Unsheltered

Fiction | Novel | Adult | Published in 2018

A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.

Download PDF

Summary

Chapter Summaries & Analyses

Chapters 1-5

Chapters 6-10

Chapters 11-14

Chapters 15-18

Character Analysis

Themes

Symbols & Motifs

Important Quotes

Essay Topics

Tools

Beta

Discussion Questions

Symbols & Motifs

Shelter

Physical and intellectual shelter plays a fundamental role in the novel, as implied by its title. Willa and Thatcher’s struggles against the decay of their physical shelters (houses) suggest that the concept of shelter is central to understanding the characters and the world they live in. Willa’s desire for stability, safety, and comfort for herself and her family are expressed through her anxieties about the Vineland house’s condition. Physical structures can be understood as a symbolic expression of the need for consistency, safety, and belonging.

Beyond physical structures that offer shelter, Thatcher and Mary use the metaphor of shelter to signify what Mary refers to as “the nuisance of old mythologies” as they discuss Darwinism and religious resistance to it (89). Thatcher says, “No creature is easily coerced to live without its shelter” (90), to which Mary replies, “Without shelter, we stand in daylight” (90)—a metaphor that evokes clarity, freedom, and self-sufficiency. In this way, Kingsolver posits that the desire for shelter is both necessary and comforting but can become suffocating and unhealthy if taken to an unreasonable degree.

Although Mary is a proponent of being “unsheltered,” in general the book connects shelter to femininity and mothering. The discrepancy between Willa and Iano’s attitudes about their collapsing house is thus gendered as well as a reflection of the differences in their character. Thatcher calls his natal family “unsheltering,” a symbolic association that refers to the fact that his mother died when he was a baby. As Tig takes on the task of mothering Dusty, it is fitting that she and Jorge are renovating the carriage house to serve as a home and shelter for their new family. However, Tig shares Mary’s dislike for intellectual shelter (415), signaling that she will reinvent motherhood according to her own ideals. In keeping with the feminine association, even the spiders who build shelters in Mary’s jars in Chapter 4 are female.

New Jersey

Willa comes to New Jersey reluctantly, and while she tries to embrace her new home, she finds it lacking:

She gazed out the window at this Jersey she would never fully accept, made of a soil so sandy and pale that plowed fields looked ghostly, and unpaved roads tended toward sand traps. The flatness was stultifying. She wouldn’t say this aloud because in light of other worries it seemed self-indulgent, but Willa missed mountains. Missed them hard, with the psychic equivalent of a toothache. She’d never known a place this flat in her whole vagabond life. She’d leaped on her scholarship from West Virginia to Colorado, then tied her fortunes to Iano’s and bounced pinballwise up and down the Rocky Mountain states, then finally back to the Blue Ridge. And then the collapse (351).

Willa’s resistance to fully embracing the state is reinforced when she and Iano decide to move to Philadelphia at the end of the book. New Jersey becomes associated with Willa’s temporary obstacles to happiness—poverty, Nick’s presence in the house, her worries about Tig, Zeke’s loneliness and grief. As these obstacles resolve themselves, Willa’s presence in New Jersey loses the urgency and necessity that it once had. Her move to Philadelphia can be understood as a resolution of that time period in her life, when she triumphs over the obstacles that have stood in her way. Thatcher’s departure from Vineland at the end of his story can be understood in a similar way as he sets out for the American West, which was at the time largely undeveloped and unexplored by those of European descent. Both he and Willa physically move away from New Jersey and figuratively move toward their unknown but hopeful futures.

The Seasons

Kingsolver structures her novel so that it takes place over about a year, beginning and ending in summer. As Willa and Thatcher’s stories progress, the seasons not only mirror one another in the two storylines, but also carry symbolic meaning. Often, in literature, summer is associated with growth, fertility, and ease, while winter is characterized as hostile. Kingsolver largely follows these traditional associations, and both Thatcher and Willa experience problems with their houses that are exacerbated by the cold winter weather. As he miserably walks to school one day as his troubles are mounting, Thatcher describes the weather as a “demon hybrid of wind, snow, and frozen rain” (275), the word demon evoking the idea of belligerent intent. Later in the book, when he ducks outside with Polly during a disastrous debate with his principal, the two shiver in the cold (326-28). It is notable that Polly describes Rose as being distant from their experience of the elements: “My sister would never put up with anything unpleasant. I’m sure she is all chickaleary now, drinking chocolate” (328).

As Thatcher eventually triumphs over his troubles, Kingsolver reflects his inner state of hope, peace, and growth with imagery of summer. The last chapter of the book begins, “Of all seasons in the Pine Barrens, summer was consummate” (455), and portrays Thatcher and Mary resting peacefully in the woods during one of their jaunts. Thatcher has been released from the constraints of his teaching position and his marriage and “lay watching the sky through the leaves, white clouds skipping across small lenses of light” (461). His posture of ease and the benevolence of the weather mirror the hope and growth of his story’s revolution.