Barbara Kingsolver

Kingsolver, Barbara - American writer, b. Annapolis, Md.; grad. DePauw Univ. (B.S., 1977), Univ. of Arizona (M.S.). She studied biology and ecology and was a science writer before completing The Bean Trees (1988), a novel about a young woman who leaves Kentucky for Arizona, where she lives with a young Cherokee girl. Kingsolver's Arizona novels also include Animal Dreams (1990) and Pigs in Read More...

Read full-text books and articles on:

Barbara Kingsolver

1 .

Barbara Kingsolver, in The Progressive
by Robin Epstein. 5 pgs.

Magazine Article

Read/Write Review
2 .

Barbara Kingsolver: A Critical Companion
by Mary Jean DeMarr. 156 pgs.

Book

Read/Write Review

Read Synopsis [+]

Hide Synopsis [-]

Barbara Kingsolver wears the feminist mantle with joyful pride, and her spirited embrace of political themes is contagious. Responding to richly-drawn heroines along their journeys to do right by family and community, readers embrace Kingsolver's political novels, making them bestsellers. From the haunting Arizona landscape of Kingsolver's early trilogy of novels, to the lush African jungle that sets the scene in her latest, The Poisonwood Bible, Kingsolver weaves colorful tapestries with vivid prose, exceptional intelligence, and unexpected humor. DeMarr's comprehensive treatment covers not only Kingsolver's four novels, each with its own chapter, but also discusses with considerable insight her background as a feminist, as a journalist, and, most importantly, as a humanist.

Show Table of Contents [+]

Hide Table of Contents [-]

Title Page

Advisory Board

Contents

Series Foreword

Acknowledgments

1: Barbara Kingsolver: Life and Works

2: Politics and Genres

3: The Bean Trees (1988)

4: Animal Dreams (1990)

5: Pigs in Heaven (1999)

6: The Poisonwood Bible (1998)

Bibliography

Index

About the Author
3 .

Backtalk: Women Writers Speak Out: Interviews ("Barbara Kingsolver" begins on p. 143)
by Donna Perry. 348 pgs.

Book

Read/Write Review

Read Synopsis [+]

Hide Synopsis [-]

This book contains fifteen in-depth interviews with important contemporary women writers from the United States, England, Ireland, and the Caribbean. The authors, who come from different racial, ethnic, and class backgrounds and sexual orientations, are all committed to telling the stories of people, especially women, who have been silenced in the past. By breaking silence, these writers are changing the face of contemporary literature. In direct, provocative conversation, these writers discuss their work and other topics: the influence of family members and their native communities, getting started as writers, writing as women, the role of "literary tradition" in helping or hindering their growth, the responsibility of the writer to the community, the question of writing accessibly versus experimenting, the energizing power of anger, the politics of publishing, and the impact of one's race, ethnicity, class, gender, and/or sexual orientation on getting read, published, and reviewed.

Show Table of Contents [+]

Hide Table of Contents [-]

Title Page

Contents

Preface

Acknowledgments

Introduction

Paula Gunn Allen

Gloria Anzaldúa

Pat Barker

Mary Beckett

Vivian Gormick

Jamaica Kincaid

Barbara Kingsolver

Maxine Hong Kingston

Valerie Miner

Gloria Naylor

Éilís Ní Dhuibhne

Joan Riley

Joanna Russ

Leslie Marmon Silko
4 .

Holding the Line: Women in the Great Arizona Mine Strike of 1983
by Barbara Kingsolver. 213 pgs.

Book

Read/Write Review

Show Table of Contents [+]

Hide Table of Contents [-]

Title Page

Holding the Line: Women in the Great Arizona Mine Strike of 1983

Contents

Acknowledgments

Introduction: To the 1996 Printing

1: The Devil's Domain

2: On the Line

3: Hell and High Water

4: We'll Stay Here until We're Gone

5: Ask Any Miner

6: We Go with Our Heads Up

7: Falling-Apart Things

8: My Union and My Friends

9: Women's Work

10: Up to No Good

11: If the Truth Would Come out

12: Just a Bunch of Ladies

Epilogue

Bibliography

Index

About the Author
5 .

Old Chestnuts, in Book
by Barbara Kingsolver. 5 pgs.

Magazine Article

Read/Write Review
6 .

A Good Farmer, in The Nation
by Barbara Kingsolver. 5 pgs.

Magazine Article

Read/Write Review
7 .

The Way to Nueva Vida: In the Yucatan, Where Jaguars Lurk and Pyramids Poke out of the Forests, Humans Are Learning to Live Peaceably with Nature, in Sierra
by Barbara Kingsolver. 5 pgs.

Magazine Article

Read/Write Review
8 .

The Literary West: An Anthology of Western American Literature ("'Why I Am a Danger to the Public' from Homeland and Other Stories (1989)" by Barbara Kingsolver begins on p. 396)
by Thomas J. Lyon. 450 pgs.

Book

Read/Write Review

Show Table of Contents [+]

Hide Table of Contents [-]

Title Page

Contents

Preface

Introduction the Conquistador, the Lone Ranger, and Beyond

A Western Chronology, with 200 Significant Titles

Kathlamet Chinook (oral Tradition)

Pedro Font

Lewis and Clark

John Muir

Clarence Dutton

Sarah Winnemucca

Hamlin Garland

Owen Wister

Mary Austin

Jack London

Zane Grey

Willa Cather

Dorothy Scarborough

Robinson Jeffers

Luther Standing Bear

John Steinbeck

A. B. Guthrie Jr.

Jack Schaefer

Frank Waters

Jose Antonio Villarrea

William Stafford

N. Scott Momaday

Al Young

Jeanne Wakatsuki Houston and James D. Houston

Edward Abbey

Wallace Stegner

Sam Shepard

Act 1: Scene 1

Act 2: Scene 5

Rudolfo Anaya

Gary Snyder

Gretel Ehrlich

Louis L'Amour

Denise Chavez

May Swenson

Charles Bowden

Amy Tan

Terry Tempest Williams

"Reimagining Warner," from Heart of the Land (1994)

Rick Bass

Barbara Kingsolver

Linda Hogan

Guide to Further Reading

Credits

Index
9 .

Women in Literature: Reading through the Lens of Gender ("Mothers and Children in Barbara Kingsolver's The Bean Trees (1988)" begins on p. 26)
by Jerilyn Fisher, Ellen S. Silber. 358 pgs.

Book

Read/Write Review

Read Synopsis [+]

Hide Synopsis [-]

This unique reference offers alternate approaches to reading traditional literature, as well as suggestions for expanding the canon to include more gender sensitive works. Covering 96 of the most frequently taught works of fiction, essays offer teachers, librarians, and students fresh insights into the female perspective in literature.

Show Table of Contents [+]

Hide Table of Contents [-]

Title Page

Contents

Foreword

Preface

Introduction

Women’s Roles and Influence in Mark Twain’s the Adventures of Huckleberry Finn (1885)

The War against the Feminine: Erich Maria Remarque’s All Quiet on the Western Front (1929)

Doctor She! Helena and Sisterhood in William Shakespeare’s All’s Well That Ends Well (ca. 1602–1603)

For Further Reading

Mother, Wife, Fallen Woman: Marital Choice in Leo Tolstoy’s Anna Karenina (1877)

Young Lady or slut: Identity and Voice in Jamaica Kincaid’s Annie John (1983)

Righteous Activist or Confrontational Madwoman: Sophocles’ Antigone (441 B.C.E.)

Work Cited

Female Resistance to Gender Conformity in Kate Chopin’s the Awakening (1899)

For Further Reading

Mothers and Children in Barbara Kingsolver’s the Bean Trees (1988)

William Faulkner’s Male Myth: the Bear (1942)

More Than Skin Deep: Robin Mckinley’s Beauty: a Retelling of the Story of Beauty and the Beast (1978)

Sylvia Plath’s the Bell Jar: Trapped by the Feminine Mystique (1963)

Toni Morrison’s Beloved (1987): Maternal Possibilities, Sisterly Bonding

Richard Wright’s Black Boy (1945, 1991) and Black Women

Works Cited

Culture, Tradition, Family: Gender Roles in Rudolfo Anaya’s Bless Me, Ultima (1972)

Girls into Women: Culture, Nature, and Self-Loathing in Toni Morrison’s the Bluest Eye (1970)

Founding Women’s History: Christine de Pizan Writes the Book of the City of Ladies (1405)

Works Cited

A Dystopic Vision of Gender in Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World (1932)

An Immigrant Girl’s Quest for the American Dream in Anzia Yezierska’s Bread Givers (1925)

For Further Reading

As My Mother’s Daughter: Breath, Eyes, Memory by Edwidge Danticat (1994)

Non-Conformists and Traditionalists: Buchi Emecheta’s the Bride Price (1976)

The Symbolic Annihilation of Women in Jack London’s the Call of the Wild (1904)

Geoffrey Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales: Gender in the Middle Ages (ca. 1388–1400)

Sex, Violence, and Peter Pan: J.D.Salinger’s the Catcher in the Eye (1951)

Paths to Liberation in Alice Walker’s the Color Purple (1982)

The Women in Fyodor Dostoevsky’s Crime and Punishment (1866)

Witch-Hunting, Thwarted Desire, and Girl Power: Arthur Miller’s the Crucible (1953)

A Nice Girl Ought to Know! Henry James’ Daisy Miller (1878)

Redefining Female Absence in Arthur Miller’s Death of a Salesman (1949)

Black and White Womanhood in Sherley Anne Williams’ Dessa Rose: Mammies, Ladies, Rebels (1986)

Work Cited

Anne Frank’s the Diary of a Young Girl: Writing a Self—the Female Adolescent Voice (1952)

For Further Reading

The Slammed Door That Still Reverberates: Henrik Ibsen’s a Doll’s House (1879)

Frozen Lives: Edith Wharton’s Ethan Frome (1911)

Catherine Barkley: Ernest Hemingway’s a Farewell to Arms (1929)

The Invisible Black Female Artist in Alice Childress’ Florence (1950)

For Further Reading

Daring Creation: Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein (1818, Revised 1831)

Shattered Rainbows in Translucent Glass: Tennessee Williams’ the Glass Menagerie (1945)

What It Means to Be a Lady: Margaret Mitchell’s Gone with the Wind (1936)

Works Cited

Patriarchy and Property: Women in Pearl S.Buck’s the Good Earth (1931)

No Expectations at All: Women in Charles Dickens’ Great Expectations (1861)

Works Cited

Beautiful Fools and Hulking Brutes: F.Scott Fitzgerald’s the Great Gatsby (1925)

Reading between the Lines: Connecting with Gertrude and Ophelia in William Shakespeare’s Hamlet (ca. 1600)

Freedom Reconsidered: Margaret Atwood’s the Handmaid’s Tale (1985)

Work Cited

When Women Shape the World: Charlotte Perkins Gilman’s Herland (1915)

Works Cited

Girls and Women in Sandra Cisneros’ the House on Mango Street (1984)

Living in a Borderland: Cultural Expectations of Gender in Julia Alvarez’ How the García Girls Lost Their Accents (1991)

A Song of Freedom: Maya Angelou’s I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings (1969)

Good Mother, Bad Mother in Joanne Greenberg’s I Never Promised You a Rose Garden (1964)

Bobbie Ann Mason’s in Country (1985): a Girl’s Quest for Her Father and Herself

The Invisible Women in Ralph Ellison’s Invisible Man (1952)

Works Cited

Be True to Yourself: Charlotte Brontë’s Jane Eyre (1847)

Thinking Different in Amy Tan’s the Joy Luck Club (1989)

Gender Bending: Ursula le Guin’s the Left Hand of Darkness (1969)

What a Teacher Learns: Ernest J.Games’ a Lesson before Dying (1993)

Works Cited

The Foreignness of Femininity in Joseph Conrad’s Lord Jim (1900)

Boys’ Club—no Girls Allowed: Absence as Presence in William Golding’s Lord of the Flies (1954)

Unnatural: Women in William Shakespeare’s Macbeth (ca. 1606)

Emma Rouault Bovary: Gendered Reflections in Madame Bovary by Gustave Flaubert (1857)

(Re)surfacing Main Street (1920) by Sinclair Lewis

Critiquing “the We of Me”: Gender Roles in Carson Mccullers’ the Member of the Wedding (1946)

Works Cited

Beauty and Gender in Alix Kates Shulman’s Memoirs of an Ex-Prom Queen (1972)

Where No Role Fits: Maggie’s Predicament in George Eliot’s the Mill on the Floss (1860)

For Further Reading

Herman Melville’s Moby-Dick: Epic Tale of Male Destruction (1851)

For Further Reading

Images of Possibility: Gender Identity in Willa Cather’s My Àntonia (1918)

Work Cited

The Good Woman: Kamala Markandaya’s Nectar in a Sieve (1954)

Boyhood Unraveled: Elie Wiesel’s Night (1960)

Sexuality as Rebellion in George Orwell’s 1984 (1949)

Homer’s Odyssey: “the Iliad’s Wife” (ca. 700 B.C.E.)

Jocasta and Her Daughters: Women in Sophocles’ Oedipus Rex (ca. 430 B.C.E.)

Women Stripped of Humanity: John Steinbeck’s of Mice and Men (1937)

Role Traps in Ken Kesey’s One Flew over the Cuckoo’s Nest (1962)

Under the Burden of Yellow Peril: Race, Class, and Gender in Yoshiko Uchida’s Picture Bride (1987)

For Further Reading

Woman and Art in James Joyce’s a Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man (1916)

Truths Universally Acknowledged: Stereotypes of Women in Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice (1813)

Undue Influence in Muriel Spark’s the Prime of Miss Jean Brodie (1961)

Exploring the Gender Puzzle of George Bernard Shaw’s Pygmalion (1912)

Work Cited

Seasoned with Quiet Strength: Black Womanhood in Lorraine Hansberry’s a Raisin in the Sun (1959)

Heroism against the Odds: William Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet (ca. 1599)

Molly Bolts and Lifelines: Rita Mae Brown’s Ruby Fruit Jungle (1973)

A as Hester’s Autonomy in Nathaniel Hawthorne’s the Scarlet Letter (1850)

Female Freedom in Other Places and Inner Spaces: Suzanne Fisher Staples’ Shabanu: Daughter of the Wind (1989)

For Further Reading

Gender in Silas Marner by George Eliot (1861)

Empowerment through Writing in Mariama Bâ’s So Long a Letter (1979)

Wearing “her Favour in the Battle”: the “go-Between” in D.H. Lawrence’s Sons and Lovers (1913)

Riding Tennessee Williams’ a Streetcar Named Desire (1947)

Agent or Victim: Thomas Hardy’s Tess of the D’urbervilles (1891)

An African-American Woman’s Journey of Self-Discovery in Zora Neale Hurston’s Their Eyes Were Watching God (1937)

Fragmenting Culture, Fragmenting Lives: Chinua Achebe’s Things Fall Apart (1959)

Just a Lady: Gender and Power in Harper Lee’s to Kill a Mockingbird (1960)

Women Righting Wrongs: Morality and Justice in Susan Glaspell’s Trifles (1916)

For Further Reading

For Such as We Are Made Of, Such We Be: the Construction of Gender in William Shakespeare’s Twelfth Night, or What You Will (first Performed 1602)

Work Cited

The Power of Mothers in Harriet Beecher Stowe’s Uncle Tom’s Cabin (1852)

A Chinese-American Woman Warrior Comes of Age: Maxine Hong Kingston’s the Woman Warrior: Memoirs of a Girlhood among Ghosts (1976)

The Will to Survive in Gloria Naylor’s the Women of Brewster Place (1982)

Procrustean Bed: Gender Roles in Emily Brontë’s Wuthering Heights (1847)

Negotiating Tight Spaces: Women in Michael Dorris’ a Yellow Raft in Blue Water (1988)

Index of Literary Works by Author

Subject Index

About the Editors and Contributors
10 .

Domesticating the Car: Women's Road Trips, in Studies in American Fiction
by Deborah Clarke. 28 pgs.

Journal Article

Read/Write Review
11 .

The Mark of Africa, in World and I
by Roberta Rubenstein. Multiple pgs.

Magazine Article

Read/Write Review

Books	Journals	Magazines
Newspapers	Encyclopedia	Research Topics

Books	Journals	Magazines
Newspapers	Encyclopedia	Research Topics

Barbara Kingsolver

Barbara Kingsolver

Search the entire Questia Library for more on: Barbara Kingsolver

View all books and articles on Barbara Kingsolver

Customize your search: Search within the topic Barbara Kingsolver

Barbara Kingsolver - Related Topics

Visitors researching Barbara Kingsolver also searched on:

Customize your search: Search within the topic Barbara Kingsolver