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Rewriting Genesis—Reading Barbara Kingsolver’S Plan to Implement It

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Rewriting Genesis—Reading Barbara Kingsolver’S Plan to Implement It 70 Jeong, Seonyoung 현대영어영문학 제59권 3호 Modern Studies in English Language & Literature (2015년 8월) 69-93 http://dx.doi.org/10.17754/MESK.59.3.69 need to form a completely new and unprecedented community for us, who are seeking an alternative to the current environmental crisis and an action Rewriting Genesis—Reading Barbara Kingsolver’s plan to implement it. As we can see from the authors’ note that she got the motif of the book from a flood that battered Angangueo, Mexico, in Flight Behavior in Ecocriticism February 2010(Flight Behavior 435), the plot of Flight Behavior is similar to ‘faction,’ a mixture of facts and fictions. Her previous books like The 1 Lacuna (2009) had a documentary format, her signature book, The Jeong, Seonyoung* Poisonwood Bible (1998), is based on her own experience in Congo, (Jeonnam National University) Africa. Therefore, the faction format Kingsolver adopted for Flight Behavior is not new compared to the motives of her previous books. Jeong, Seonyoung. “Rewriting Genesis—Reading Barbara Kingsolver’s Flight Behavior in Ecocriticism.” Modern Studies in English Language & Literature 59.3 (2015): 69-93. Barbara As it can be the most effective active plan from a viewpoint of Kingsolver has inquired into the various perspectives and problems of environment and society. Flight Behavior (2012) can be defined as a way of project and literary practice of ecological literature to take a motive that can trigger off a sensation to Kingsolver’s ‘Rewriting Genesis.’ The goal is the genesis of a new world through compose the plots and storylines to increase the readership, her method is metamorphosis of the ecosystem. In her novel, the importance of the son Prestone stands out, showing his role not as simply a child but more like Adam in the Bible, or takes worthy of attention, although her way can strengthen a political aspect. responsibility for creation of Heaven and Earth like Abraham. Based on the biological Because the so-called ‘ecological crisis’ has lost its novelty a long ago, it kinship, it has a rippling effect like Butterfly Effect to expand into a much greater system. The ecosystem that Kingsolver suggests is an ideal community of human and the nature is the time to shift the focus to an appropriate alternative discussion or a which moves toward the ecological inhabitation and harmony, in that it is not a habitat for problem of action. Of only two articles in domestic dealing with Flight women only but a sustainable habitation for future generations. To induce a change, it is inevitable to transform or overturn it, as Dellarobia, the desperate wife and perfect female, Behavior, Shin, Doo-ho (2015) exaggerates this novel as “a good example” did. Kingsolver wants us to show a possible way through writing a new genesis with help of of rhetoric strategy of fiction genre (129), and Kang, Yong-Ki (2013) our kinship community. (Jeonnam National University) focuses on the apriorism and scientific experience. This study aims to Key Words: Barbara Kingsolver, Flight Behavior, eco-criticism, deep ecology, climate change, review the utopia and direction that the author suggests, as it reads Flight kinship, butterfly effect Behavior from a perspective of eco-criticism. First of all, the study will look into whether this book corresponds to the viewpoint of deep ecology, I. Introduction based on the characters of the book. Through this, this study will demonstrate the necessity to discuss the book from an expanded perspective of eco-criticism beyond eco-feminism, which has been a major In her recent novel Flight Behavior (2012) with the motive on the viewpoint to interpret the author's previous works. In addition, Flight migration of a Monarch butterfly, Barbara Kingsolver (1955- ) suggests the Behavior in a narrow sense is designed as a wake-up call for climate change and environmental crisis, but in a broad sense, it is to pursue a * Ph.D. Student, G.P.F. (Global Ph.D. Fellowship Program, Ministry of Education) Fellow Rewriting Genesis—Reading Barbara Kingsolver’s Flight Behavior in Ecocriticism 71 72 Jeong, Seonyoung new form of habitation or a utopia for sustainable survival of humans, like tries to overturn the mainstream biological knowledge.” (2007 9). If we Turtle Island by Gary Snyder (1930-). In December 2012, Flight Behavior consider that Dayton Literary Peach Prize was given in 2011 for all of was listed as the bestseller of New York Times right after its publication. her works, it encompasses the author's view of the world. Therefore, it is Despite that, its literary value has received a harsh review due to its possible to read Flight Behavior like her previous works from a viewpoint similarity to The Poisonwood Bible. Given the fact that the novel deals of ecocriticism by focusing on the relation between humans and the nature. with a matter of human awareness under the theme of butterfly based on Actually, Kingsolver’s Flight Behavior based its motive of the novel on a natural disaster that really occurred, Kingsolver’s novel deserves high the real occurrence in a village in Mexico, which is a habitat for Monarch praise as an ecological literature in the novel field. Therefore, this study butterfly.1 Kingsolver got inspiration for her novel from the news article will assess the importance of Kingsolver as an environmental literature that this region is Monarch butterfly’s overwintering place, which was writer. Reading a novel genre is ultimately not a realistic alternative in battered by a catastrophic rainfall. relation to an environmental problem but can change the paradigm. As the Flight Behavior starts with an episode where Dellarobia, who worried purpose of writing this novel is to raise the awareness about ecology, this about the value of her own existence after marriage, went on journey in study offers an opportunity to look into the possibility and the role. despair after she had lost the meaning of life, and she reached a place where she found a flock of butterflies and had a fantastic experience. Although she had her husband and children, her life is locked inside a II. Climate Change and a Desperate Wife house like a picture in the frame. No matter how often it is emphasized, the task of raising individuals’ The sheep in the field below, the Turnbow family land, the white frame house she had not slept outside for a single night in ten-plus years of ecological consciousness is more difficult than a large governmental project marriage: that was pretty much it. ... Apparently, today was the day she to “redirect human consciousness to a full consideration of its place” walked out of the picture. Distinguishing herself from the luckless sheep (Love 237) in the continuous discussion of Deep Ecology, in that it has to that stood down there in the mud surrounded by the deep stiletto holes of induce a change in the awareness of each member. Therefore, the road to their footprints, enduring life’s bad deals. ... Life was just one long realization through literature inevitably goes in a direction of attempting to proposition they never saw coming. Their pasture looked drowned. In the next field over, the orchard painstakingly planted by the neighbors last year enlighten the readers. Kingsolver intentionally utilizes the background of a was now dying under the rain. (Flight Behavior 2-3) book, characters and description of affairs as literary devices to overturn the awareness about the intrinsic values of the nature. On her Prodigal As if it reminds us of the stream of consciousness of ‘Araby’ in James Summer, Kang Yong-ki criticizes as “the author did not use the nature as Joyce, Dellarobia’s depression was described based on her feelings she had the subject of description and adopted those who resist a human oriented biology as the proxy of the nature. By mobilizing such proxy, the author 1 Search “News Alert: Disaster in Angangueo, Journey North” about an extreme rainfall in central Mexico, on Friday, February 5, 2010. Rewriting Genesis—Reading Barbara Kingsolver’s Flight Behavior in Ecocriticism 73 74 Jeong, Seonyoung on the way up the mountain. This is also projected through her empathy “the Lord’s business” (55). Cub has neither decent skills nor determination to neighboring plants and animals. She, who lived a hard life as if she and perseverance. He is totally independent from his mother, and instead would give up her life, was driven by a ball of fire or light, or a foreign of expressing his opinions and arguments, he is a kind of passive son object or a scene which she cannot describe (10-11). Later in the book, who follows his mother’s behavior patterns and opinions. The reason his the shape of a butterfly slowly reveals itself. “Without her glasses it took status and importance in the novel are less pronounced out than those of some doing to get a bead on the thing, but there it still was, drifting in Dellarobia is that he does not show a masculine image or a will and blank air above the folded terrain: an orange butterfly on a rainy day” passion to change the world. It is noteworthy that ‘Cub’ means a baby of (11). Like a thing that stands out because of an awful strangeness to that a carnivorous mammal or an ‘immature human’ in a derogative sense. situation, the fantasy or the reality she witnesses becomes a hot issue Dellarobia is the name that symbolizes her life itself. She remembers among people in Feathertown, and she becomes known as what is called that a frame of an “amalgam of pine cones and acorns glued on a “a butterfly lady” and got so famous that even a kindergarten bus driver Styrofoam core” (10) that she saw when she was little was Dellarobia.
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