Introduction
If we are talking about literature as a whole, then any novel may include a number of various themes and basic major ideas. The theme of a certain story represents the idea of the novel’s author, but we need to admit that it is not actually clearly stated in any novel. Different critics usually disagree on the basic aim of the theme and on the purpose of representing of its characters. The critics of such book as “Animal Dreams” by Barbara Kingsolver have different opinions on the idea of the theme of this story and on the analysis of its characters, probably, because of the events, certain ideas, and various relationships that have, indeed, different influences on the novel and the major overall idea it actually portrays.
Main text
As for me, I would like to make an analysis of this novel’s main character – Cosima, generally called Cody, and those characters that surround her in order to understand the main idea of the novel. I chose this novel, because I live in Arizona, where most of the novel takes place. That is why I will be able to compare my own knowledge about the place, where the action takes place with the author’s story. the read about places I have been, or may travel to. I can use what I know about my current surroundings to help me better relate to the author’s story.
In this novel each character’s hopes, wishes, aspirations, and also hardships are directly woven throughout their own lives and mated in their own dreams. I chose Cody, foresight introduced both the role of certain adversary and the role of the desired, as a character for description because the author speaks through her. That gives me a lot of insight on feelings that one would normally have to assume with other writing styles.
With the support of those people who surround her, such as her sickly father, Doctor Homero Noline, her adventurous and risky sister, Hallie, a local, Dona Althea that is a very colorful character, and her own naturalist, boyfriend Lloyd who seems as hog-head, Cody actually finds closure and a warm place in her full of suffering heart for that love which has forever been granted upon her. The dreams of these characters represent their cultural and natural instincts. Some of them have no faith and are in great fear of rejection. These blockaded the door to their happiness. Other characters of this novel showed courageous, directed and hard efforts for the realization of their dreams.
In search of the better life, Cody Noline sets out on a hard journey in order to return to her native town of Grace, Arizona, because she wants to help her old father, who is to help her aging father, who is ill with Alzheimer’s. It is a great suffering and sacrifice for her because she had felt herself just like an outcast there during her entire childhood. She works as high school teacher and lives with her old friend from the high school.
Let’s go back in time and analyze the whole situation. After her mother died, Cody learned that love isn’t permanent. Her mother dying left her father, Doc Homer, alone with a broken heart to raise his daughters.
Cody has a strong connection to her sister. I would like to discuss, how her sister affected her outlook on life and, how she and her sister changed since they were kids. The connection the two sisters have is so strong that even their own father can not break it: “We grew up knowing the simple arithmetic of scarcity: a sister is more precious than an eye” (Kingsolver, p. 46, 2000). As little kids, the girls were often left on various neighbors when their father was called out to medical emergencies. This isolation from their father and mother caused the two girls to think they were orphans. The two girls rebelled against their father as teenagers and blamed him for all of their shortcomings.
There are some other people who influenced Cody’s life greatly. Throughout her teenage years, Cody tries desperately to earn the acceptance and approval of her peers. She falls pregnant with Lloyd, her high school sweetheart. During the period of her pregnancy she realizes that she will always be alone and that Hallie cannot always help her. Having a baby, she feels, will offer her a love that will last forever. When she miscarries, her life takes a turn for the worse. During this point of complete sadness, she withdraws completely into herself and away from the world.
I would like to explain the role of Doc Homer in Cody’s life and to discuss some things that she has learned from him. Cody blames his lack of proper parenting for all of her problems. Her feelings of resentfulness towards her father are multiplied by her feeling that Hallie is his favorite child. With all these hurtful feelings toward him she still longs for his affection and approval.
We learn halfway through the novel that in fact it’s Cody who holds the first place in his heart, but they are both unable to express their true feelings towards each other. He never tells Cody that he also feels like he doesn’t belong in this world.
What is significant, later in life, Hallie was the one who kept up correspondence with her father but it was always Cody who went home to her sick father when her sister went to Nicaragua. She feels the need to use Hallie’s absence as a reason for returning home. She feels that if she can make a connection with him before he dies, she’ll find a place in this world. Although they don’t admit this, they have close bond with each other; it is expressed in Cody’s mind when her father tells her of his illness:
“For the first time in my life then, and just for a few seconds, I was able to see Doc Homer as someone I felt sorry for” (Kingsolver, p. 69, 2000).
Another issue that I would like to discuss is Cody’s medical degree and her motives for not using it. During one of their rare frank discussions Cody and Doc Homer talk about her reasons for quitting and why she studied medicine in the first place: “I discovered there was something serious, mainly a matter of nerve and perhaps empathy that stood in my way” (Kingsolver, p.107, 2000). It is clear that she hoped by doing so she would gain the approval, and quite possibly even the love, of her father. As a first-year resident, she was faced with a medical situation she felt ill-equipped to deal with, panicked and walked away. I think that her problem was never her ability as a doctor but rather admitting that she studied medicine for all the wrong reasons. The incident that caused her to drop out was merely a convenient excuse to leave behind something that her heart just wasn’t in.
I would like to discuss Cody’s Grace high school experience and related to it issues in the context of her character’s distinction. She faces her old fears when she’s called to a teacher’s meeting prior to the start of the new school year. After she gains favor with her students, one of her pupils drops out after falling pregnant. Cody makes a decision to teach her students about birth control, although it is a big risk for her job: “It is nothing personal. That’s just my modus operandi” (Kingsolver, p.147, 2000), but I think that she tries to help her students to avoid her mistakes. She offers them this explanation as a small consolation for the fact that she’s leaving. Cody seems intent on sabotaging anything remotely good that enters her life because she believes that it’s safer to leave than be left, and she does not care about her job at all in this context.
Another issue that I would like to discuss is that Cody finds it hard to express her feelings toward her boyfriend Lloyd, and if it is possible for her to express love at all.
From the start of their relationship she reminds him constantly that it’s just for the year, and beyond that she’s offering him no promises. Yet, at every turn we see just how desperately she wants to allow herself the luxury of believing that what he’s offering is real: “The front of my body was very cold and the back was very hot. Somewhere in the middle, near my heart, I was just right” (Kingsolver, p.222, 2000). While they are away over Christmas, Cody pushes Lloyd away. To her this is proof that her life has yet again been let down by love. She withdraws into herself emotionally, but manages to continue with her daily existence.
After Hallie’s death, she is still blind to what is right in front of her. She got everything she has always wanted, a place to call home, not one but fifty mothers who love and care for her, a surrogate sister in Emelina and a guiding star in Lloyd. Yet she boards the plane en route for Telluride to a life with a man she doesn’t love because she believes it’s the safe option. At the last minute fate steps in by way of a dodgy plane ride and nudges her to her senses. She arrives at the station with time to spare and buys a ticket on the Amtrak headed back to Grace. Cody and Lloyd disembark simultaneously, him at the end of his shift and her at the end of a long journey home. She stands on the side of the tracks watching him walk towards her, waiting for him to notice: “He put one arm around my neck and gave me the kind of kiss no fool would walk away from twice” (Kingsolver, p.323, 2000).
Conclusion
As conclusion, I would like to say that the “Animal Dreams’” main idea is the importance of relationships between women. I can say that the author expressed her ideas and views brilliantly through the Cody’s feelings and experiences.
Works cited
Kingsolver, Barbera. Animal Dreams. New York: Harper Collins Publishers, 2000.