Essay Questions

Trouble seems to be written all over Barbara Kingsolver’s Prodigal Summer. Support this statement.

While most of the characters in the novel are used to or prefer a life of solitude, things take different turns for most of them. For instance, Deanna Wolfe, who, like most of the characters in the novel, prefers a life of solitude has his world overturned when Eddie Bondo invades his physical as well as mental space. As soon as Eddie and Deanna cross paths, her sense of self-assuredness and solitude go down the drain. Deanna is not the only character in the novel whose life is taking a strange turn as a few miles down, Lusa, a city girl who gets married to a farmer, has difficulty getting accustomed to her situation. While she slowly gets to love the lush countryside, she risks losing it all if she fails to acknowledge her love for the same. Also, two elderly neighbors are engrossed in a feud that seems to grow by the day. Most characters in the novel are in some form of trouble or the other.’

“No man is an Island.” Illustrate the truth in this statement using Prodigal Summer.

Most characters in Prodigal Summer are accustomed to a life in which they are far moved from the other villagers, a life of solitude. However, the situation changes as the troubles that each are involved in necessitate their coming together. As the weather changes in the novel, the villagers who had lived unconnected lives become increasingly interconnected drawn together by nature. They begin to learn from it of the various ways in which they are more connected with each other than not. In this line, the troubles that each of these characters face can be argued as the author’s way of trying to show how no man is an island since even though these characters prefer a life of seclusion, nature finds a way of bringing them together.