Thatcher, a local science teacher, is a fictional construct designed by Kingsolver to insert discussions about evolution into the high school curriculum. A staunch advocate of burgeoning theories of natural selection, she corresponded regularly with evolutionary notables like England’s Charles Darwin and Harvard’s Asa Gray. She was, in her lifetime, a highly-regarded, self-taught scientist who meticulously studied and collected both flora and fauna in the nearby Pine Barrens. Mary and Thatcher are neighbors, denizens of Vineland, a semi-Utopian settlement that existed in late nineteenth-century New Jersey. Unsheltered.” Essentially, that is what all the characters in Unsheltered are learning to do, to see themselves clearly, to acknowledge the evidence of their behavior, and then to behave in new, more productive ways. Mary Treat observes that a biology teacher must take his students out of doors, must “teach them to see evidence for themselves, and not to fear it.” That teacher, Thatcher Greenwood, responds to his mentor, “To stand in the clear light of day, you once said. In the middle of Barbara Kingsolver’s novel, Unsheltered, two of her characters talk about the unusual word she uses for her title. Unsheltered, to see ourselves more clearly
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