Excavating The Lacuna: Barbara Kingsolver’s allegorical understanding of America’s post-9/11 world

Abstract

Abstract Following the violent attacks of September 11 2001, and before the dust had properly settled, popular author Barbara Kingsolver was, in effect, being ostracized for candidly voicing her first amendment right – freedom of speech. She spoke out forcefully in various periodicals in an attempt to check the rush towards war. By 2009 she stood ready to fictionalize her personal experience of ‘[b]ecoming a scapegoat for the American right-wing’, and figuratively link her ordeal to problematic government actions from her country’s complex political past. In doing this she stands out as one of the few American novelists who were prepared to critically examine the US political atmosphere during the first decade of the twenty-first century. Her complex allegorical novel, The Lacuna (2009), follows a historical political thread that is artfully woven into the very fabric of this metaphorical text. The Lacuna adeptly displays how the media can be employed to underpin political agendas, promote bias and surreptitiously provoke violence against those who step outside the margins of the existing status quo. This article examines these issues in order to discern connections between America’s violent past and the culture in conflict that has rapidly come into focus during the twenty-first century.