Barbara Kingsolver Knits Us All Together — On “Where it Begins”

Kolya Shields
Nov 4 · 3 min read
Barbara Kingsolver — Novelist

Barbara Kingsolver invites you to her hearth, the warm fire providing a welcome buffer from the frigid snow falling silently outside the window. A circle of women beckon you to join them — knitting needles in hand — and you are one of them, in an instant. In Kingsolver’s essay, “Where It Begins”, the author illustrates that everything and everyone in the world are connected by repeating the motif of nature and growth to bring out patterns all around us and using 2nd person throughout the essay to bring one into her welcoming commune.

The repeated uses of nature and growth related language and examples in “Where It Begins” helps illuminate patterns and connections all around us. Kingsolver’s description of knitting patterns, “From the seed of pattern, the cotyledons of cast-on, everything rises: …a trunk of body and branches of sleeves, the skirt that bells downward daffodil wise.” (Kingsolver), conveys that knitting is closely connected to patterns found in nature. By bringing out the natural elements in knit clothing, flower-like shape of a skirt, or limbs of a sweater that emulate a tree, the author connects nature with knitting and shows patterns where before there were none. The creation of dyed yarn in the essay, “Colors are fertilized in-vitro with the careful spoon and the potent powder weighed to the iota, and born by baptism in the big dye kettle hauled onto the stove.” (Kingsolver), illustrates how similar the processes of birth and the making of yarn are. Using the phrase “in-vitro” fertilization, Kingsolver compares mixing dye with wool to creating life in a test tube. This language conveys that knitting is a work born in primal desires of birth and growth. Seeing a piece grow into its nature-inspired destiny or creating rich colored yarn with wool shares a duality with bringing a organism of one’s own into the world. The author’s connection of nature with knitting, by use of repeating motifs of growth and birth, makes connections all around the world abundantly clear.

Kingsolver writes in 2rd person throughout the essay, showcasing connections between people and cultivating radical empathy. The description of her community, “It begins with the circle of friends… the aged parents and teenager who crack up the family cars on the selfsame day, the bone-picked divorce, the winter of chemo” (Kingsolver), connect one to the group almost by force. By using “you” — instead of “I’” or “Her” — Kingsolver inserts you into this group of friends, even if one never thought they could do so. The forces connections between people, and forces empathy, by saying “You” have a family, a divorce a teenager, or chemo. Even if one has never had these events, Kingsolver makes them connect to it. The explanation of the feeling of knitting, “This is all your business. Hands plunged into a froth of yarn are as helpless as hands thrust into a lover’s hair, for they are divining the grass-pelt life of everything: the world” (Kingsolver), attaches the reader to the author’s own feelings about yarn and the world. These feelings, of desire for yarn, communal support for the world, for everything, aren’t Kingsolver’s intimate thoughts, but “Your” thoughts, “Your” feelings, and even if one doesn’t agree, they are forced to grapple with the ideas and see the connections with all of us.

Connections are all around the world in nature, from the Fibonacci code found in spirals on flowers, pinecones and pineapples, to how knitting patterns and styles approximate forms of plants. Kingsolver uses multiple writing techniques to show these connections between people and things, from the birth of a person to the birth of yarn, with the repeated motifs of nature and growth, to welcoming “You” into her circle of friends. Her purpose is to make the world a little more inviting, to illuminate the hidden connections between us as people, shared experiences “You” might have had or patterns in clothing, just like the outside world. Seeing that so many experiences and objects in our world are taken or imitated from nature reveals the ever-growing web of connections around the world.

Written by

High School Student, Writer, New England. Interests include Race, Gender, Sexuality, Literature, the Environment, Politics, Music, Art, and Ultimate Frisbee.

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