Character Analysis of Lusa Maluf Landowski

Book: Prodigal Summer
Author: Barbara Kingsolver
Character Analysis of Lusa Maluf Landowski
Lusa was Lecturer at a university who met Cole Widener, a farmer at one of her seminar and later they got married. Lusa and Cole went on to settle to his home town in Zebulon County. Lusa was from a small family in a big city trying to fit in the humble life of a big family country girl lifestyle. Things were not too bad for her until her husband, Cole, died in a road accident. The newly widowed, naturalized country girl began to face hardship and the burden of the farm that his husband has left behind. Lusa knew she had to farm for her survival and the preservation of her late husband family legacy. She was torn between the only crop that was known to prosper in that community, tobacco but would go against her moral beliefs that tobacco is a killer. Lusa was also a staunch believer in nature and despise the use of chemicals for pest control. As a woman yearning for her independence, she needed to farm stuff that would yield her high profits yet physically manageable for her. These circumstances led to her brain child, rearing Goats, for the season when the three main religions of the world clash, hence a high demand for goat meat. The result of the goat rearing was “right on the money” which would the finance needed to repay the debts and the confidence to find innovative ways to survive in a small country town full of traditions ready to be broken.
While as was happening, her life was sweetened with the urge to make love with his late husband nephew but could not yield because it was against her standards. Things were further colored by the grief of her dying sister-in law, Jewel and her misunderstood children. In a mammoth of effort to let this marinade into life for everyone, she turns to her professional knowledge as a bug scientist to pull her through.