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IB English A1 Yr 1
Small Wonder
Due: 16th March
How far and to what effect does Kingsolver combines such explorations of interior
of the relationship between man and its dual world, the interior and the exterior. Humans
and their relationship with other humans, for example love and friendship are one’s
interior world. These are the quantities that are not physical but are limited between
humans and also include memories and experiences. The exterior world, as it suggests,
includes all the physical quantities, in and around us. The relationship between the two
can be seen in Kingsolver’s collection of essays. Kingsolver uses her interior world and
Barbara Kingsolver was born and raised in a farm in the countryside of Kentucky.
She spent most of her life away from the modern and technological world, as it can be
noticed in the essay, ‘The One Eyed Monster, And Why I Don’t Let Him In’. In this piece
of work, Kingsolver says that the television is a source of degradation of human mind.
After working in a farm all her childhood life, one would obviously discourages the use
of television and prefer reading newspapers. She uses her internal world in order to relate
to the use of television, being the external. In the essay, ‘A Fist in the Eye of God’, she
talks about nature and its true importance. Again, because she has spent her childhood
days with her best friend nature, she tends to show her appreciation for it. She talks about
Darwin’s famous theories and gives respect to it as she herself studied genetic
engineering in college. All this relates to her personal experiences, feeling and memories
from her early days and this helps the readers to understand the details and the unseen of
“Here’s a secret you should know about mothers: We spy. Yes, on our kids.”
down her interior matters with her daughter and how all mothers take care of their
daughters. She starts off by saying that all mothers keep an eye on their children since
their birth. Also by adding that girls should take care of themselves (indirectly referring
to sexually transmitted diseases), she pools in her experiences to show that a lot can
happen in the cruel external world. ‘Letter to my Mother’ can be considered as a sequel to
the last essay. Here, Kingsolver writes a number of journal cum letters to her mother
where she expresses her feelings more openly. She does so by indirectly emphasizing on
the importance of letters and how they tend to open up one’s mind. She prefers to pen
down her emotions on paper rather than chatting on the phone or the internet. This essay
is a perfect example of Kingsolver combining her interior matters with the consideration
of the external matters, where she shows her relationship with her mother with respect to
Japan. She relates her experience of research to the more important part of the trip, the
importance of peace in the world. She also adds another major point; the differences in
cultures that are eating up the world, one instance could be seen at the Ground Zero in
Hiroshima. She gives different instances of how difficult she found to blend into another
and completely different culture, which all humans do and most of them tend to react
differently. In the essay ‘Life is Precious, or It’s Not’, the author mainly focuses on the
acts of violence committed by youngsters and blames the modern media and
technologies. She refers to the Columbine High School shootout for this subject and
questions the use of guns and bombs for eliminating troubles. She again blames the
media for showing such acts of violence but also adds that kids tend to follow the adults
and their actions. She explains that one’s life is precious to them, but during the time of
mass murders and acts of violence, one doesn’t even think about the importance of
other’s life. “….by removing from our households and lives every television program,
video game, film, book, toy and DC that presents the killing of human as an
entertainment option, rather than the appalling loss that really is.”(Kingsolver, 183)
Lastly, she suggests that by removing the sources like the television and video games
which illustrate the acts of violence and bloodshed, one can start the process of removing
experiences and thoughts to portray a picture of our world from a completely different
view. She has showed the relationship between man and his dual world in ‘Small
Wonder’, and how he gets affected by it daily, without even noticing. She has compiled
her personal experiences and memories to prove her points about the dangers and/or