Unsheltered

Thatcher Greenwood is the story’s 19th-century protagonist. Sensitive, philosophical, and principled, he divides the world into “investigators,” like himself and Mary, and the “sweeteners,” those who lack intellectual curiosity and accept commonplace ideas (41). Thatcher came from a background of poverty and gained a scientific education by working for a surgeon during the American Civil War, which occurred about 10 years before the story begins. Thatcher is also an amateur botanist, and this knowledge helps him understand and admire Mary. He has a habit of characterizing people by the plants he thinks they most resemble: “Polly was a hollyhock, cheerful, forthright, tallest bloom in the garden. Rose of course was a rose” (37). His characterization of himself in plant form at the beginning of his story reflects a self-assessment of sensitivity and weakness: “Greenwood, the sapling. Too easily bent” (39).

Thatcher is somewhat of a misfit in provincial Vineland and wishes that he and Rose still lived in Boston, which he associates with his own upward advancement and improvement beyond his impoverished origins: “[…] for Thatcher, Boston was everything: emancipation from rural childhood drudgery, his apprenticeship and education, the world of ideas, his heartiest friendships. All his best days were lived in Boston” (44). (In this sense of displacement, he is again like Willa, who longs for her old home in Virginia when she moves to Vineland.) Because of his success in bettering himself, Thatcher also has a sense of pride in his self-sufficiency, and Rose’s condescension dismays him because it feels as if he is being reduced to a degrading condition: “She’d reduced him to a child, and the whole of it appalled him, her part in this and his own. As if he were still a beginner, begging for love and purpose” (44-45). This dynamic signals deep dysfunction in the couple’s marriage and foreshadows their eventual separation.

Kingsolver devises a character arc for Thatcher that transforms him into a more independent person who is confident in his convictions, even when they are unpopular—as they are in Vineland. Unwilling to keep the peace with Rose at the expense of his own beliefs, Thatcher eventually leaves his marriage, signaling his desire to act out of integrity, not self-protection.

Mary shares some similarities with Thatcher. Like him, she is inquisitive, principled, and philosophical. Mary is a gifted, eloquent, and well-connected scientist as well, despite being self-taught. She rejects many of the tenets of conventional femininity during her time and is independent, opinionated, and self-assured. Rather than adhering to the acceptable spheres for a middle-class woman—centering around appearance, status, and the home—she is intellectually active, somewhat disheveled at times, hardy, and knowledgeable about the outdoors. She is extremely influential on Thatcher, giving him the confidence, encouragement, and camaraderie he needs to take his stance on Darwinism to Vineland’s public. Mary acts as a foil for Rose and most of the other women in the novel, although she and Polly share some characteristics that suggest that Thatcher’s sister-in-law could follow in Mary’s footsteps if she were permitted to.