The Evolution Of Calpurnia Tate Analysis

In Jacqueline Kelly’s book The Evolution of Calpurnia Tate, the author quotes Charles Darwin’s The Origin of Species at the beginning of each chapter. The quote above is from Chapter 14, “The Short Hoe.” In choosing this quote Kelly references Darwin’s pragmatic view of nature, in which animals or creatures likely do not care about what they look like, except to the extent that their form serves function or purpose. For example,, animals may look like their surroundings so that they are hard for other animals to see. . Dogs, cats, iguanas, sharks, or oryxes do not care a bit what they look like to others around them. The male bird is colorful so that he can attract a mate. . Other than this, no creature cares what it looks like except humans. In Chapter 14, Viola catches Calpurnia trying to harvest some cotton with a short hoe and tells her that she may be coming out soon and doesn’t want to make that kind of debut. Calpurnia, not a normal girl, does not really care about finding a husband, looking nice, or going to parties. Instead, she just wants to do science …show more content…
It shows what Calpurnia has been morphing into through her time with Grandaddy. She is becoming one with nature and not a typical human being, or young lady. She started as more of a typical girl, but never was completely normal. She can’t tatt, sew, knit, or play the piano “marvelously well.” The only thing she is superior at is being herself and training to be a scientist. When Calpurnia begins to chop the cotton with the “short hoe”, and Viola proceeds to yell at her. Callie sees nothing peculiar with this and says, “Why are you so mad? I was only trying it out.” She thinks that the matter of “coming out” is utterly ridiculous and is a waste of time. In this chapter Calpurnia begins to really see how she has changed and how she doesn’t care what she looks like, just like nature. She had become one with the fascinating creation surrounding