Barbara Kingsolver Animal Dreams

Have you ever felt like an outsider? Animal dreams by Barbara Kingsolver is a novel on realism and cultural critique. It describes the importance of family and the environment around the narrator, Codi. Codi is one of the daughters of Doc Homer. She discovers the truth about her family while living with her childhood friend Emelina Domingo’s in Grace, Arizona during the !980’s and refers herself as an awkward outsider. Hallie is Codi’s younger sister who moves to Nicaragua and is more comfortable anywhere she goes unlike Codi.

Doc Homer, father of Codi and Hallie, is a doctor in Grace that ends up getting Alzheimer’s Disease and gets personally closer to Codi after she moved. In the novel, Codi’s decisions will have a great impact on her consequences and how they affect her and others throughout the story.

Codi has always seen herself as an awkward outsider mostly sine she moved to Grace and she is always trying to help her family and community.

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Doc Homer begins the novel by explaining his past with Codi and Hallie and their mother’s death. Now Codi moved to Grace and Hallie to Nicaragua after both living in Tucson, Arizona. Codi is staying at Emelina Domingo’s guest house and they both catch up on each other’s lives. Furthermore, Codi’s miscarriage is displayed, but she later states that the father, Loyd Peregina never found out about her being pregnant. Moreover, Loyd and Codi begin talking and dating again.

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Codi later explains that she is not ready for the commitment. Subsequently, Grace suffers from many chemicals being disposed in their river. Correspondingly, Codi takes initiative to help save the community and joins the Stich and Bitch Club that sells piñatas to fund to clean the water. The club is later publicized after Doc Homer and Codi are informed about Hallie being abducted by the U.S-Backed Contras. Codi suffers a great deal of despondency and spent months trying to look for

Hallie. Moreover, Grace was referred to as “a Historic Place” and the town had gained protection for their water. Codi learns more about her family and gets closer to Doc Homer. Hallie’s body is later found and Codi has a ceremony in regards to her death after there was a malfunction on her plane and she had to return back to Grace where she ended up living in. Fast forward to a year later, Codi is pregnant by Loyd again after clearing up her miscarriage with him. She is still teaching in Grace and Doc Homer had passed.

One of the most explained themes from Animal Dreams was the importance of family. Codi wasn’t as close to Doc Homer until she had moved back to her hometown where he had been living in Grace. She learns about the mysteries and secrets between her and her family history. Since Codi has always felt like an outsider, she later feels more comfortable at Grace and finds purpose in being a part of the community. Codi and Hallie weren’t raised like most girls in the sense that Doc Homer raised them on his own and they did not have a mother figure. Moreover, Codi realizes the influence Grace has had on her feeling part of a family. Furthermore, Hallie’s death affected Codi tragically and had also made her realize the importance of family.

Additionally, another significant theme was the value of the environment. The novel describes the issues with the water in Grace and how it had started to get toxic. Codi wanted to help the most she could so she had decided to join the Stitch and Bitch Club that helped her feel like she was part of something important. Likewise, Codi comes to realize that women taking charge in Grace is nothing new. Woman had a major impact in Grace’s community and property. The author is able to explain how Grace is very reliable towards the river being their only water source and how beneficial it is to the town. Without a health environment, there could have been many downfalls in the town’s health and people.

The novel Animal Dreams is an intriguing fiction story describing the hardships one had to go through, the importance of family, the environment and how it all can have an impact on your life. The story made me realize how you need to appreciate things and do the most you are able to do.; Many parts of the book, like Hallie’s death for instance had a great effect on Codi; considering how close they were. The author described the reality of how one may react to a death of someone they were close to. Given these points, Codi realized many things since moving to Grace and how it has impacted her like many of Kingsolver’s audience may relate to. As Barbara Kingsolver stated, “The very least you can do in your life is figure out what you hope for. And the most you can do is live inside that hope. Not admire it from a distance but live right in it, under its root”.

Updated: Jan 28, 2022
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Barbara Kingsolver Animal Dreams. (2022, Jan 28). Retrieved from https://studymoose.com/barbara-kingsolver-animal-dreams-essay

Barbara Kingsolver Animal Dreams essay
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