How Many Definitions Can One Word Have?

When I chose the topic of growth for my project, I had a clear objective.  I wanted to find out if growth could be defined as change in both a positive and a negative direction.  Even just with creating interview questions, I realized how giant my topic was.  There were so many directions I could choose to go in: negative vs. positive, natural vs. forced, personal vs. religious...In the end, I think I dove into each argument at least a little bit.

Nothing that I discovered throughout the project really shocked me.  I did come across many views that I disagreed with.  One belief I saw many times (by both professional writers and my friends) is that it takes effort to grow.  While I definitely agree that effort is a huge force in growth, I don't believe it's necessary. I have trouble believing that someone can go through four years of high school (or any part of life, really) without growing.  I also heard that religion is necessary for growth. In the same sense, I completely disagree with that point.  While religion can definitely shape growth in many ways, it can't be necessary.

Overall, I really enjoyed this project.  I'm usually not one for poetry and art, so I was shocked to find myself having fun browsing poems and the DIA.  My favorite part, though, was reading Skippy Dies.  At 660 pages, it was a difficult task.  But now that I've finished it, I find myself missing the characters.  The novel rotated points of view between many characters.  While I find myself missing some more than others, I connected with all of them.

Even though this project seemed incredibly daunting in the beginning (and the middle), I feel it was a great experience to discover and explore all the connotations of a single word.  It was certainly much better than a final exam. :)

On the Changes of the Characters (Or lack thereof)

The Poisonwood Bible was unlike any book I've ever read.  Even from the way it starts and ends - an unknown narrator using the second person in such a strange way - it was a new experience.  While I've read books told from multiple perspectives, this one was unique.  Each character has a very unique voice.  As each character developed, so did her voice (well, except for Rachel, whom I found to be a very static character).  For the first half of the novel, I was drawn to Adah.  She sees things in such a different way than her sisters.  I loved her palindromes and backwards phrases.  Seeing life from the perspective of someone who just sits and observes is interesting.  However, when the story began to progress much more quickly, after the family left their village, I became more attached to Leah.  It seemed that Kingsolver abandoned Adah in America, not paying particular attention to her.  Being someone who always follows exactly how writers want me to, I abandoned Adah in favor of Leah as well.  It was very strange, and seemed backwards: as the book progressed, Adah became more independent, and ended up no longer behind Leah.  As she grew, though, Kingsolver and I drew away from her, abandoning her in a completely different way.
Rachel was an incredibly amusing character.  Her use of the words irregardless and anomalous, as well as her description of Christian marriage as "monotonous" cracked me up.  Her story, though, was quite boring.  My favorite thing about Leah, Adah, and Ruth May was their interaction with the Congolese people, with whom Rachel would have nothing to do.  Even when she lived in South Africa, she was the same.  Her love for her restaurant, and nothing else, annoyed me.  As I mentioned earlier, her writing style didn't change at all.  Even when she turned 50, she used the phrase "Jeez oh man," which she used countless times as a teenager.
After finishing the book, I find myself disliking Rachel, and feeling no connections to Orleanna or Ruth May.  If I had to order the characters by preference, I'd put Leah and Adah at a tie, which I believes works well with how their lives turned out.

Two Sides of a Coin

A Thousand Acres is by far my favorite book we've read in Lit.  I loved the writing style, and the characters.  Or, as Hannah put it, I hated the characters, but still loved them.  They all seemed so innocent in the beginning, but it eventually became clear that this wasn't the case.  Because we saw everything through Ginny's eyes, it took a while to see the bad in some characters.  I wonder how different it would be if we had seen everything through Rose's eyes.  My guess? A lot different.
Which makes me wonder why Smiley chose to write from Ginny's perspective.  In King Lear, Goneril really didn't have much of a role.  Sure, she had some important parts, but she was definitely not the main character by any means.  Shakespeare showed Goneril and Regan as pretty much carbon copies of each other; they were the evil sisters.  Not much more to them.  When you just read A Thousand Acres, your first thought is something along the lines of "What? They're totally different! Rose is the evil sister, and Ginny's innocent! Rose abused Ginny!" Well, some of you might not have thought that.  You might have just skipped to my next point.  If you did, kudos.  If you take the time to try and view A Thousand Acres from the third point of view, things look a little different.  As readers within Ginny's head, we were charmed by Jess right with her.  Who cares if she was married?  Her marriage was falling apart!  And Jess is hot!  And Rose just went and stole him from Ginny! She deserved to be poisoned!
Woah.  Slow down.  Ginny cheated on Ty, who really wasn't such a bad guy.  And, yeah, Rose "stole" Jess from her, it shouldn't matter, because Ginny was married!  Even if you say it did matter, does that really condone Ginny poisoning her sister?  What it all comes down to is that Ginny really isn't so innocent.  Maybe she and Rose are a lot alike.  After all, they are sisters and best friends who have lived right next to each other their whole lives.
That all being said, I loved this book.  A whole lot.  The character dynamics are great, and it's a fabulous way to tell a Shakespeare play in a modern setting.

Who knew a book about a family on a farm could be so interesting?