Literature Resource Guide 2024-2025 PDF

OUR CHANGING CLIMATE Bowie High School - El Paso , TX LITERAT...

OUR CHANGING CLIMATE Bowie High School - El Paso , TX LITERATURE An Introduction to Environmental Literature Resource Guide 2 0 24 – 2 0 25 The vision of the United States Academic Decathlon® is to provide students the opportunity to excel academically through team competition. Toll Free: 866-511-USAD (8723) Direct: 712-326-9589 Fax: 712-366-3701 Email: [email protected] Website: www.usad.org This material may not be reproduced or transmitted, in whole or in part, by any means, including but not limited to photocopy, print, electronic, or internet display (public or private sites) or downloading, without prior written permission from USAD. Violators may be prosecuted. Copyright ® 2024 by United States Academic Decathlon®. All rights reserved.  Table of Contents SECTION I: CRITICAL READING..... 5 Chapter Nine........................ 24 Chapter Ten......................... 25 SECTION II: HISTORICAL OVERVIEW OF Chapter Eleven...................... 25 Chapter Twelve...................... 25 ENVIRONMENTAL LITERATURE..... 11 Chapter Thirteen.................... 26 What Is Environmental Literature?... 11 Chapter Fourteen.................... 26 The Romantic Movement in Chapter Fifteen...................... 26 England........................... 12 Chapter Sixteen..................... 26 The Transcendentalist Movement in Chapter Seventeen................... 27 the U.S............................. 13 Chapter Eighteen.................... 27 Bowie High School - El Paso , TX Chapter Nineteen.................... 27 Philosophies of Environmental Chapter Twenty...................... 28 Action............................ 14 Chapter Twenty-One................. 28 Environmental Awakening......... 15 The City and the Country.......... 16 Solar Storms: Cast of Characters... 28 Angela Jensen/Angel Iron............ 28 Eco-Justice........................ 17 Dora-Rouge......................... 29 The Rise of Climate Fiction......... 18 Agnes Iron.......................... 29 Hannah Wing........................ 29 SECTION III: SOLAR STORMS (1994) Bush............................... 29 BY LINDA HOGAN............... 19 Loretta Wing........................ 29 Biographical Context: Linda John Husk.......................... 30 Ek................................. 30 Hogan............................ 19 Frenchie............................ 30 Historical Context: The James Bay LaRue Marks Time................... 30 Project............................ 19 Tommy Grove....................... 30 Overview of Solar Storms......... 20 Aurora............................. 30 Plot and Structure: Chapter Tulik................................. 31 Summaries....................... 22 Ms. Nett............................. 31 Prologue........................... 22 Analysis of Solar Storms and Its Chapter One......................... 22 Chapter Two........................ 22 Themes........................... 31 Chapter Three....................... 22 Healing the Land, Healing the Self...... 31 Chapter Four........................ 23 Land, Profit, and Power.............. 32 Chapter Five........................ 23 Hannah’s Scars...................... 33 Chapter Six......................... 23 Remembering the Wilderness......... 33 Chapter Seven...................... 24 Finding Hope in the Face of Ecological Chapter Eight....................... 24 Catastrophe.........................34 2024–2025 Literature Resource Guide 2 Literary Contexts of the Novel..... 35 Camille T. Dungy: Biography.......... 49 Ecocriticism and Ecofeminism: Women in SELECTED WORK: “The Blue” (2011) by Environmental Literature............. 35 Camille T. Dungy..................... 50 Colonialism and the Environment...... 37 Analysis of “The Blue”: Nature and Animals and the Environment......... 37 Impermanence....................... 51 Environmental Place.................38 Indigenous Literature and Climate Poetry: “Evergreen” by Oliver Baez Change............................. 39 Bendorf........................... 52 Oliver Baez Bendorf: Biography....... 52 SECTION IV: SHORTER SELECTED WORK: “Evergreen” (2018) by Oliver Baez Bendorf................. 53 SELECTIONS.................... 40 Analysis of “Evergreen”: Nature and the Poetry: “The World Is Too Much With Self................................ 53 Us” by William Wordsworth....... 40 William Wordsworth: Biography....... 40 Poetry: “The air smelled dirty” by SELECTED WORK: “The World Is Too Much Marge Piercy..................... 54 With Us” (1807) by William Wordsworth.. 41 Marge Piercy: Biography............. 54 Structure and Analysis of “The World Is SELECTED WORK: “The air smelled dirty” Too Much With Us”: Elegy and (2017) by Marge Piercy............... 55 Industrialism......................... 41 Analysis of “The air smelled dirty”: Nature, Bowie High School - El Paso , TX Place, and Memory.................. 55 Poetry: “Freeway 280” by Lorna Dee Cervantes......................... 42 Poetry: “Our Purpose in Poetry: or, Lorna Dee Cervantes: Biography...... 42 Earthrise” by Amanda Gorman... 56 SELECTED WORK: “Freeway 280” (1981) by Amanda Gorman: Biography.......... 56 Lorna Dee Cervantes................ 43 SELECTED WORK: “Our Purpose in Structure and Analysis of “Freeway 280”: Poetry: or, Earthrise” (2018) by Amanda Landscape and Wilderness........... 43 Gorman............................ 57 Analysis of “Earthrise”: Climate Poetry: “Different Ways to Pray” by Change............................. 59 Naomi Shihab Nye................ 44 Naomi Shihab Nye: Biography.........44 Short Story: “The Machine Stops” SELECTED WORK: “Different Ways to by E. M. Forster................... 60 Pray” (1980) by Naomi Shihab Nye..... 45 E. M. Forster: Biography.............. 60 Analysis of “Different Ways to Pray”: SELECTED WORK: “The Machine Stops” Sacred Nature; New Pastoral......... 46 (1909) by E. M. Forster................. 61 Analysis of “The Machine Stops”: Poetry: “Webcam the World” by Technology and Isolation............. 77 Heather McHugh.................. 47 Section 1: “The Air Ship”.............. 77 Heather McHugh: Biography.......... 47 Section 2: “The Mending Apparatus”... 78 SELECTED WORK: “Webcam the World” Section 3: “The Homeless”............. 79 (2009) by Heather McHugh............ 48 Analysis of “Webcam the World”: Essay: “Once More to the Lake” Documenting Nature in the Age of by E. B. White..................... 79 Climate Change......................48 E. B. White: Biography................ 79 SELECTED WORK: “Once More to the Lake” Poetry: “The Blue” by Camille T. (1941) by E. B. White.................. 80 Dungy............................ 49 2024–2025 Literature Resource Guide 3  Analysis of “Once More to the Lake”: Analysis of “Epiphany in the Beans”: Nature and Nostalgia.................83 Restoring the Relationship between Land and People.......................... 92 Short Story: “The Toxic Donut” by Terry Bisson...................... 84 Short Story: “Space Leek” by Chen Terry Bisson: Biography.............. 84 Qiufan............................ 93 SELECTED WORK: “The Toxic Donut” Chen Qiufan (a.k.a. Stanley Chan): (1993) by Terry Bisson................ 85 Biography........................... 93 Analysis of “The Toxic Donut”: Toxic Waste, SELECTED WORK: “Space Leek” (2019) by Science, and Environmentalism....... 87 Chen Qiufan......................... 93 Analysis of “Space Leek”: Science, Food, Nonfiction: “Epiphany in the Beans” and Climate........................ 104 excerpt from Braiding Sweetgrass by Robin Wall Kimmerer............. 88 GLOSSARY...................... 105 Robin Wall Kimmerer: Biography...... 88 SELECTED WORK: “Epiphany in the Beans,” excerpt from Braiding Sweetgrass (2013) NOTES........................... 110 by Robin Wall Kimmerer.............. 89 BIBLIOGRAPHY.................... 113 Bowie High School - El Paso , TX 2024–2025 Literature Resource Guide 4  Section I Critical Reading Critical reading is a familiar exercise to students, an information, students can begin to place the passage exercise that many of them have been engaged in since into context. As they start to read, students will want the first grade. Critical reading forms a significant part to focus on what they know about that writer, his or of the PSAT, the SAT, the ACT, and both Advanced her typical style and concerns, or that time period, its Placement Tests in English. It is the portion of any test values and its limitations. A selection from Thomas for which students can do the least direct preparation, Paine in the eighteenth century is written against a and it is also the portion that will reward students who different background and has different concerns from have been lifelong readers. Unlike other parts of the a selection written by Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. prior United States Academic Decathlon® Test in Literature, to the passage of the Civil Rights Act. Toni Morrison where the questions will be based on specific works writes against a different background from that of of literature that the students have been studying Charles Dickens. Bowie High School - El Paso , TX diligently, the critical reading passage in the test, as a previously unseen passage, will have an element of Passages are chosen from many different kinds of surprise. In fact, the test writers usually go out of their texts—fiction, biography, letters, speeches, essays, way to choose passages from works not previously newspaper columns, and magazine articles—and encountered in high school so as to avoid making the may come from a diverse group of writers, varying critical reading items a mere test of recall. From one in gender, race, location, and time period. A likely point of view, not having to rely on memory actually question is one that asks readers to speculate on what makes questions on critical reading easier than the literary form the passage is excerpted from. The passage other questions because the answer must always be itself will offer plenty of clues as to its genre, and the somewhere in the passage, stated either directly or name of the writer often offers clues as well. Excerpts indirectly, and careful reading will deliver the answer. from fiction contain the elements one might expect to find in fiction—descriptions of setting, character, or Since students can feel much more confident with action. Letters have a sense of sharing thoughts with a some background information and some knowledge particular person. Speeches have a wider audience and of the types of questions likely to be asked, the first a keen awareness of that audience; speeches also have order of business is for the student to contextualize some particular rhetorical devices peculiar to the genre. the passage by asking some key questions. Who wrote Essays and magazine articles are usually focused on one it? When was it written? In what social, historical, or topic of contemporary, local, or universal interest. literary environment was it written? Other critical reading questions can be divided into In each passage used on a test, the writer’s name two major types: reading for meaning and reading is provided, followed by the work from which the for analysis. The questions on reading for meaning passage was excerpted or the date it was published are based solely on understanding what the passage is or the dates of the author’s life. If the author is well saying, and the questions on analysis are based on how known to high school students (e.g., Charles Dickens, the writer says what they say. F. Scott Fitzgerald, John Fitzgerald Kennedy, Jane Austen), no dates will be provided, but the work or In reading for meaning, the most frequently asked the occasion will be cited. For writers less familiar to question is one that inquires about the passage’s high school students, dates will be provided. Using this main idea since distinguishing a main idea from 2024–2025 Literature Resource Guide 5 a supporting idea is an important reading skill. A some aspects of the writer’s craft. One of these aspects question on main ideas is sometimes disguised as a may be organization. How has the writer chosen to question asking for an appropriate title for the passage. organize his or her material? Is it a chronological Most students will not select as the main idea a choice narrative? Does it describe a place using spatial that is neither directly stated nor indirectly implied organization? Is it an argument with points clearly in the passage, but harder questions will present organized in order of importance? Is it set up as a choices that do appear in the passage but are not main comparison and contrast? Does it offer an analogy or a ideas. Remember that an answer choice may be a true series of examples? If there is more than one paragraph statement but not the right answer to the question. in the excerpt, what is the relationship between the paragraphs? What transition does the writer make Closely related to a question on the main idea of a from one paragraph to the next? passage is a question about the writer’s purpose. If the passage is fiction, the purpose, unless it is a Other questions could be based on the writer’s attitude digression—and even digressions are purposeful in toward the subject, the appropriate tone they assume, the hands of good writers—will in some way serve and the way language is used to achieve that tone. Of the elements of fiction. The passage will develop a course, the tone will vary according to the passage. In character, describe a setting, or advance the plot. If the informational nonfiction, the tone will be detached and passage is non-fiction, the writer’s purpose might be matter-of-fact, except when the writer is particularly purely to inform; it might be to persuade; it might be enthusiastic about the subject or has some other kind of to entertain; or it might be any combination of all three emotional involvement such as anger, disappointment, of these. Students may also be questioned about the sorrow, or nostalgia. They may even assume an ironic Bowie High School - El Paso , TX writer’s audience. Is the passage intended for a specific tone that takes the form of exaggerating or understating group, or is it aimed at a larger audience? a situation or describing it as the opposite of what it is. With each of these methods of irony, two levels of The easy part of the Critical Reading section is that meaning are present—what is said and what is implied. the answer to the question is always in the passage, An ironic tone is usually used to criticize or to mock. and for most of the questions, students do not need to bring previous knowledge of the subject to the task. A writer of fiction uses tone differently, depending However, for some questions, students are expected on what point of view they assume. If the author to have some previous knowledge of the vocabulary, chooses a first-person point of view and becomes one terms, allusions, and stylistic techniques usually of the characters, they have to assume a persona and acquired in an English class. Such knowledge could develop a character through that character’s thoughts, include, but is not limited to, knowing vocabulary, actions, and speeches. This character is not necessarily recognizing an allusion, and identifying literary and sympathetic and is sometimes even a villain, as in rhetorical devices. some of the short stories of Edgar Allan Poe. Readers have to pick up this tone from the first few sentences. In addition to recognizing the main idea of a passage, If the author is writing a third-person narrative, the students will be required to demonstrate a more tone will vary in accordance with how intrusive the specific understanding. Questions measuring this narrator appears to be. Some narrators are almost might restate information from the passage and ask invisible while others are more intrusive, pausing to students to recognize the most exact restatement. For editorialize, digress, or, in some cases, address the such questions, students will have to demonstrate their reader directly. clear understanding of a specific passage or sentence. A deeper level of understanding may be examined Language is the tool the author uses to reveal attitude by asking students to make inferences on the basis of and point of view. A discussion of language includes the passage or to draw conclusions from evidence in the writer’s syntax and diction. Are the sentences long the passage. In some cases, students may be asked to or short? Is the length varied—is there an occasional extend these conclusions by applying information in the short sentence among longer ones? Does the writer use passage to other situations not mentioned in the passage. parallelism and balanced sentence structure? Are the In reading for analysis, students are asked to recognize (continued on page 10) 2024–2025 Literature Resource Guide 6  SAMPLE PASSAGE TO PREPARE FOR CRITICAL READING In order to prepare for the critical reading portion of the test, it may be helpful for students to take a look at a sample passage. Here is a passage used in an earlier test. The passage is an excerpt from Mary Shelley’s 1831 Introduction to Frankenstein. “We will each write a ghost story,” said Lord Byron, and his proposition was acceded to. There were four of us. The noble author began a tale, a fragment of which he printed at the end of his poem of Mazeppa. Shelley, more apt to embody ideas and sentiments in the radiance of brilliant imagery and in the music of the most melodious verse that adorns our (5) language than to invent the machinery of a story, commenced one founded on the experiences of his early life. Poor Polidori had some terrible idea about a skull-headed lady who was so punished for peeping through a key-hole—what to see I forget: something very shocking and wrong of course; but when she was reduced to a worse condition than the renowned Tom of Coventry1, he did not know what to do with her and (10) was obliged to dispatch her to the tomb of the Capulets, the only place for which she was fitted. The illustrious poets also, annoyed by the platitude of prose, speedily relinquished their uncongenial task. Bowie High School - El Paso , TX I busied myself to think of a story—a story to rival those which had excited us to this task. One which would speak to the mysterious fears of our nature and awaken thrilling (15) horror—one to make the reader dread to look round, to curdle the blood, and quicken the beatings of the heart. If I did not accomplish these things, my ghost story would be unworthy of its name. I thought and pondered—vainly. I felt that blank incapability of invention which is the greatest misery of authorship, when dull Nothing replies to our anxious invocations. “Have you thought of a story?” I was asked each morning, and each (20) morning I was forced to reply with a mortifying negative. Mary Shelley Introduction to Frankenstein (1831) 1. Tom of Coventry—Peeping Tom who was struck blind for looking as Lady Godiva passed by. INSTRUCTIONS: On your answer sheet, mark the lettered space (a, b, c, d, or e) corresponding to the answer that BEST completes or answers each of the following test items. 1. The author’s purpose in this passage is to 2. According to the author, Shelley’s talents were in a. analyze the creative process b. demonstrate her intellectual superiority a. sentiment and invention c. name-drop her famous acquaintances b. diction and sound patterns d. denigrate the efforts of her companions c. thought and feeling e. narrate the origins of her novel d. brightness and ornamentation e. insight and analysis 2024–2025 Literature Resource Guide 7 3. The author’s descriptions of Shelley’s talents 7. “Noble” (line 2) can be BEST understood to might be considered all of the following mean EXCEPT a. principled a. accurate b. aristocratic b. prejudiced c. audacious c. appreciative d. arrogant e. eminent d. detached 8. All of the following constructions, likely to e. exaggerated be questioned by a strict grammarian or a 4. The author’s attitude toward Polidori is computer grammar check, are included in the a. amused passage EXCEPT b. sincere a. a shift in voice c. derisive b. unconventional punctuation d. ironic c. sentence fragments e. matter-of-fact d. run-on sentences 5. The author’s approach to the task differs from e. a sentence ending with a preposition that of the others in that she begins by thinking 9. In context “platitude” (line 11) can be BEST of understood to mean a. her own early experiences a. intellectual value b. philosophical aspect Bowie High School - El Paso , TX b. poetic terms and expressions c. commonplace quality c. the desired effect on her readers d. heightened emotion d. outperforming her male companions e. demanding point of view e. praying for inspiration 10. “ The tomb of the Capulets” (line 10) is an 6. At the end of the excerpt the author feels allusion to a. determined a. Shakespeare b. despondent b. Edgar Allan Poe c. confident c. English history d. relieved d. Greek mythology e. resigned e. the legends of King Arthur ANSWERS AND EXPLANATIONS OF ANSWERS 1. (e) This type of question appears in most sets of critical reading questions. (a) might appear to be a possible answer, but the passage does not come across as very analytical, nor does it seem like a discussion of the creative process but rather is more a description of a game played by four writers to while away the time. (b) and (c) seem unlikely answers. Mary Shelley’s account here sounds as if she is conscious of inferiority in such illustrious company rather than superiority. She has no need to name-drop, as she married one of the illustrious poets and at that time was the guest of the other. She narrates the problems she had in coming up with a story, but since the passage tells us that she is the author of Frankenstein, we know that she did come up with a story. The answer is (e). 2. ( b) This type of question asks readers to recognize a restatement of ideas found in the passage. The sentence under examination is found in lines 3–6, and students are asked to recognize that “diction and sound patterns” refers to “radiance of brilliant imagery” and “music of the most melodious verse.” (a) would not be possible because even his adoring wife finds him not inventive. “Thought and feeling,” (c), appear as “ideas and sentiments” (line 3), which according to the passage are merely the vehicles to exhibit Shelley’s talents. Answer (d), incorporating “brightness,” might refer to “brilliant” in line 4, but “ornamentation” is too artificial 2024–2025 Literature Resource Guide 8 a word for the author to use in reference to her talented husband. (e) is incorrect, as insight and analysis are not alluded to in the passage. 3. (d) This question is related to Question 2 in that it discusses Shelley’s talents and the author’s opinion of them. The writer is obviously not “detached” in her description of her very talented husband. She is obviously “prejudiced” and “appreciative.” She may even exaggerate, but history has shown her to be accurate in her opinion. 4. (a) This is another question about the writer’s attitude. Some of the adjectives can be immediately dismissed. She is not ironic—she means what she says. She is not an unkind writer, and she does not use a derisive tone. However, there is too much humor in her tone for it to be sincere or matter-of-fact. The correct answer is that she is amused. 5. (c) This question deals with the second paragraph and how the author set about writing a story. Choices (a), (b), (d), and (e) may seem appropriate beginnings for a writer, but they are not mentioned in the passage. What she does focus on is the desired effect on her readers, (c), as outlined in detail in lines 13–16. 6. ( b) This question asks for an adjective to describe the author’s feeling at the end of the excerpt. The expressions “blank incapability” (line 17) and “mortifying negative” (line 20) suggest that “despondent” is the most appropriate answer. 7. ( b) This question deals with vocabulary in context. The noble author is Lord Byron, a hereditary peer of the realm, and the word in this context of describing him means “aristocratic.” “Principled,” (a), and “eminent,” (e), are also possible synonyms for “noble” but not in this context. Byron in his private life was eminently Bowie High School - El Paso , TX unprincipled (nicknamed “the bad Lord Byron”) and lived overseas to avoid public enmity. (c) and (d) are not synonyms for “noble.” 8. (d) This is a type of question that appears occasionally in a set of questions on critical reading. Such questions require the student to examine the sentence structure of professional writers and to be aware that these writers sometimes take liberties in order to make a more effective statement. T  hey know the rules, and, therefore, they may break them! An additional difficulty is that the question is framed as a negative, so students may find it a time-consuming question as they mentally check off which constructions Shelley does employ so that by a process of elimination they may arrive at which construction is not included. The first sentence contains both choices (a) and (e), a shift in voice and a sentence ending in a preposition. Neither of these constructions is a grammatical error, but computer programs point them out. The conventional advice is that both should be used sparingly, and they should be used when avoiding them becomes more cumbersome than using them. The sentence beginning in line 14 is a sentence fragment (c), but an effective one. Choice (b) corresponds to the sentence beginning in line 6 and finishing in line 11, which contains a colon, semicolon, and a dash (somewhat unconventional) without the author’s ever losing control. This sentence is not a run-on even though many students may think it is! The answer to the question then is (d). 9. (c) Here is another vocabulary in context question. Knowing the poets involved and their tastes, students will probably recognize that it is (c), the commonplace quality of prose, that turns the poets away and not one of the loftier explanations provided in the other distracters. 10. (a) The allusion to “the tomb of the Capulets” in line 10 is an example of a situation where a student is expected to have some outside knowledge, and this will be a very easy question for students. Romeo and Juliet is fair game for American high school students. Notice that the other allusion is footnoted, as this is a more obscure allusion for American high school students, although well known to every English schoolboy and schoolgirl. 2024–2025 Literature Resource Guide 9 sentences predominantly simple, complex, compound, ideas, some on tone and style, two on vocabulary in or compound-complex? How does the writer use tense? context, and one on an allusion. Students should learn Do they vary the mood of the verb from indicative how to use the process of elimination when the answer to interrogative to imperative? Does the writer shift is not immediately obvious. The organization of the between active and passive voice? If so, why? How do questions is also typical of the usual arrangement of these choices influence the tone? Critical Reading questions. Questions on the content of the passage, the main idea, and supporting ideas Occasionally, a set of questions may include a grammar generally appear first and are in the order they are question. For example, an item might require students to found in the passage. They are followed by questions identify what part of speech a particular word is being applying to the whole passage, including general used as, what the antecedent of a pronoun is, or what a questions about the writer’s tone and style. Students modifier modifies. Being able to answer demonstrates should be able to work their way through the passage, that the student understands the sentence structure finding the answers as they go. and the writer’s meaning in a difficult or sometimes purposefully ambiguous sentence. Additional questions on an autobiographical selection like this passage might ask what is revealed about the With diction, or word choice, one must also consider biographer herself or which statements in the passage whether the words are learned and ornate or simple associate the author with Romanticism. and colloquial. Does the writer use slang or jargon? Do they use sensual language? Does the writer use Since passages for critical reading come in a wide figurative language or classical allusions? Is the variety of genres, students should keep in mind that writer’s meaning clearer because an abstract idea is other types of questions could be asked on other Bowie High School - El Paso , TX associated with a concrete image? Does the reader types of passages. For instance, passages from fiction have instant recognition of a universal symbol? If the can generate questions about point of view, about writer does any of the above, what tone is achieved characters and how these characters are presented, or through the various possibilities of language? Is the about setting, either outdoor or indoor, and the role it is writing formal or informal? Does the writer approve of likely to play in a novel or short story. or disapprove of or ridicule his or her subject? Do they use connotative rather than denotative words to convey Speeches generate some different kinds of questions these emotions? Do you recognize a pattern of images because of the oratorical devices a speaker might or words throughout the passage? use—repetition, anaphora, or appeals to various emotions. Questions could be asked about the use of Some questions on vocabulary in context deal with metaphors, the use of connotative words, and the use a single word. The word is not usually an unfamiliar of patterns of words or images. word, but it is often a word with multiple meanings, depending on the context or the date of the passage, as The suggestions made in this section of the resource some words have altered in meaning over the years. guide should provide a useful background for critical reading. Questions are likely to follow similar patterns, The set of ten questions on pages 7–8 is very typical— and knowing what to expect boosts confidence when one on purpose, a couple on restatement of supporting dealing with unfamiliar material. 2024–2025 Literature Resource Guide 10  Section II Historical Overview of Environmental Literature WHAT IS ENVIRONMENTAL LITERATURE? Writing, whether fiction, nonfiction, or poetry, is influenced by many factors and is not written in a vacuum. For example, an author might have personal views, cultural understandings, or be writing during a period of political, social, or environmental upheaval that influences their writing. Moreover, an interpretation of their writing can differ from what the author’s intention was. Literary criticism and theories, or Bowie High School - El Paso , TX ways of reading literature, can include psychological lenses, environmental lenses, Marxist criticism, feminist theory, moral criticism, postcolonial analysis, semiotics, gender studies, structuralism, and others. A reader can interpret a literary work through any of these approaches even if a work might not be classified as, say, a feminist or environmental text. Environmental literature is a genre of writing that comments on environmental themes—in particular, the relationships between nature (environment) and culture (humans). Readers of literature may glean certain things about a text, like characterization, historical periods and contexts, cultural and political issues, and more by reading a work through an environmental lens, which is sometimes referred to as ecocriticism. Ecocriticism is an approach used to assess how the natural world is represented in literature; to investigate contemporary ecological problems, like climate change; and to think about the intersections among literature, culture, and the environment. There is a long and rich history of works in the United States and abroad that focus on environmental themes. Early environmental texts in the United States can be traced to the nineteenth-century Transcendentalist Possible representation of Gilgamesh as Master of Animals. movement, while in England they are more closely Environmental literature can be traced throughout history linked to the Romantic period, which began on every continent, including such works as The Epic of in the late eighteenth century and continued Gilgamesh (c. 2000 bce). 2024–2025 Literature Resource Guide 11  and Reports of William Weston, Kim Stanley Robinson’s Pacific Edge, The Dispossessed by Ursula K. Le Guin, A Psalm for the Wild-Built by Becky Chambers, and Nnedi Okorafor’s Zahrah the Windseeker. Dystopias include such works as Octavia Butler’s Parable of the Sower, Philip K. Dick’s Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep, Paolo Bacigalupi’s The Windup Girl, N. K. Jemison’s The Fifth Season, Cherrie Dimaline’s The Marrow Thieves, Walter M. Miller, Jr.’s A Canticle for Leibowitz, Margaret Atwood’s MaddAddam trilogy, and J. G. Ballard’s The Drowned World. THE ROMANTIC MOVEMENT IN The Lake District in England. Many of the English Romantic writers traveled to the lakes, mountains, and other beautiful ENGLAND vistas of England for inspiration and material for their poetry. The Romantic movement in literature occurred during the late eighteenth and early nineteenth through the first part of the nineteenth century. centuries and occurred in the midst of and in response However, environmental literature can be traced to a period of change and upheaval in England, throughout history on every continent, including such continental Europe, and the Americas. Writers, artists, works as The Epic of Gilgamesh (c. 2000 bce), where and intellectuals were disenchanted with the English readers find the Sumerian King attacking nature to establishment, in particular its treatment of the poor. Bowie High School - El Paso , TX assuage his fear of dying.1 Key English poets at this time, such as William Blake, William Wordsworth, Samuel Taylor Coleridge, John Some key features of environmental literature include Keats, Lord Byron, and Percy Bysshe Shelley believed finding harmony and balance in nature, redefining the that poetry could elevate the human soul and inspire concept of what is natural, and questioning the place of people toward a more just and beautiful world. humans in nature. Many environmental narratives fall into the categories of either utopias or dystopias. A Not all the key players involved in this movement utopia is an imagined place or state where everything agreed on everything, but as a movement many is perceived to be perfect, including social and Romantic writers were responding to the rationalism economic conditions.2 Dystopias depict societies in of the previous century’s Enlightenment and looking which there is great suffering and injustice, especially for a more spiritually healing way of being in the in relation to how people are treated by others and by world. Many of the poets highlighted societal injustices their governments.3 A dystopia is often exemplified by in their poetry, attempting to give voice to those oppression and societal decline. marginalized by society. Wordsworth, in particular, believed that poetry should be accessible to all people In environmental dystopias, the environment is typically rather than written in elitist and highbrow terms. In characterized by postapocalyptic imagery, whereas in his poem, “The Ruined Cottage,” written in 1797, he environmental utopias the earth is often in a state of depicts the struggle of the rural poor by situating the Edenic paradise—unspoiled, pastoral, and pristine. poem’s protagonist and narrator within the context Both utopian and dystopian environmental narratives of Britain’s failed harvests, which led to a dramatic often deploy irony or the use of satire to critique increase in the cost of bread. the notion that societies are either purely utopian or completely dystopian and typically complicate the The Romantics were inspired by the natural world narratives to reveal that what one considers a utopia and infused their poetry with sublime imagery. Many might be a dystopia in someone else’s view. of them traveled to the lakes, mountains, and other beautiful vistas of England for inspiration and material Some examples of utopias portrayed in environmental for their poetry. They prioritized imagination and literature can be found in H. G. Wells’ The Time found the natural world to be a vast beacon of freedom. Machine, Ernest Callanbach’s Ecotopia: The Notebooks While they stressed the importance of individual 2024–2025 Literature Resource Guide 12  A renowned Transcendentalist, the writer Henry David Bowie High School - El Paso , TX Thoreau is best known for Walden, his treatise on simple living. freedom, they also advocated for aiding humankind. During this time, there were very few women poets and writers due to societal limitations that relegated them to the domestic sphere. THE TRANSCENDENTALIST The writer Ralph Waldo Emerson was a leader in the MOVEMENT IN THE U.S. Transcendentalist movement. Following England’s Romantic period, a philosophical “Over-Soul,” present in each person. Drawing from and literary movement called Transcendentalism Eastern religions, Transcendentalist writer Ralph sprang up in New England in the United States Waldo Emerson’s concept of the Over-Soul included during the nineteenth century. Transcendentalists the idea that all souls are linked to one another and believed in a unifying theory of innate goodness in that individuals contain the divine inside themselves. all people and subscribed to insight over logic in the The Transcendentalists were among the first Western search for truth.4 Transcendentalist writers strongly thinkers to read Asian texts in translation, such as the emphasized alternative ways of living and advocated Bhagavad Gita, and were heavily influenced by Asian for women’s right to vote, better conditions for belief systems, especially Indian religions. “The ideas workers, individual freedom, and other humanitarian the Transcendentalists found in this growing library causes. They were extremely critical of slavery and of works from Hinduism, Buddhism, Confucianism, wrote many influential works in support of social Daoism, and Sufism directly entered into their reforms. American Transcendentalists were influenced understanding of the world, shaped their vocations by Unitarianism; German transcendentalists, who as writers, and informed their mission to disseminate had earlier influenced the English Romantics; Plato’s the new intellectual and spiritual vistas...” they philosophies; and mysticism. encountered in Asian books.5 As a movement, American Transcendentalism Two of the most renowned of the Transcendentalists espoused individualism and the idea of the divine were Henry David Thoreau and Ralph Waldo 2024–2025 Literature Resource Guide 13  Aldo Leopold was a famed conservationist and author of the important essay “The Land Ethic” (1949). nature, why should we grope among the dry bones of the past, or put the living generation into masquerade out of its faded wardrobe? Bowie High School - El Paso , TX The sun shines to-day also. There is more John Muir wrote more than ten volumes of nature writing and encouraged people to view nature and the National Parks as wool and flax in the fields. There are new sacred spaces for spiritual nourishment. lands, new men, new thoughts. Let us demand our own works and laws and worship.6 Emerson, who were great friends in addition to being Thoreau is best known for his treatise on simple living, members of the same literary movement. Both were Walden (1854), and his essay on “Civil Disobedience” prolific essay writers and abolitionists who believed in (1849). His time at Walden Pond, where he lived on self-reliance—or the idea that individuals should trust land lent to him by Emerson, was spent devoting their intuition over conforming to societal standards— one day to work and the other six to thinking and in the relationship between the soul and nature. about transcendental concerns as an economic and Emerson’s first published essay, “Nature” (1836), philosophical experiment. What began as an extended espoused his belief that man and nature were infinitely stay near the pond in order to write his first book linked and that the divine could be found in nature if became a deep study of nature and living on his own only people were not distracted by the trivial demands outside of societal boundaries for the better part of two of the world: years. Emerson and Thoreau found nature to be deeply Our age is retrospective. It builds the spiritual and to contribute to a life of the mind. sepulchres of the fathers. It writes biographies, histories, and criticism. The PHILOSOPHIES OF foregoing generations beheld God and nature ENVIRONMENTAL ACTION face to face; we, through their eyes. Why Following Transcendentalism, environmental literary should not we also enjoy an original relation movements in the United States began to shift under to the universe? Why should not we have a the influence of John Muir, a naturalist and advocate poetry and philosophy of insight and not of for the National Parks system, and later Aldo Leopold, tradition, and a religion by revelation to us, a famed conservationist and author of the important and not the history of theirs? Embosomed for essay “The Land Ethic” (1949). Muir and Leopold, who a season in nature, whose floods of life stream was heavily influenced by Muir, were interested in around and through us, and invite us by the preservation and conservation of the environment. Muir powers they supply, to action proportioned to wandered extensively through America and lived at 2024–2025 Literature Resource Guide 14  Bowie High School - El Paso , TX Science fiction writer Ursula K. Le Guin’s ecological fiction characterized the environmental movement’s shift in the 1970s toward ecological justice beyond simple awareness. Rachel Carson’s book Silent Spring, published in 1962, galvanized many Americans to join the environmental ENVIRONMENTAL AWAKENING movement. Published in 1962, Rachel Carson’s environmental science book Silent Spring signifies an era of Yosemite for several years, lobbied for the establishment environmental awakening in American literature and of Yosemite National Park and other national parks, and society at large. Carson was a marine biologist who wrote articles about the damage done by domesticated worked for the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, writing livestock. Muir often wrote about national parks in his educational brochures and magazine articles. An avid works, which spanned more than ten volumes of nature lover of nature, Carson was aghast at the dangers of the writing, and he encouraged people to view nature and chemical DDT, which was being broadly employed as the parks as sacred spaces for spiritual nourishment. an insecticide in crop and livestock production as well Muir opposed the exploitation of the environment, as in institutions and private homes and gardens in the including the building of dams. 1940s. Carson used her background in the sciences Leopold held a more complicated view of preservation to meticulously research the effects of DDT and how and conservation. Like Muir, Leopold believed that it traveled through the food chain to affect human nature was of spiritual value, but he also acknowledged biology. One of the most successful aspects of her book the land as a resource. Leopold was aggrieved at the was the hyperbolic preface in which she imagined a pace and content of conservation education, and in his future without birds and insects or animal life, where writing, he disparaged the national focus on economic vegetation has withered, and people have become motives for conserving the landscape, which he found sick because of the use of chemical sprays. Chemical insufficient. He introduced the concept of the Land companies were outraged, but the book galvanized Pyramid7 and advocated for soil, waters, plants, and many members of the public to join the environmental animals—and their mutual connections to humans— movement in America. in his seminal book A Sand County Almanac and Later in the 1960s, author Ursula K. Le Guin Sketches Here and There (1949). began writing science fictional accounts of climate 2024–2025 Literature Resource Guide 15  The author Barbara Kingsolver has written ecological narratives that shine a light on environmental destruction and Bowie High School - El Paso , TX its effects on rural Americans. Nnedi Okorafor’s novel Lagoon (2014), set in modern-day change, such as “The New Atlantis,” and included a Lagos, Nigeria, looks at climate change from the perspective of people living in a large and bustling city. sociological and anthropological outlook on nature in her fiction. to nonscientific audiences through symbolism and fictional narrative. Kingsolver’s environmental writing THE CITY AND THE COUNTRY is often concerned with spirituality and religion, which As the environmental movement has grown, there she seeks to write about respectfully. The structure have been noticeable fractures in the feelings and of the novel provides an explanation of climate science philosophies espoused in environmental literatures. that mirrors what the protagonist is learning about it at Most notably, there is discord among some authors the same time. Kingsolver uses monarch butterflies as a and readers about who is responsible for ecological literary device to help readers access information about ruin. This is not necessarily a new problem: even the the environment through literature and to connect an English Romantics held differing viewpoints about understanding of nature to spiritual concerns. the ecological contexts of the city versus the country. Now, though, the issue has become exacerbated by the Nnedi Okorafor’s novel, Lagoon (2014), set in modern- environmental policies and perspectives in rural and day Lagos, Nigeria, looks at climate change as a urban America and the contrast between the Global phenomenon, though from the perspective of people North and the Global South. living in a large and bustling city. A self-identified Naijamerican8 author, Okorafor, like Kingsolver, is Barbara Kingsolver has written ecological narratives concerned with spirituality, though she emphasizes that shine a light on environmental destruction and its some of the harms that have been done to Nigerian effects on rural Americans. Her novel Flight Behavior populations through the destruction of their historical (2012) discusses climate change issues on a farm in religious beliefs as an effect of colonialism. In rural Appalachia. Kingsolver has a background in Lagoon, technology plays a critical role in shaping biology and grew up in Appalachia. She writes from the environment and people’s understanding of the perspective of a scientist who loves nature and global climate change. The story is told from multiple asks questions about why humans believe what they points-of-view and—like Linda Hogan’s Solar Storms believe, attempting to make science more accessible (1994) and many other environmental narratives—is 2024–2025 Literature Resource Guide 16  groups. The 1916 establishment of the National Park system, for example, resulted in the forced removal of some Native Americans from their tribal homes. Additionally, many of the laborers hired to construct the parks worked long hours for low wages in unsafe conditions. Other people who would have liked access to these national treasures could not afford the time it takes to travel, cost of transportation, entrance fees, or time off from work to appreciate them. Stemming from the Civil Rights Movement of the 1960s, the environmental justice movement was started by individuals, primarily people of color, who sought to address the inequity of environmental protection in their communities.9 As the environmental justice movement progressed, with landmark events such as the Memphis Sanitation Strike of 1968, ecological fiction began to reflect the environmental movement’s periodic shift toward ecological justice beyond simple awareness. Some examples of this are John Stadler’s anthology Eco-Fiction (1971) and Ursula K. Le Guin’s The Word Bowie High School - El Paso , TX for World is Forest (1972), which, asks ethical questions about human activities’ effect on natural systems and on other living beings. Le Guin’s work is interested Indian writer Vandana Shiva is part of the anti-GMO in moral catastrophe, ecological awareness, and a movement. nonviolent approach to the environment that would forego colonialism and resource extraction. concerned with water pollution and environmental As the environmental justice movement took hold resource extraction. Throughout the novel, Okorafor in the 1980s with the formation of the Northeast personifies elements of non-human nature—especially Community Action Group (NECAG), a coalition of those that are markedly natural to cityscapes—to give local residents fighting against placing a landfill within them a voice in how climate issues are perceived. 1,500 feet of a local public school in Warren County, In one scene, she emphasizes the point of view of a North Carolina, the ecocritical turn in literature was famous highway, which is given human characteristics also gaining traction as a more coherent movement to allude to its monstrous hunger. within literature. Cheryll Glotfelty notes in her 1996 work The Ecocriticism Reader that early ecocriticism ECO-JUSTICE “failed to crystallize into a coherent movement… and Many writers of environmental literature seek to indeed only did so in the U.S. in the 1990’s.”10 Octavia capture the essence of the American environmental E. Butler, writing from her position as a Black woman movement at a specific time in history. Throughout living in California, incorporates some of the concerns its history, the environmental movement has been of working-class people, migrant workers, and others complicated, and at times has excluded the voices and in her 1992 novel Parable of the Sower. Butler followed concerns of significant groups of people. Sometimes, environmental news closely in the 1970s and 1980s environmental discourse and action, even when meant and grew concerned with what she saw as a significant to make positive strides in conservation and protection, loosening of environmental protections that would lead have elided certain groups and prevented them from to ecological degradation if left unchecked. The novel benefitting from the movement. In the nineteenth and extrapolates what might happen if no one came to the twentieth centuries, middle- and working-class whites, environment’s defense, resulting in extreme inflation, native Americans, and people of color had different rampant Californian wildfires, pollution, loss of experiences of the environmental movement than other species habitats and drinking water, and increasingly 2024–2025 Literature Resource Guide 17 hot temperatures. Vandana Shiva is an Indian writer and is part of the anti-GMO movement. A physicist, ecologist, and environmental author, Shiva’s nonfiction works center around the practice and paradigms of agriculture and food systems, which are ultimately related to the environment. Like Butler, Shiva argues against the privatization of natural resources and advocates for contemporary environmental policy shifts in order to protect the environment and provide accounts of the cost of climate change to human and non-human communities. Her writing helped shape global perspectives about Indian women farmers, a critique of the Green Movement, and the idea of biopiracy, whereby companies can patent seeds, in effect owning them as intellectual property. THE RISE OF CLIMATE FICTION Likely the newest addition to environmental literary imagination, climate fiction has grown in popularity Bowie High School - El Paso , TX over the last decade, due to the pressing concerns of the Anthropocene. Climate fiction, often shorthanded to Cli-Fi, a term coined in 2008 by journalist and climate activist Dan Bloom, is a genre of writing typically set in the future and concerned with the Earth’s changing Indian author Amitav Ghosh has written fiction and nonfiction climate. While Jules Verne wrote about climate issues narratives that deal with climate change issues. as early as the 1880s, modern climate fiction is more Photo Credit: Gage Skidmore concerned with the intersections among capitalism, income inequality, food production, water rights, and change a central theme in fiction so that society can other interrelated issues surrounding key concepts in imagine better ways to meet its challenges head on. global climate change. Some authors may write climate His novel The Hungry Tide (2004) looks at climate fiction consciously to promote environmental concern or change from a global and transnational perspective, activism, while other books may be read through a lens linking rising tides and human migration patterns, of climate crisis without explicit acknowledgement of animal conservation, scientific communication, and climate concerns by the author. class issues to the struggle for a better climate future. Stephanie LeMenager and Amitav Ghosh are both Many, though not all, climate fiction narratives exposit authors of fiction and nonfiction narratives that deal ways to address climate change from a hopeful with climate change issues. LeMenager teaches position. Some examples include Orleans by Sherri courses with the goal of helping students think through L. Smith; Blackfish City by Sam J. Miller; Island by what climate change means and how to respond to it, Aldous Huxley; Marge Piercy’s Woman on the Edge of using literature, film, and other arts.11 LeMenager also Time; Hiyao Miyazaki’s film Nausicaä of the Valley of writes about petroculture, teaching climate change the Wind; and several short pieces of winning fiction in humanities disciplines, and environmental literary from the Grist’s Imagine 2200 contest, which may criticism. Although primarily known as a novelist, also fit into the new category of Solarpunk, or climate Ghosh, in his 2016 book of literary criticism The Great fiction that inspires hope. Derangement, encourages writers to make climate 2024–2025 Literature Resource Guide 18  Section III Solar Storms (1994) by Linda Hogan BIOGRAPHICAL CONTEXT: LINDA HOGAN Linda Hogan (Chickasaw) (b. 1947) is a storyteller, Pulitzer Prize finalist, Writer in Residence for the Chickasaw Nation, and Professor Emerita at the University of Colorado. She has written several poetry collections, essays, fiction, and nonfiction books that emphasize the beauty of nature and relate her view of Indigenous knowledge systems, including Dwellings: A Spiritual History of the Living World (1995) and The Bowie High School - El Paso , TX Woman Who Watches Over the World: A Native Memoir (2001). She considers her work to be rooted in politics and often draws on historical research.12 Her novel Solar Storms won the Colorado Book Award for Fiction. Like many of Hogan’s works, Solar Storms revolves around environmental concerns and features themes related to Indigenous cultural preservation. Hogan’s body of work is interested in the dispossession of Native Americans and complicates the idea of both Native and American identities.13 Hogan herself is of mixed Native ancestry, her father hailing from a Linda Henderson Hogan (Chickasaw), author of Solar Storms prominent Chickasaw family, and her mother being and other works. of German descent. Much of Hogan’s writing poses questions about cultural intersections, our shared how our imagination of local place either aides or humanity, and our shared responsibility to protect the deters environmental stewardship and community Earth through balancing the spiritual, intellectual, participation. and physical realms and through building community across differences.14 HISTORICAL CONTEXT: THE JAMES Solar Storms portrays water and land as deeply BAY PROJECT rooted in spiritual associations with the home while The events of the book Solar Storms were inspired emphasizing their necessity as a resource and as a by the James Bay Project, Hydro-Quebec’s 1971 marker of historical and cultural trauma. Hogan uses controversial hydrodam construction on the La Grande literature to explore the many forms of place that affect River on the U.S.-Canada border. This hydrodam her characters’ lives. Her work incorporates topics of is one of the largest in the world, covering an area community, landscape, perceptions of nature, and land the size of New York State. Proponents of the dam use to explore the political and social implications of contended that it would be a boon to Quebec’s space and place in contemporary society, determining economy and would allow for the generation of a large 2024–2025 Literature Resource Guide 19  Waskaganish Grand Chief Billy Diamond signs the James Bay and Northern Quebec Agreement in 1975. shapes the personal identities of many characters in the novel based on their relationships with the land. OVERVIEW OF SOLAR STORMS Bowie High School - El Paso , TX Solar Storms, first published in 1994, tells the story of Angela Jensen, or Angel as she comes to be known, a seventeen-year-old Native American girl who returns to the North country where she was born, on the border of Canada and Minnesota. Solar Storms is a Map of the James Bay area with Cree and other Indigenous bildungsroman, or coming-of-age story. The novel communities indicated. depicts the process of Angel’s self-discovery through personal knowledge, failures, and triumphs. Some of quantity of electricity without the air pollution that the novel is written in stream-of-consciousness, giving results from fossil-fuel-driven power plants. However, readers access to Angel’s innermost thoughts, dreams, the dam severely impacted the surrounding regional and desires, as well as those of her grandmothers. Cree and Inuit communities’ lives by diverting water, displacing people, compelling animal migration, and Angel has spent most of her life in foster homes after changing local climates. Over five thousand Crees, suffering abuse from her mother, Hannah Wing, who is four thousand Inuits, and several environmental groups thought to be possessed by the hostile spirits of her past. opposed the project, as Indigenous people had not been The novel is set in the 1970s and finds Angel searching notified of the project until after construction began, for her relatives and for meaning in her life during a and they believed Quebec was acting in violation of time of serious upheaval in her Native community. treaties and committing unlawful expropriation and Adams Rib, Two-Town, and other areas are under threat destruction of traditional hunting and trapping lands.15 from a hydrodam project that will re-route rivers and dams, significantly changing the lives of the people, The conflict resulted in the James Bay and Northern plants, and animals that are indigenous to the land. Quebec Agreement in 1975, the first written contract in Canada that explicitly represented the rights of Upon her return to Adam’s Rib, Angel is warmly Indigenous peoples.16 Hogan’s central Indigenous greeted by her grandmothers Dora-Rouge and Agnes, characters protest the dam project as part of their long and Bush, the quiet woman who raised Angel as a journey through the wilderness, as Hogan portrays child, protecting her from Hannah’s rage until social Indigenous survival in the face of environmental services removed Angel from the home. Angel destruction. Indigenous environmental advocacy promises herself she will not run away from her 2024–2025 Literature Resource Guide 20 grandmothers’ home, though she has lived a rootless existence in the United States. She comes to know herself from her interactions with the three women and from watching and learning how the landscape changes through the seasons. Dora-Rouge, Agnes, and Bush all contribute to the narrative, telling stories rich in their heritage as well as memories from Angel’s childhood and their own. Two young Indian men visit the townspeople and bring warnings about the reservoir expansion project happening in the North country, where Dora-Rouge was born. Over time, the women agree to embark on a difficult canoe journey to the land of the Fat-Eaters to protest the project, find Angel’s mother, and allow Dora- Rouge to die with her people in her ancestral home. Angel is newly in love with a local boy named Tommy but must leave him behind to make the journey. As the women make the arduous journey, Angel finds that her connection to water is growing. She develops the gift of being able to see through water and to Bowie High School - El Paso , TX dream of medicinal plants—a gift she has inherited from her ancestors. The women all find their histories inscribed into the waters, especially in comparing the paper maps produced by settlers against the histories of the places they travel that have been touched by Native communities. Along the way, Dora-Rouge makes a compact with the river, so the women will survive the treacherous rapids. Later, as they approach Two-Town, Linda Hogan’s novel Solar Storms was first published in 1994. Agnes dies. Beautiful People. Once in the North, the three women meet Dora’s relative, Tulik. Together they join the protests against The protests become increasingly violent as the the government and BEEVCO corporation, who have corporation and government refuse to hear the Native already begun moving the rivers without permission people’s pleas, resulting in blockades and the use of from Native communities living there. The resulting military force. There is discord between the Native flooding drowns local animals and plant life, people who disagree about whether to use violence as submerges buildings, and displaces communities living a tactic for saving their lands and homes. Tulik’s home in the northern lands. Angel finally meets her troubled is burned down, and the workers and police threaten mother, Hannah, who is cold and distant. Hannah only violence against Angel and Dora-Rouge. Bush, Angel, stays long enough to deny ever hitting Angel. and Aurora escape with the help of Mr. Orensen after the baby is teargassed and falls ill. A short time later, Angel dreams that Hannah is dying and leaves Tulik’s to go to her mother’s house. They return to Adam’s Rib and find Bush’s home, She finds Hannah there and helps her through her Fur Island, mostly submerged as a result of the river end of life, finding compassion and empathy for the being moved. They salvage as much as they can tormented Hannah in the end. She also finds her infant and return to the Hundred-Year-Old Road. Tommy sister, whom she names Aurora. The baby becomes and Angel are reunited and married, while Angel a symbol of hope for Angel and for the community continues to fight for the water and the land, joining who all help to raise her while Angel lives with The Tulik in court to provide testimony on behalf of the 2024–2025 Literature Resource Guide 21  British, Norwegians, Swedes, and French fur trappers and traders who depleted beaver and fox from the area. Angel recounts her childhood growing up in foster homes in America and her desire to find herself by reconnecting with her kin in the North. Angel mentions her scarred face. She meets Dora-Rouge and John Husk in the house on Hundred-Year-Old Road. Agnes and Dora-Rouge tell Angel the story of Loretta Wing and Harold, and how Loretta was cursed by the trauma of watching her kin die from the poisoned deer carcasses and the subsequent abuse she suffers. This beginning shapes Hannah Wing’s story, and ultimately Angel’s. Chapter Two The La Grande River, Quebec. Chapter two finds Angel exploring her lonely past as a By fargomeD - Self-photographed, CC BY 2.5, teenager, and she vows to herself not to run away from https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=1504381 her family. Dora-Rouge tells her the story of how she loved plants as a child, and it is the first time Angel Native communities. Although much damage has been hears about herself as a young child. Angel begins to wrought, Angel hopes that humanity can find a way feel a connection to her female ancestors and to the back to knowing and protecting the earth. Bowie High School - El Paso , TX land. She learns the story of Agnes and the bear after she and Dora-Rouge hear Agnes singing the song of PLOT AND STRUCTURE: CHAPTER the bear’s fur coat. Ironically, the bear is saved when SUMMARIES Agnes kills it, as her compassion frees the bear from a Prologue life of pain and torment. Dora-Rouge notices Agnes’s Narrated from the perspective of Angel’s great- deep connection to the natural world through her grandmother, Agnes, the prologue relays a memory of relationship with the bear. Agnes and Bush preparing the mourning feast in honor Angel begins to think of her ancestors as a tree family, of Angel on Fur Island. Readers learn that Angel’s connected by roots and growing. She is ashamed and mother, Hannah Wing, is a troubled woman and that angry when Frenchie asks about her scars and breaks Bush tries to protect Angel. The county rules to return the bathroom mirror in response. Angel reflects on young Angel to her mother. After losing Angel, Bush the many surgeries and skin grafts it took to put her invites everyone from Adam’s Rib to her home to share face back together. In this way, she acknowledges in her grief and gives away most of her possessions. and begins to work through some of her childhood The scene suggests the intensity of the relationship trauma, inflicted on her by her mother. She also learns between Bush and Angel, and the prologue itself is that she will be sent to live with Bush on Fur Island framed by Angel’s memory of her great grandmother and worries she is being rejected. Angel begins to see whispering this seminal story to her. herself as “water going back to itself,”17 which serves as an extended metaphor throughout the novel as the Chapter One women encounter different bodies of water on their In chapter one, Angela Jensen returns to Adam’s Rib journey further north. to find her blood relatives. At seventeen years old, it is the first time she has been back to her ancestral Chapter Three land since she was a young girl. She has very little In chapter three, two men arrive by canoe to Adam’s memory of her early childhood there. Historically, the Rib. They tell the townspeople about a system of dams land belonged to Cree and Anishinaabe peoples, and that is being installed by the government without the those called the Fat-Eaters (a tribe who referred to knowledge or permission of the traditional people living themselves as The Beautiful People but were renamed on the lands, who had inhabited those areas for over by the European settlers), and had been explored by the ten thousand years. There has been an initial flooding, 2024–2025 Literature Resource Guide 22 which kills thousands of animals and displaces people who lived there. The floods destroy sacred plants, and the elderly have nowhere to go. The government starts to build roads and employs mineral extractions to remove precious resources prior to the continued flooding. Bodies of water will be changed, including those of Adam’s Rib, which will disrupt traditional fishing, hunting, and foraging practices. The two men ask the people of Adam’s Rib for help, and Angel feels the presence of change growing in the community. Chapter Four John Husk takes Angel by boat to Fur Island, passing the Hungry Mouth of Water. The traditional people of the area believe water is a spirit that rules their lives, establishing an interconnectedness with and respect for water as they rely on it for survival. As she approaches the island, Angel feels she is somehow going both backward and forward in time, remembering herself and becoming something new as she experiences the lake. This sense of time is less typical in Western Bowie High School - El Paso , TX narratives but is central to many Indigenous cosmologies, which “portray the primary components of the environment, including the sky, the ground, the subterranean realm, the waters, atmospheric processes, plants, animals, and more, as an integrated system energized and managed by the power of spirits and gods.”18 For example, in Anishinaabe cosmology, A Cree man from Fort George with protest stickers on his “each species has a manitou, or spirit, which controls snowmobile shield. Photograph taken in 1974 in eastern the presence and movements of representatives of James Bay, during the fight against the Quebec government’s that species on earth. The master can dispense or hydroelectric project. withhold blessings as it sees fit. However, individual Photo: Bob Olsen | © Toronto Star Archives representatives of the species also have a certain degree of autonomy.”19 herself, and despite her anger, she begins to connect with Bush and with the natural world, finally opening Husk teaches Angel the history of the island when her window to the elements outside her room. they are en route to Bush’s home. When Angel arrives there, she is awed by the beauty of the island and by Chapter Five Bush’s grace. Bush collects bones and puts animal This short chapter is a series of questions in which skeletons back together for museums; much of the Angel interrogates the nature of the world. She island and her home are covered in bones. The lake is questions how her mother could have survived the at a record low, and Bush and Husk discuss how fish storm and wonders what her mother would have seen have been dying by the hundreds at nearby Lake Chin. in the landscape. Angel ruminates on the elders’ belief Angel sees baby pictures of herself and compares them that humans are watched by birds, insects, and trees, to the fake ones she carried around from Woolworth’s. and that even the galaxy takes notice of the lives of Angel believes she has returned to the watery places humans. to recollect herself and thinks deeply about nature and memories in her new bedroom. Slowly, Bush begins Chapter Six to give Angel details of her mother’s life and her past. Angel learns from her elders that the world of nature is Angel reluctantly lets go of the story she created for not divided from the world of humans, but that they are 2024–2025 Literature Resource Guide 23 one. Dora-Rouge and Husk describe the land as densely populated by love, with all things—even inanimate things—being alive and inhabited by spirit. LaRue shows up to take Angel fishing, and she is appalled by his approach to the fish. Angel begins to fish with Bush and recognizes she has the gift of seeing the fish through the water. Bush explains about the Reverse People. Angel recognizes that she, like the island and the land, is made up of broken parts that she wants to make whole. Bush teaches her about corn and water. As the seasons change, Angel learns how to live in concert with the environment around her. She begins This map shows the lower Eastmain River, once an important a friendship with Tommy, and Bush teaches her more source of life for the Cree community in Eastmain. The river about Wolverine and her mother, Hannah. Bush was diverted and lost as part of the James Bay Project in 1979. recounts her memory of Loretta emerging from the Source: Ottertooth.com Indigenous Mapping Project water, and later her attempt to restore Hannah and finding her body covered in scars and incisions from the men who had tormented her. This chapter explores everywhere and finds Angel silent and blue, hidden in the pain of intergenerational trauma, memory, and the branches of a tree. suffering, and supplies Angel with parts of her story Chapter Nine Bowie High School - El Paso , TX that had shaped her life and brought her to the social Several people are lost to winter in this chapter, and workers. This is new knowledge for Angel and help