LEC052006. Amrutha T.A. An Ecocritical Reading of "Prodigal Summer".

 

Amrutha T.A.

Dr. Joseph Koyippally

LEC 5104

3 February, 2021.

An Ecocritical Reading of Prodigal Summer

Prodigal Summer (2000) is the fifth novel by American author Barbara Kingsolver. It is an ecocritical novel. Heavily emphasizing ecological themes and her trademark interweaving plots, this novel tells three stories of love, loss and connections in rural Virginia. Prodigal Summer tells the story of a small town in Appalachia during a single, humid summer, when three interweaving stories of love, loss and family unfold against the backdrop of the lush wilderness of Virginia mountains. Kingsolver's extensive education in biology is on display in Prodigal Summer. Her writing also exhibits her knowledge of rural Virginia, where she grew up. Prodigal Summer weaves together three stories of human love within a larger tapestry of lives inhabiting the forested mountains and struggling small farms of southern Appalachia. Prodigal Summer is a story of a small town in Appalachia, during a single, humid summer specifically focussing on the lives of Deanna Wolfe, Landowski, and Garnett Walker. These main characters are introverted and solitary individuals who have unique and strong views about their natural surroundings. Throughout the course of a spring and summer, their lives change drastically, and they realize that, they, like other creatures, are not solitary. The characters are connected with all living things like a complex web.

Barbara Kingsolver is an American novelist who was born in 1955 in rural Kentucky. The Bean Trees, Pigs in Heaven, The Poisonwood Bible, Small Wonder, High Tide in Tucson, The Lacuna and Unsheltered are her major works. Kingsolver has been acclaimed as an eco-friendly writer and her extensive education in ecology is on display in her book, Prodigal Summer, laden with ecological concept and biological facts. The novel covers the expanse of one summer in the lives of several people in a remote area of Southern Appalachia. She describes a season experienced by the inhabitants of an Appalachian farming community. Prodigal Summer weaves together three stories of human life. Each section in the novel deals with the three main characters and the story lines are named “Predators”, “Moth Love” and “Old Chestnuts”. In this novel the reader learns about animals, insects, forests and the intertwining ecological system in which they coexist by staying in a cabin in the lush Appalachian   mountains. The idea that species balance is essential to a healthy ecosystem is ultimately Kingsolver’s idea, because her characters Lusa, Deanna and Garnett work hard to preserve species from the dangers. The novel is set in the mountain area filled with various creatures. The author is very specific and gives a great deal of scientific explanation for the flora and fauna of the forest. Kingsolver explores an ecocentric theme in this novel. The 21^st century literature is concerned not only man’s deviation from nature but also exposes his atrocity over it. Barbara Kingsolver, a prolific writer and an ardent supporter of nature, expresses her concerns for nature and vehemently castigates environmental abuses which jeopardize entire ecosystem. She believes the interrelationship between nature and human beings which is interlocked in the form of ecosystem. Therefore, any disturbance in any form to them will also affect the remaining part of it.

Ecocriticism is a term used for the observation and study of the relationship between the literature and the earth’s environment. It takes an interdisciplinary point of view by analyzing the works of authors, researchers, and poets in the context of environmental issues and nature. The critics call this term as a broad approach that is also by several other names such as environmental literary criticism, green studies, and ecopoetics. It is also referred to by some other fields such as ecology, social ecology, biopolitics, sustainable design, environmental history, environmentalism and others. It was originated in the U.S. “Ecocriticism was a term coined in the late 1970s by combining “criticism” with a shortened form of “ecology”- the science that investigates the interrelations of all forms of plant and animal life with each other and with their physical habitats” (Abrams 98). Ecocriticism was first defined by Cheryll Glotfelty. “Ecocriticism is the study of the relationship between literature and the physical environment” (Glotfelty 19). Considering the definition, it can be clearly called an “increasingly heterogeneous movement” that takes an entirely earth-centered approach. It is mainly about the literature on the environment. So, it is mostly seen in association with the “Association for the Study of Literature and Environment”. ASLE has branches in Korea, Canada, Japan, Australia, Taiwan, India and Europe and it holds biennial meetings for the scholars, writing about the environmental issues in their literature. Deep Ecology, Anthropocentrism and Ecocentrism are the key concepts of ecocriticism. Deep Ecology is an environmental movement and philosophy which regards human life as just one of the many equal components of global ecosystem. It believes in the fundamental interconnectedness of all forms of life. “The shift from a human-centered to a nature-centered system of values is the core of the radicalism attributed to deep ecology” ( Garrard 21).  Anthropocentrism regards humans as separate from and superior to nature. It considers that human life has intrinsic value while animals, plants and natural resources may be exploited for the benefit of mankind. Ecocentrism is a concept which is used to denote a nature-centered system of values. It gives great importance to nature and its resources.

The major characters of Prodigal Summer such as Deanna Wolfe, Lusa Landowski and Garnet Walker are highly conscious about the environment. When Deanna Wolfe tries to protect coyotes, Lusa Landowski shows her love toward nature and moths. Garnet grows the chestnut trees and encourages the use of natural fertilizers. In ecocritical literary lens, these protagonists’ environmental consciousness and ethical relationship with natural surroundings can be traced clearly. Aldo Leopold is one of the pioneers in the development of modern environmental ethics and in the movement for wilderness conservation with his ecocentric or holistic ethics regarding land. He is one of the influential American environmentalists. His ethics of nature and wildlife preservation has a profound impact on the environmental movement. One of his well-known quotes from his eminent book, A Sand County Almanac (1949) gives us the idea of the conservation ethic or ‘land ethic’: “A thing is right when it tends to preserve the integrity, stability, and beauty of the biotic community. It is wrong when it tends otherwise” (Leopold 262). The theme of ecological and sentimental interconnectedness is immediately evident by the overall structure of Kingsolver’s novel. She interweaves three plots and each plot deals with a female protagonist and male antagonist, where the female character represents an environmental understanding and the male character usually represents a reactionary and hubristic anti-environmental stance. The opening description is made more remarkable by the manner in which Kingsolver returns to her theme at the end of the novel. The final chapter begins with a similar description of an unnamed ‘she’ walking on the edges of fields that border the forest. Like Deanna in the first section, this female is intent on seeing, smelling, and experiencing the forest, but we quickly realize that this description is much more detailed, more earthy than the first, and it soon becomes clear that this ‘she’ is a female coyote. The penultimate paragraph returns to the notion of the speculative ‘man with a gun’ who might be watching the coyote. This man might believe that he and the coyote are “the only two creatures left here in this forest of dripping leaves” (Kingsolver 444). Like the hypothetical observer in the beginning, this man is wrong: “But he would have been wrong. Solitude is a human presumption” (Kingsolver 444). Everything is connected, “an impalpable thread on the web” (Kingsolver 444). In Kingsolver’s view, all connections; including those emotional and familial connections termed as sentimental as well as those between predator and prey, are inseparable parts of the ecosystem.

In brief, Prodigal Summer discusses ecological issues by analysing the personal histories and present circumstances of the characters in the novel. Kingsolver addresses the struggle between mankind and nature in Prodigal Summer. The importance of the preservation of endangered species is emphasized in the novel and it is the poignant portrayal of the fact that there are some invisible threads connecting all the species together in the biosphere. Some of the threads and their functions are still unknown to humans, yet all species contribute to the balance of the biosphere. These various characters play out the conflicts regarding man versus nature in the backwoods county in Appalachia. It can be understood how the author feels about this conflict, but she gives various viewpoints, allowing the reader to decide what should be done in regard to the relationship between man and nature. On analysing the novel Prodigal Summer, we find that Kingsolver draws a beautiful picture of flora and fauna, wilderness and the beauty of the natural environment in North American mountains, landscapes and valleys. The novel is set up in Southern Appalachia. The lives of the three female environmental conscience characters in the novel are interconnected with each other. They are lonely individuals and they have strong views about their natural surroundings. They observe nature very carefully and they have respect towards natural surroundings. The characters are connected with all living things like a complex web. The novel is laden with ecological concepts and biological facts. Kingsolver describes a season experienced by the inhabitants of Appalachian community. The title of the novel, Prodigal Summer as well as each section of the novel such as “Predators”, “Moth Love” and “Old Chestnuts” refer to themes connected with nature and its creatures. The three women protagonists have in common their independence. Kingsolver, a former biologist and journalist, has a rare ability to communicate widely what she knows as a scientist, and this novel sounds warnings against hunting predators who compensate by breeding faster, or against pesticides that boost pest populations by killing off the bugs that prey on them.  Throughout Prodigal Summer, characters debate whether humans have the right to control the natural world, or whether people instead have a responsibility to maintain the intrinsic balance of nature. For Garnett Walker and Nannie Rawley, the debate becomes a matter of religion, as well; for other characters, these questions relationships and their overall outlook on life. Coyotes are a prominent symbol of the importance of predators and the resilience of nature throughout Prodigal Summer. Despite humans’ effort to wipe out the creatures, coyotes have persisted; as Deanna explains, because coyotes breed faster and work in groups when they are hunted, “killing adults increases the chances of survival for the young” (Kingsolver 326). Coyotes represent nature’s ability to return to a balance, despite human interference: with the coyotes’ re-emergence in the Zebulon Forest, the ecosystem will once again have a “keystone predator” (Kingsolver 62) that allows all species to thrive. The novel illustrates the theme of interconnectedness through coyotes. Through the portrayal of these ecological concepts, Prodigal Summer can be considered as an ecocritical novel.

Works Cited

Abrams, M H. A Glossary of Literary Terms. 11^th ed. Language Learning, 2015.

Flader, Susan. Thinking Like a Mountain: Aldo Leopold and the Evolution of an Ecological

            Attitude Toward Deer, Wolves, and Forests. University of Missouri, 1974.

Garrard, Greg. Ecocriticism. Routledge Taylor and Francis Group, 2012.

Kingsolver, Barbara. Prodigal Summer. Harper Collins publishers, 2000.