The topic of child neglect is not one to be taken lightly. The essay "Vows Made In Wine" explores the ways in which neglect specifically affects the adolescent characters in Lydia Millet's novel A Children's Bible. It does so by utilizing the critical perspectives of psychoanalytic theory, as well as by touching on the novel's main crisis of climate change.
The essay “Hidden Figures: Women Telling a Dead Man’s Story” compares Lydia Millet’s A Children's Bible to the musical Hamilton to display the similarities between Eve and Eliza Hamilton. Both of these women have devoted some portion of their lives to tell a loved one's story after they have died. While some may view Eve as the main character of Millet’s novel, I point out that she in fact is not, and this story is instead about Jack and his journey.
A child’s psychological development can be harmed in an instant if not treated carefully. Psychology for anyone can be affected by toxic families, early childhood traumas, and even changed to the environment. In Lydia Millet’s A Children's Bible there are many examples of how many of the characters have experienced many different types of traumas. Utilizing the perspectives of psychoanalytic theory, the essay “A Children’s Bible on Childhood Trauma and Psychology” focuses on how psychological development affects children throughout the novel.
The essay “In God We Trust” is about A Children’s Bible by Lydia Millet, exploring religion as a whole and how different life experiences can affect how one views it. The essay examines bad parenting, trauma, and climate change, while digging deeper into its central thesis: the children in the novel do not have a strong belief system because of the harsh conditions they were raised in. The essay uses real world, fictional, and biblical examples to support this interpretation.
"An Act of God: Religion and Climate Change in Lydia Millet's A Children's Bible," winner of the 2022 Dr. Grace Patten Conant Writing Award for Literary Interpretation and second place winner of the 2022 Humanities Undergraduate Research Forum essay competition, explores the delicate interplay of religion and climate change woven throughout A Children's Bible. Using concepts from Marxist theory and Christian theology, this essay examines the ways in which religion colors characters' reactions and attitudes toward the climate disaster. By forming connections to similar texts, it posits that Christianity can be used as a tool to combat the climate crisis.
In Lydia Millet's A Children's Bible, the readers see the multiple traumatic events that the children and teens go through. The parents' emotional neglect and the multiple natural disasters, caused by climate change, set a scene that have the characters navigate their way through the world making adult choices as children. The essay “Traumatic Events in A Children’s Bible” explains how the traumatic experiences the characters endure may affect their choices as people through the story Millet tells.
