November 6, 2015 - 02:06
All Over Creation: Identity, Perspective, and Interconnection
Ruth Ozeki’s text is an exploration of environment. The social, the religious, and the natural environments influence and are influenced by the characters in the novel. Throughout All Over Creation, it is plain to see that the interpersonal relationships in the novel form a network – an environment, so to speak – that affects everyone and everything else.
Ozeki consistently describes family and relationship as belonging, or a way in which one finds identity, and this makes itself clear in various ways throughout the book. When Frankie first meets the Seeds of Resistance, he states that the Spudnik “felt exactly the way Frankie imagined a home should feel” (page 51). He forms a familial bond with Geek, Lilith, Y, and Charmey, and his interaction with them – his environment of relationship-- serves as a catalyst for his own personal growth.
Another example of a relationship-environment affecting the individual is Yumi’s connection with Lloyd. As her father, he influences almost everything she does and the choices that she makes, not through force but simply because their love is so strong. Yumi describes it as “a deep, celestial bliss, a sense of galactic stability, which pretty well lasted until my nebula spun out of his control and a dark star crossed my firmament, eclipsing him entirely” (page 69). The “stability” Lloyd offered her during her childhood is something she repeatedly seeks during the course of the novel, and that search ends up affecting her life on multiple levels. In many ways, our identity (or the salience of different aspects of who we are) is affected by the people with whom we choose to be in relationship.
Our connections, in turn, affect the surrounding environment of interpersonal interaction. Cass, who's always wanted to be a mother, realizes halfway through the writing that during her time with Poo “the world looked different, and she liked the way she saw things she'd never noticed before... the way she herself felt acutely visible with the baby in her arms, and the way some people's faces lit up when they saw a child" (page 130). She notes that people treat her differently, and that she can "tell a lot about people", when he's with her. When her relationships with others change, so too does the environment around her.
This is further portrayed by the shift in her connection with Will, which previously “made Cass feel safe for the first time in her life. They were survivors. They belonged together” (page 335). But when Cass disagrees with Will and chooses to stand against him, she realizes how much it influences her life: “People… cheered whenever she passed by… they all assumed that Cass was supporting her husband and their cause” (page 336). Even the perceptions held by others in our environments can shape how they interact with us.
After establishing both our influence on the environment of relationships around us, and their influence in turn on us as individuals, Ozeki begins to portray a “network” of interconnection in which every player affects the others, and each relationship ties people together in myriads of ways. When Yumi first meets Elliot, for example, he provides an impetus to her coming-of-age, allowing her to be someone different than Lloyd and Momoko want her to be. Her connection with him affects her bond with her parents, the choices she makes outside of Liberty Falls, the way she relates to her children, and her friendship with Cass, among others. It also affects the way she sees Elliot when he returns, decades later, to the town.
The interconnection stretches further, however, as we observe with each new relationship. Even seemingly minor characters, like Charmey or Will, have their own influences and connections. Without Charmey, the characters would interact with each other in very dissimilar ways – would Frankie have stayed with the Seeds? Would Cass have developed her motherly instincts? Would Elliot have considered staying in Liberty Falls? Or without Will, whom would Cass depend upon? How would the Seeds be released from jail? Who would have taken care of Lloyd and Momoko? Ozeki intends the reader to ask this, and to question the importance of each character in the social environment.
At its heart, All Over Creation is a book about people: their identities, their perspectives, and their connections. Identity, or at least the salience of different aspects of our identity, is affected by our social environment, and our identities in return serve to influence the people with whom we come into contact. This manifests itself in interconnection -- as one of my classmates pointed out, if you take out one character (or relation), the whole plot would fall apart (Luedy). Throughout the novel, Ozeki emphasizes the depth with which every connection, fictional or real, is intertwined with the relationships of those around us.
Luedy, Elena. Changing Our Story: BMC E-Sem 2015. Bryn Mawr, PA. In-class discussion. 30 October 2015.
Ozeki, Ruth. All Over Creation. New York, New York: Penguin, 2004. IBooks. Penguin Books, 2004. Web. 30 Oct 2015.