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1-Page Summary of Flight Behavior
Overall Summary
In Barbara Kingsolver’s novel Flight Behavior, a symbol of Dellarobia Turnbow is the arrival of the monarch butterflies. The monarchs struggle to survive and reproduce as they migrate across America. However, Dellarobia has trouble dealing with her past decisions and making new decisions for herself and her children. As she comes of age, she opens up many options for herself and her family.
The novel begins with a woman named Dellarobia walking up the mountain in her family’s farm. She plans to meet another man and sleep with him, as she is unhappy about her marriage. As time passes, she becomes more bored of staying at home and being a farmer’s wife. She decides to have an affair but stops when she sees thousands of monarch butterflies hanging from trees on the mountain trail. It seems like this vision was sent by God or some higher power, so Dellarobia returns home as a changed person after not pursuing the affair any further.
Dellarobia’s father-in-law plans to sell the land where butterflies have roosted. She encourages her husband to check it out first, and when he does, they’re all amazed by the sight of the bright orange and black insects filling their forest and valley. The religious Turnbows share this knowledge at their church, which declares it a miracle.
Bear is not sure that this is God’s work, and the family needs money so he continues to cut trees. Meanwhile, tourists come from all over the world to see these butterflies, and the Turnbow family begins charging for tours. One scientist named Ovid Byron meets Dellarobia and tells her that he needs to study these butterflies because they usually migrate to Mexico but severe flooding due to logging destroyed their homes. He believes that global warming is causing this phenomenon.
Dellarobia and Ovid begin to work together in his makeshift lab. They learn a lot about their differences, including the fact that Dellarobia had an inadequate education from her small town and was never encouraged to go to college. Despite this, she still manages to get a job working for Ovid, which is where she discovers her love of studying butterflies. She also develops feelings for Ovid because he’s so different from Cub, but those feelings are quickly squashed when he brings his wife around. After that, Dellarobia decides it’s time for her and her children to leave the Turnbow family farm behind because they need a better life than what they have now.
The local pastor helps Bear give up his logging contract, and the Turnbow trail is made a preserve for butterflies. A sudden winter storm nearly destroys the colonies, but enough life emerges in the end to provide hope that they will adapt and continue. Dellarobia hopes to do the same by separating from her husband and moving away with her children, so she can start a new life.
Chapter 1: “The Measure of a Man”
The novel Flight Behavior begins from the point of view of Dellarobia Turnbow, a woman who is on her way to meet with Jimmy, a young man she’s having an affair with. She lives in Tennessee and is married with two children. However, she feels trapped by her life and wants something more out of it. This desire drives her to meet up with Jimmy despite knowing that doing so will hurt everyone around her including herself.
As Dellarobia climbs the mountain, she thinks about how her neighbors will react to the news of her affair. She imagines that they won’t be surprised because they’ve always thought of her as wild and free-spirited. Then she recalls earlier in the day when she left her two children at home with their grandmother so that she could have time alone with Jimmy, who is a telephone repairman. The last time Dellarobia climbed this mountain was when she was pregnant with Cordelia and went berry picking with her husband.
