters left him, we’ll never know. But nonetheless, his attitude toward them created a mental river that neither party wanted to attempt to cross, because they were both simply safer on their separate sides of the river.

The next image Kingsolver creates is that of Codi leaving her baby out along the creek bank, in a dream, during a time when the “creek is flooded, just roaring” (Animal 51). The creek of Grace increases in intimidation as Codi fears it has the power to lure her baby into its dark, wet depths. But a dream is just a dream. Using Codi’s dream as a piece of evidence for this metaphor would ruin the data, right?

But Codi says herself that “there would be nothing new or surprising about a baby being born in secret and put into a creek,” which is true for all of the most depressing reasons (Animal 51). Even if Codi’s baby wasn’t left in a creek to die, I’ve heard horror stories or seen images of babies floating down a stream. The most popular, of course, being the story of Moses.

I think it can be agreed that a river is scariest when it is described as “a fierce river of mud and uprooted trees that won’t crest until dawn” (Animal 19). In fact, flooding has hit America hard in the past decade, with hurricanes manifesting more and more often. Yet, as we see when Kingsolver preaches her “go-green” message of this novel, a river can become “poison” the minute “sulfuric” is “put in the river” (Animal 63).

When a society, culture, or village is built around trees to the point that “when you have a family, you need trees,” they should be sacred (Animal 217). Any precious resource needs to be used sparingly, especially since the land can’t provide for humans forever. This is Kingsolver’s message with this metaphor. Our handy dandy work putting sulfuric acid into a river to leach it kills the land, and “the land has a memory. The lakes and the rivers are still hanging on to the DDT and every other insult we ever gave them. Lake Superior is a superior cesspool. The fish have cancer. The ocean is getting used up. The damn air is getting used up” (Animal 255). And we think that we can just waltz on by and water the trees from the river, but that would be “just like acid rain falling on them” (Animal 176).

Raymo, an oddball character in Hallie’s class brave enough to stand up to her, claims, “trees grow back” (Animal 254). This leads to Hallie’s, rather Kingsolver’s, sarcastic voice that I just love: “Sure. Trees grow back. Even a whole rainforest could grow back, in a couple hundred years maybe” (Animal 255). Nobody is here that “will clean up the mess” if everyone’s “attitude stinks,” for the “world was put here for [us] to use” (Animal 254). The usage of the rivers of the world isn’t the problem; leaving our influence on them by first polluting the earth, then “damming the [rivers]” because they are “so polluted with acid” is the real problem (Animal 266). Who gave us the right to stroll across the universe with the mindset that it’s okay to harm whatever we touch? God? Adam and Eve? Buddha? The President?

“In a desert place” such as Grace, Arizona, “only the river ran continuously” (Animal 270). The land remembers, and “the river was Grace’s memory of water” (Animal 270). Rivers are larger than us. Sometimes things we think nothing more of than obstacles are things that were there before we were. We’re walking on the earth. We came second. We are all obstacles that this world needs to overcome. And, of course, we’re here to help the earth do exactly that.

~Father Nature, Editor

Animal Dreams: A Whole New World

Consider a broken toy left under the bed. Bugs need to crawl around it, even if it's an obstruction too heavy to handle. You feel it every time you reach under the bed, however you force yourself to ignore it.

This is exactly how I perceive America to be treating Nicaragua in this story, based on the thoughts of Cosima as she reads the letters written to her by Hallie. However, this isn't the world of the novel. Codi is in Grace, Arizona, with her father, Dr. Homero Noline. But Kingsolver ties the Civil War of Nicaragua into almost every chapter. We learn just as much about Hallie's life in Nicaragua as Codi's life in Grace. Therefore, imagine a world with two dimensions. For that is what this novel features. Two anti-parallel worlds, one heading toward destruction while the other leads its inhabitants on a path of joy and peace.

Hallie is the sister living in chaos. I wouldn't be able to identify this as a Kingsolver novel without a sense of tragedy attached to it, and this time Kingsolver incorporates it without actually having the tragic character make an appearance. She went to Nicaragua "to save the crops" (Animal 30). However, "Hallie was headed for a war zone" (Animal 32). But she couldn't stop. It didn't matter to her if "no U.S. citizen could go there without expecting to be caught in crossfire," because she believes in what she's doing (Animal 271). I'm actually inspired by Hallie's determination to stay in Nicaragua, because her selflessness is rare.

However, is she being selfless or striving to be recognized as heroic by her sister? Imagine a world where you know there is good to be done, but you must put yourself in danger every second of your life in order to do it. The rational thing to do would be to leave; there are other locations in need of an environmentalist. Hallie was aiming to be seen as a martyr! When she sees the "active-duty National Guards" shooting down at the Nicaraguans, she is scared, yet unshaken. Her determination is unhealthy. The only trap that can ensnare her is the one set by herself. Codi sees Hallie as "a loved one sending [her] truth from the trenches," and on a certain level, that's all Hallie is (Animal 199).

But how can Hallie put Codi in the position of distress over her life? Hallie must know how Codi feels about her, because she makes it clear in the way she writes and the way she speaks about Codi to others. There is no way Hallie could've hid her worry for Codi's safety from her. Hallie's selflessness is actually recklessness. In a world where one puts others ultimately first, one's own life is the most at risk. And that, for Codi, is the most traumatizing thing that could possibly happen.

While Codi's world revolves around her sister, and her sister's world is breaking into more pieces with every passing second, Codi has some stability in her world that her sister can't touch. The significant person in her life that has changed her world for the better would have to be Loyd Peregrina, the father of her baby that "he didn't even know about" (Animal 131). Codi takes one trademark of Hallie to heart: selflessness. Codi would do anything to keep the newly re-bonded relationships steady. She "didn't want [Loyd] to know how much of a mark his careless love had made on [her] life," how much of an impact he was on her (Animal 132). She would take the blame until the last second, living in a world where "everybody's got a secret" (Animal 92). Except, she is the only secret keeper, and everyone around her wants in on her secrets.

With Loyd waiting patiently on the wayside for her love, how else could Codi react? She obviously loved him once, for the baby they share meant something to her. While "a miscarriage is a natural and comment event," it is one that is completely unnatural to those uncommon with it. Namely everyone other than the mothers of stillborns. It's not a subject that Codi could've just suddenly spit out during a love-making session with Loyd. She was walking on thin ice, with nothing but cold as death water waiting for her underneath, pounding against her bare feet to FALL.
FALL.
fall.

But it's enduring that feeling, keeping the "small impossible secret" for as long as possible, that saved Codi's relationship and brought her back to secure, solid ground (Animal 51). When she waits for that opportune moment, bringing Loyd to their child's gravesite, Kingsolver puts us on edge, waiting to see if Loyd will be the one to crack her ice and send her plummeting into a subzero grave of her own. Codi would lose her sense of self if Loyd wasn't accepting of the child. Codi's world was dependent on a single decision of another.

These two worlds, both alike in dignity, are anti-parallel because of their opposite lasting effects. Codi's life turns out positive, with that hint of despair coming from the parallel dimension, her sister's world. Hallie's life is "a train. Once it gets going it's heavier than heaven and hell put together and it runs on its own track" and it will flatten everything in its path, including Codi. Codi has the power to "remain in the world, knowledgeable and serene," but Codi's train of desolation will be her utter downfall (Animal 309).

~Father Nature, Editor

Animal Dreams: Particularly Philosophical

In this novel, Kingsolver pulls out all the stops. Both one-liner philosophical messages and extended philosophical and psychological beauty are portrayed by Kingsolver in this grand finale of a novel for my blog.

While one-liner's may seem insignificant, surface-level thoughts like these are what makes most people "ooh" and "ahh" as they think deeper. These moments of "deep thought" lead to the deeper, more extensive philosophical messages that will silence a reader, which is necessary for the reader to reflect to try to see the connection with his or her personal life and with the philosophy.
With that said, I will list some significant 'one-line' philosophical ideas straight from Barbara's mouth, and let them speak for themselves, for once....

"love weighs nothing" (Animal 335).
"Family constellations are fixed things. They don’t change just because you’ve learned the names of the stars” (Animal 328).
“Words only cover the experience of living” (Animal 325).
“So much of life is animal instinct: desire and yawning and fear and the will to live” (Animal 319).
"...people worry a lot more about the eternity after their deaths than the eternity that happened before they were born. But it’s the same amount of infinity, rolling out in all directions from where we stand” (Animal 317).
"If you’re dead when somebody stabs you, you don’t feel it” (Animal 309).
“Pain reaches the heart with electrical speed, but truth moves to the heart as slowly as a glacier” (Animal 286).
“It’s surprising how much of memory is built around things unnoticed at the time” (Animal 280).
“I wished I could bottle that passion for accomplishment and squeeze out some of the elixir, a drop at a time, on my high school students. They would move mountains” (Animal 273).
"...when you’re happy and in love and content with your life you can’t remember how you ever could have felt cheated by fate” (Animal 269).
"The greatest honor you can give a house is to let it fall back down into the ground" (Animal 235).
"What keeps you going isn’t some fine destination but just the road you’re on, and the fact that you know how to drive" (Animal 224).
“You can’t let your heart go bad like that, like sour milk. There’s always the chance you’ll want to use it later” (Animal 223).
“We’re all scared to be too happy about what we’ve got, for fear somebody’ll notice and take it away" (Animal 220).
"What you lose in blindness is the space around you, the place where you are, and without that you might not exist. You could be nowhere at all” (Animal 204).
“If I kept trying to be what everybody wanted, I’d soon be insipid enough to fit in everywhere” (Animal 201).
“I laughed, since the other choice was to cry” (Animal 183).
"...hope for nothing at all in the way of love, so as not to be disappointed" (Animal 117).
“Poverty in a beautiful place seemed not so much oppressive as sublime” (Animal 107).
“If I could have drawn blood, if I’d known how to do that with words instead of a needle, I would have" (Animal 61).
“…children robbed of love will dwell on magic” (Animal 50).
“Memory is a complicated thing, a relative to truth but not its twin” (Animal 48).
"Mountains don’t move. They only look changed when you look down on them from a great height” (Animal 36).
“People change…not everything stays with you all your life” (Animal 31).

With those philosophies read to prepare your mind, this upcoming idea will soak in like water into a sponge: Living to honor someone else's life will get you nowhere in life.

With the philosophy stated, as a sort of summary of the novel's many philosophies, you may not want to continue reading this post. However, the stated philosophy is the deepest level of thinking. To see the steps that led me to that conclusion, continue reading this post.

Hallie is a recurring theme of Codi's speech. Even her Dad's apathetic, out-of-the-loop eyes noticed, pretty early on, that "Cosima knows she's the older, even when she's unconscious" (Animal 3). Codi is "the sister who didn't go to war," and while she claims she "can only tell... [her] side of the story," she tries and tries to tell Hallie's, too (Animal 7). Her sentences about her past almost always use "Hallie and I" as the subject, versus a singular "I" (Animal 8). Readers learn countless things about Hallie, such as the fact that she "had such a soft heart" and that "she'd cry if she stepped on a bug" (Animal 29). It's almost as if Codi lives to tell Hallie's tale. And that's all she ever does. I will elaborate on Hallie's world in another post, but the matter to grasp now is that Codi has let every tribulation of Hallie's become one for herself. Codi can't live a full life knowing every single detail about Hallie's, however she would probably die of grief if she didn't know everything.

Codi calls her life a "pitiful, mechanical thing without a past" (Animal 199). And it's true, because for some odd reason, she can't remember simple acts about her past in Grace, such as the "directions to [her] own home" (Animal 47). What is the cause of this case of amnesia? I doubt physical head trauma, since Codi doesn't mention that. Therefore it must be something internal. Something we can't see with the plain eye. Codi had "never drawn a breath [in Grace] without Hallie" (Animal 45). Perhaps Codi doesn't think she can do it. She has a psychological barrier between herself and Grace, and only Hallie can take that barrier down. With her guard up, almost nothing can penetrate it, and this is why Hallie has "forgotten" so much about her hometown.

Without going into detail about Grace, I hope you fully understand Kingsolver's home-hitting message: Live everyday for you. Don't dwell on the details of someone else's life over those that are your own.

~Father Nature, Editor

Pigs In Heaven: Stunning Similes

“This dawns on her with the unkindness of a heart attack and she sits up in bed to get a closer look at her thoughts, which have collected above her in the dark” (Pigs 3).

"Flapping to stay balanced, he makes the long branch bob and sway like a carnival ride” (Pigs 6).

“Aloneness is her inheritance, like the deep heartline that breaks into match sticks across her palm” (Pigs 23).

"Jax’s adoration is like the gift of a huge, scuffling white rabbit held up at arms length for her to take. Or a European vacation. Something you can never give back” (Pigs 31).

“The words ‘a more friendly meeting of minds’ are smacking like angry pent-up bees against the inside of her head” (Pigs 78).

“A stewardess is coming slowly down the aisle taking people’s plastic cups away, like a patient mother removing toys her babies might try to swallow” (Pigs 127).

“After the van had come to a respectable standstill, the dog simply got up and walked back to the rear of the van, making Taylor feel terrible, the way people do when you step on their toes and they sigh but don’t say a word” (Pigs 199).

“They look like birds trying to fly against a hurricane” (Pigs 250).

“She can feel sadness rising off him in waves, the way you feel heat from a child with a fever” (Pigs 254).

“I’ve seen babies carried off with no more thought than you’d give a bag of brown sugar you picked up at the market” (Pigs 284).

“She stares at the symmetrical rows of holes in the metal back of the telephone hutch. Her life feels exactly that meaningless” (Pigs 291).

“Alice hovers for a moment the way a female dragonfly will, before committing her future, laying her eggs on the water. Finally she plunges. Sits and takes off her shoes” (Pigs 311).

“Since her arrival in Oklahoma, she has felt her color as a kind of noticeable heat rising off her skin, something like a light bulb mistakenly left on and burning in a roomful of people who might disapprove” (Pigs 318).

~Father Nature, Editor

Pigs In Heaven: Meticulous Metaphors: Weather Watchers

Is there a difference in depth-possibility when it comes to rain and the weather in general?

I have discussed, in a previous post, Kingsolver's metaphor of rain. Storms, hail, snow, mist, drizzle, rain. However, in Pigs In Heaven, Kingsolver is much more of a Mother Nature than before. She takes on the entire weather scheme with this sky-covering metaphor. I've already stated (previous blog, once again) how Kingsolver uses rain metaphor: ambiance. The weather is the background to our lives, and as such, it is well-fitting for it to be a metaphor for the ambiance of situations. The environment is Kingsolver's playground as she though up this metaphor, and I will be the thoughtful mage to decipher every weather pattern. Here we go.

First off, and kind of a repeat, are storm clouds. You can see that when I discussed rain, I mentioned rain was sometimes used as a foreshadowing for troublesome events. After some thought, Kingsolver made this metaphor clearer. By that I allude to the fact that this book was written after Prodigal Summer. Here, she puts storms in dialogue very often, having one character look if "that storm is coming in" (Pigs 118). Storms are usually signs of bad weather, however the character that saw the storm coming mentioned that "[they] need some rain," that "[they] haven't had rain in a long time" (Pigs 119). Whether the rain they had a long time ago was beneficial or detrimental, we don't know, but we do know that the people of the Cherokee reservation were looking forward to this storm cloud's rain. They were looking forward to whatever the future brought them. This goes to show what kind of personalities they have: open-minded, optimistic, and wishful.

Now please bear with me as I struggle to separate a thunderstorm from a rainstorm. After looking back at my notes on the novel, Kingsolver only used rain and storms and thunder and lighting as real metaphors. While interestingly mentioning drought, hot desert weather, and the nourishing sun, she never dwells on these things. What she doesn't fail to mention is that "once a turtle bites you, it doesn't let go .... till it thunders" (Pigs 104). Thunder, with all of its might, can ruin even the prettiest picture. And even worse, it may come out of nowhere, at the slightest of an opportune moment.
When in the car, during a storm, "Taylor and Turtle flinch" when thunder strikes, rumbling as it inches towards passing the sound barrier (Pigs 105). Turtle, as you may remember, kept her nickname because of her attachment with Taylor. The steel grip the two have when holding on to each other is infrangible. The thunder, however, is the only thing that could pull them apart. Thunder comes in the form of heritage, in this novel. Indeed, weather has made a connection to the Cherokee reservation. No good came from the thunder, from the eyes of Taylor Greer, who wanted no less than to walk away from the situation with a daughter whom she raised. However, the benefit of the doubt lies with the law, and the law of the Cherokee reservation was clear. Joint custody was a blessing, was it not? Turtle wasn't ripped from Taylor's grasps, because she has partial custody, right?

The thunder strikes and BOOOOM Turtle is in the hands of another man, Cash Stillwater. The thunder strikes and BOOOOM Taylor is fighting for custody over Turtle. The thunder strikes a third time and BOOOOM Turtle likes it when she isn't clasping onto Taylor.

Thunder can be shocking, thunder can be moving. In this case, the thunder was splitting, piercing, and heart-breaking.

~Father Nature, Editor

Pigs In Heaven: Particularly Philosophical

Kingsolver should be given an award or a degree in philosophy, and fast!

Her work in this novel regarding underlying philosophy is extraordinary! She definitely surpassed the high bar of standard set by her previous novels, philosophically, with Pigs In Heaven. The events, characters, and emotions she has written for us ties in and leads to an inferred final philosophy. That philosophy will be revealed at the end of this post.

To start, Turtle is a little girl with a lot of mystery stuffed into her. Her "luminous" black eyes portray so much depth as the novel continues that they mesmerize me when I imagine them (Pigs 15). Her serious face, I guess you could call it, should never be taken for granted, nor misunderstood. Her somber eyes are black holes which lead to places all but pleasant. Her way of reacting to troubling situations is to return to this dour disposition. At one point, when Taylor was observing Turtle's eyes, "she [knew] Turtle [was] in there but the blank, dark windows [were] glossed over like loveless eyes, revealing nothing" (Pigs 292). They say that eyes are windows to the heart. Well, if Turtle's eyes were blank and dark, I'm sure you can deduce the rest of Kingsolver's imagery....

However, Turtle isn't a completely gloomy girl! In fact, it's Taylor whose "heart is an empty canyon," even at the end of the novel (Pigs 341). It's Taylor who calls herself "loveless, hopeless, [and] blind" (Pigs 320). Turtle is the one who can find joy after the most glum situations. What could be the cause of this role switch?

The answer is Turtle. Turtle, who has "been marked in life by a great many things" leaves her mark on Taylor (Pigs 12). Not in a negative way, either. No, Taylor loves Turtle, and Turtle "hasn't deliberately let go of Taylor since they met" (Pigs 14). So when Taylor was stripped of this enigmatic little girl, she became exactly what she was missing.

The next character, whom I feel I must discuss, is one who's impact on the other characters isn't set in stone. This is because her character is as slippery and deceiving as a snake. The sad part is that if what she represents, rather if what her namesake represents, has any snake-like qualities, our country is in grave danger.

Barbie.

Indeed, the controversial, teeter-tottering child's toy has found her way into both Kingsolver's novel and my post on how her novel is philosophical. Barbie is a character who unsuspectedly slips into the life of Turtle and Taylor Greer. Her intentions and thoughts silent, Taylor allows her to tag along with them. The way she dresses and speaks follows her idol's mannerisms, and her manager at the Vegas restaurant she worked at just couldn't take it anymore. He just so happened to fire her at the time when Taylor and Turtle visited the restaurant.

However, I don't fear for the "model representation" of American women because of how unstable her personality is, complete with her "relationsihp with the bathroom ... every time she eats something" (Pigs 161). Yes, she has the eating disorder known as bulimia. Barbie is a character to fear because Taylor found "silver dollars. Hundreds of them, in the silk-lined cave of Barbie's black purse" (Pigs 167). The purse that she kept with her at all times was so valuable because of exactly that: it's high value. Barbie, the representation of the ideal American girl, was a thief.

Before tying it all together, I'd like to introduce one more event. Alice, Taylor's mom, is lured into the Cherokee reservation by a love interest named Cash Stillwater. Of course, Annawake Fourkiller, the lawyer trying to find Turtle, played Cupid for this relationship. Alice goes to the reservation with low hopes, but soon, "for the first time she can remember, Alice feels completely included" (Pigs 271). She actually has family there, real family, because her "Grandmother Stamper was full-blooded" (Pigs 267). She finds a connection with the Cherokee, her long-lost people of sorts, and is changed 'for the better' while spending time there. However, she must sign a paper in order to reinstate herself as a member of that Cherokee reservation. Nevertheless, Alice shows us that stubbornness can disappear, and that old assumptions can be dissuaded.

So what's the grand philosophy that I have inferred Kingsolver had in mind while writing the novel, that is exemplified by these things? It's the idea that people have the power to change both themselves and others, and that no assumption can ever be set in stone.

~Father Nature, Editor

Pigs In Heaven: A Whole New World

Being the sequel of The Bean Trees, Kingsolver's Pigs In Heaven features the same principal characters in the same world. The crisis is the same, however with different characters putting the stress on the equilibrium of Taylor and Turtle Greer. As Taylor "grips her daughter's arm ... protectively," she can't help but recall that "this child is the miracle [she] wouldn't have let in the door if it had knocked" (Pigs 10).

Turtle is an example of things that come into our lives, intrude into our worlds, when we are in no position to deny entry. It doesn't matter if the intruder is a benefit or a deficit to the world, it must be welcomed with open arms, simply to encourage that possibility of it being beneficial.
In this case, Turtle's "snap-jawed grip is a principle of [her] relationship" with Taylor; "she hasn't deliberately let go of Taylor since they met" (Pigs 14). Love is the obvious word, necessity being the subtler, more accurate one.

However, Taylor is being hunted. Annawake Fourkiller, a lawyer of the Cherokee Nation, is convinced that Taylor "was trying to take a Cherokee kid out of the Nation" (Pigs 57). Living in a time when "people like [her]" need to "watch out for the kids" in the tribe because of the social-service standards (Pigs 57). Turtle's earlier line of "legacy" is supposed to ensure her safety, her place in the tribe (Pigs 89). Annawake's determination to 'rescue' Turtle clashes and clangs with the strength of Taylor's bond with Turtle in this custody triangle.

So who's right? With the both of the protagonists of the novel being "heroes" of their own kind, who is the audience supposed to side with (Pigs 160)? Taylor is an example of those mommies who would "throw themselves in front of traffic or gunfire to save their offspring," who puts themselves "second, every time, no questions asked" (Pigs 155). However Annawake is abiding by the law of her reservation, and trying to ensure others are, too. They are both striving to make a significantly positive influence on someone else's life. Yet they are acting in opposition to one another.

While Kingsolver could have easily made this feud last the entire book, "it's peacefulness that is hard to come by on purpose" (Pigs 224). If Taylor and Annawake met and discussed their differences to come to a conclusion, it would be that inimitable, paramount, and anti-climactic ending that author's strive to achieve.



Taylor's travels take her and Turtle to the Indian Reservation, ready to confront Annawake Fourkiller and settle what needs to be settled. There, she enters a world usually unbeknown to the rest of civilization, a world where "you don't have to bother much with pretending you're not poor" (Pigs 229). A world that's "not like some country club or something. It's just family. It's kindly like joining the church. If you get around to deciding you're Cherokee ... then that's what you are" (Pigs 271). A world that needed the 1978 Indian Child Welfare Act just to insure guarantee the protection of their children from the American government. Kingsolver depicts the world of the Cherokee after the "Trail of Tears" that "happened in 1838" (Pigs 281). In this world of newly made rules, overprotection, and dynamic culture, Taylor is pushed to extend her family such that she must "[share] Turtle with strangers" (Pigs 339). She finds it difficult, as any new mother would, but it's a struggle that she must endure for the sake of her bond with Turtle.

This world depicts the ideal life perfectly.

Without spoiling what happens to Turtle and Taylor and Annawake, I hope that I've stressed the message depicted by the setting of this novel: the world we live in is crucial to the results of the events that we partake in.

~Father Nature, Editor