From butterflies to backyards: Ecoprecarity and everyday life in Barbara Kingsolver's Flight Behavior

Barbara Kingsolver’s Flight Behavior (2012) presents a powerful literary response to the complexities of climate change, social inequality and human vulnerability. Kingsolver is one of the supreme predominant writers in American literature. Most of her novels are considered as semi-autobiographical works. This novel set in Rural Appalachia, centres on the accidental discovery of a displaced colony of monarch butterflies and the transformation it triggers in Dellarobia Turnbow, an intelligent woman but stifled housewife. This paper explores Flight Behavior through the lens of ecoprecarity, a theoretical framework that foregrounds the entangled vulnerability of both human and nonhuman life in the face of environmental degradation and socio-economic marginalization. Through the character of Dellarobia demonstrates that climate change is not merely a global crisis but a deeply personal and domestic one, playing out in kitchens, barns and backyards. The novel suggests that effective environmental communication must include empathy, local knowledge and the capacity to listen across class and cultural divides. The monarch butterfly becomes a central symbol of ecological dislocation and aesthetic wonder, while also reflecting Dellarobia’s personal transformation and the broader fragility of life under climate stress. The paper investigates how the novel bridges the gap between scientific knowledge and rural experience, revealing how class, gender and geography shape access to and trust in climate discourse.