Page 86 Eudora Welty: Eudora Welty (1909-2001) was an American author whose book, The Optimist’s Daughter, won the Pulitzer Prize in 1973. Kingsolver mentions her because of a shared sentiment to live in a post office.
Page 89 Poults: a poult is a young turkey, but the term can be applied to other species of general poultry. In the context of the book on page 89, the word happens to refer to baby turkeys.
Page 90 Lethargy: Lethargy is a state of fatigue or torpor. Amusingly, the word has a plural form: lethargies, but I’m not sure how one acquires multiple lethargies. The word is used to describe how meat animals are bred to be lethargically docile.
Page 94 Equines: Equine is usually used as an adjective to describe something that is similar or related to a horse. However, here the word is used in the form of a noun as a synonym for ‘horses’.
Page 96 Wyandottes: Wyandotte is a breed of chicken that Kingsolver mentions but fails to describe. Wyandottes lay brown eggs, are medium sized, and prefer free range. They are kept for their meat, eggs, and as show birds.
Page 96 Orpingtons: Like the Wyandotte above, the Orpington is a breed of chicken that is mentioned, but inadequately described for my curiosity. Orpingtons are named after the town of Orpington, England. They are large, maternal, and lay 200 eggs a year. Due to their popularity as show birds, their ability to lay more than 300 eggs a year has largely been bred out of them in favor of looks.
Page 96 Araucanas: Unlike the previously mentioned chicken breeds, the book does give one detail about the Araucana; the fact that they “lay pretty green eggs.” In addition to their unusual egg color, Araucanas are also notable for being rumpless (lacking a tail) and for having tufts of feathers near their years rather like a pair of side burns.
Page 100 Genteel Fête: Genteel means refined or polite. A Fête is a French word for celebration or party. The phrase is used in the book to describe Mother’s Day.
Page 101 Proletarian: Proletarian is the adjective form of the noun proletariat. The proletariat is the class of society that does not own any land, but is more generally used to describe the working class of society. The term is most famously used in The Communist Manifesto, which is probably why Kingsolver uses it to personify a Russian breed of tomato.
Page 101 Languid: Languid means lethargic or slow moving, and is used in the book to personify a tomato in contrast to the proletarian tomato described in the same paragraph.
-Zachary Brandt
-Zachary Brandt
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