the signature of all things by elizabeth gilbert

When Alma tells Prudence this news, Prudence shows uncharacteristic anger toward Alma.īoth Retta and Prudence marry within a short time of one another. One day Retta tells Alma that she is getting married, and Alma is shocked to learn Retta's fiancé is George. For years Alma harbors these feelings, sharing them only with Prudence in rare moments of sisterly confidence. Alma begins to imagine she is in love with George and that he might return her feelings. George even begins publishing some of Alma’s articles on plants. When the girls are in their late teens, a local botany publisher, George Hawkes, begins coming to the house often.

However, when a new neighbor named Retta moves in next door and makes herself a friend of the two girls, Alma finds that Prudence is more forthcoming around Retta and easier to get along with.

Alma finds Prudence to be less intelligent and does not spend much time in sisterly behaviors. Alma resents her new sister, Prudence, because she is beautiful. As Alma grows, she becomes highly educated, developing a love in botany that will shape her entire life.Īlma has a quiet childhood that is altered when her parents adopt the young girl of a gardener and his promiscuous wife. Alma’s father, an uneducated botanist who built his wealth with pharmaceutical plants, is an adventurous man who teaches Alma that there are no limits to life with the right amount of ambition. The Signature of All Things is a novel of self-discovery that takes the main character and the reader on a journey that will leave their lives forever altered.Īlma Whittaker is the only biological child of Henry and Beatrix Whittaker. In time, Alma has an epiphany about the fight for survival seen in all things, from mosses to human beings but, she misses her chance for fame when another scientist publishes the same theories before her. However, after a brief, unsatisfying marriage to a gifted artist, Alma sets out into the world in an attempt to understand her husband. Alma spends most of her life in seclusion on the family estate, unmarried and alone.

Alma has inherited her father’s love of botany, but lacks his sense of adventure. In this novel, Alma Whittaker is the unattractive daughter of an adventurous botanist who had set out to be better than his father before him. The Signature of All Things is a sweeping generational novel by writer Elizabeth Gilbert.

The signature of all things by elizabeth gilbert