she is dead

Sheis Codi and Hallie's mother Alice, the late wife ofHomero Noline.. Throughout the novel Animal Dreams by Barbara Kingsolver Alice impacted the characters, action,and themes.. Homer's

She is dead She does not appear physically but haunts mentally She

is Codi and Hallie's mother Alice, the late wife ofHomero Noline

Throughout the novel Animal Dreams by Barbara Kingsolver Alice

impacted the characters, action,and theme(s) When Alice passed away she took part of Homer with her What she left was a misfit of time and circumstance;an emotionally distraught and distant man who

attempted to resemble a father but veered more towards the tin man Homero existed beyond his wife as only a page out of an instruction manual, the one with the caution statement Homero's delicate heart decided that the only way to endure Alice's death was to flush any

remembrance orresemblance of her out of his fortified technical realm which throughout the novel becomes increasingly skewed Kingsolver pushes home this idea by omitting Alice from any of Homer's frequent flashbacks which are usually mishapsfrom the past involving his

daughters These incidents are his only recollection of his daughters' estranged childhood inwhich he strained to create slippery and

unmothered women Homer's fear of becoming attached to

anything which reminded him of Alice resulted in an unorthodox

childhoodfor Hallie and Codi Homero was more of a child mechanic than

a father Retaining only his technical aptitude afterAlice died all he could

do was provide his kids with orthopedic shoes and the correct medicine When not fixing Codior Hallie's present or future ailments Homero took photographs of natural objects and slyly transformed them into

man-made devices by doing what he seemed to be best at, distorting images Codi, similar to her father mentally blocked out her past Her childhood remained within her as only a series ofstained and

misplaced memories Codi attempted to follow in her father's emulsion lined footprints, fixing every one oflife's problems with an internal wrench

By approaching life from behind this falsified image Codi managed to distanceherself from everything and everyone who could have hurt her One aspect of life and time in which Codi was bred tobe distanced from is the past As Codi grew older she began wondering about her family's past Homer basically toldher they had no past So with no past and no identity, Codi lived, searching for security and stability through a

motherfigure Everywhere Codi went she managed to find a mother figure Whether it be a man or a woman friend or evenHallie, Codi hid herself in other's security This search for stability is catalyzed by the lack

of a mother in Codi'schildhood The lack of maternal instinct in Codi left her with no sense of direction, therefore; she searched aimlessly

foryears, for herself.When Codi returns to her childhood home in Grace, Arizona she discovers she does have a past, both in herlifetime and prior

to it Contrary to what Homero told her, her original family was from Grace, her roots were there The absence of Alice lays down a theme for the novel: you must return to your roots to find your identity This is

feasiblebecause Codi had to come back to her family's origin and her mother's resting place to finally find her self Throughout the novel Animal Dreams there is an invisible presence which effects the

characters, action, andtheme The reason why this presence is so

dramatic and forceful is the fact that it is a spiritual presence, one which wewill never meet