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At its root, the word identity correlates to being who you are as a person is. On that account, it defines an individual as one from the rest of the population. Although identity is a characteristic that changes frequently, it consists of a principles, morals and values that help to create the basic foundations of life. The individual’s principles, morals and values are developed by the environment, which nurtures them. Identity is shaped into an individual through contextual influences (e.g., family, background and experiences) that are influenced by the environment. 

Both children and plants have needs in order to live healthy lives. These needs can be fulfilled by one person, such as father and farmer Lloyd Fuller. His notoriety for raising near perfect potato plants was matched with his notoriety for raising a daughter who repeatedly broke the social norms of their town. Lloyd seemed like a capable man who knew who to create the necessary environment for his prized potato plants; however, his notion to follow a formula, that raising a daughter is as simple as raising a plant, created a rift in his relationship with his own Yumi Fuller. Lloyd neglected to provide for Yumi’s emotional needs, and this troubling childhood environment provided Yumi with a foundation that as too weak, causing her to uproot herself from her town.

Breana Genaro

Altering Environments and Dynamic Identities

Ozeki’s Novel, “All Over Creation” explores the way in which life is complexly interconnected. It explores our relationship to nature and to each other. It also establishes complex relationships that defy our expectations of how such relationships are supposed to work. One of the most interesting relationships explored in this novel is the one between Lloyd and his daughter Yumi. In this novel, Ozeki shows their relationship fall apart due to unrealistic expectations and unshakable moral differences.

 Childhood is the foundation of any personality. According to my psychology class, the attachment towards security starts from childhood. There is a famous experiments tested on toddlers about their attachment types. There are mainly three types of attachments: the secure attachment, the avoidant attachment, and the resistant attachment. For secure attachment, the toddlers are very attached to their parents, even after the parents leave them for a while and come back, the toddler would still want to be cuddled. This type of attachment is the most common one, 65%-70% toddlers tend to have this kind of attachment; for the avoidant attachment, the kids would try to avoid their parents when they reunited.

            How would you feel if you were told control is useless? Many younger generations believe that control is a means to a better future. A lack of self-directed control has negative connotations—to lose control is to lose a sense of predictability, reassurance, and stability. In Ruth Ozeki’s All Over Creation, however, several characters try to take advantage of their environments, and each instance ends on a sour note. A consistent standard appears in the book, implying that controlling one’s environment ends badly, and rather is better taken care of by working in harmony of the environment.

All Over Creation notes

• Yumi feeling like an “exotic plant” in her home because she is different than everyone else
• The environment controlling the way the characters feel or to the extent they succeed
• The sharp contrast between the tropical environment where Yumi moves to and the vast environment of her hometown.
• The altering environments can have different effects on different people depending on where they are from and what their priorities are.
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Laura Swanson’s photography plays with the history of portrait photography and disrupts the viewer’s expectations of how to interact with portrait photographs. To explore this, I look at two very different examples of her work: the first is part of her “Anti-Self-Portraits” series, and the second is part of her series of Bryn Mawr and Haverford students following her work on the two campuses two years ago. I argue that the different goals for each series and the different subject matter impact how each may be read, and highlight the ways photographic portraiture has been used to represent people.

Lloyd as a potato farmer tended to transfer his passion for and knowledge of planting potatoes to his only child Yumi. However, Lloyd did not realized that planting potatoes is not the perfect metaphor, but planting in a new empty soil.

-> Yumi knowing she is different from what her father think she is. Feeling like the exotic plant.

->  Lloyd not being used to his potatoes running away from him.

Some book quotes that might be able to support the point of view