Breaking Ground: Lark and Termite

          Instead of providing some sort of introduction or preface to her novel, Jayne Anne Phillips chooses to open Lark and Termite by shipping the readers out just as Corporal Robert Leavitt had been in December ’49. Phillips immediately associates Leavitt with his loved ones (no doubt central to his happiness and ability to flourish) by introducing that Leavitt’s baby is growing “inside Lola’s sex” (Phillips 3). Phillips also vaguely introduces Leavitt’s early loss of his mother, illustrating the loss of one of his former sources of happiness as well as why he so desperately needs the baby and Lola and why “he wasn’t leaving her, [why] he never would, not really” because he had already experienced loss in his life (3). Leavitt even “tells himself that he won’t need any telegram” when the baby arrives because he feels such a strong connection and need for his wife and unborn child that it is like Lola “is standing there in the war next to him” (4). Leavitt “uses her words that were sex and song a year ago to keep his feet moving” (19). 

          This refusal to separate from Lola and the unborn child is illustrated in this opening passage as Leavitt “imagines his baby moving in a fluid, muscular nest he couldn’t touch or feel” but he could keep connected to in his thoughts and dreams (3). Phillips continues to illustrate the devotion of Leavitt’s mindset to his loved ones through the diction used by the narrator, posing a subtle yet striking comparison of the baby to the American military and “its own small fist” (3). By opening the novel with the account of Leavitt, who will be revealed as Termite’s father, the reader’s form a strong connection with Leavitt in response to his strong connection with his loved ones as well as his desire to return to them. His optimism is infectious and allows the reader to empathize with him as a character especially as it becomes obvious that their “plans and schemes” of reunification were “laughable” because “no one is getting out of Korea, not for years” (22). 

This revelation combined with the suggested death of Corporal Leavitt upon the arrival of the planes at the conclusion of the first chapter allows the reader’s to transfer their empathy to Lola and Leavitt’s son. In portraying Leavitt helping the village girl despite his orders to “monitor [and] not assist” leading up to his implied demise upon the approach of the enemy planes, Phillips establishes Leavitt as a heroic character, allowing the reader to form a solid relationship with him, caring for his loved ones as greatly as he does. For this reason, when Termite is introduced and suggested to be Leavitt’s son, the reader quickly rejoices that he is alive and happy. An immediate relationship which may not have been as easily formed without the presence of Leavitt’s preceding chapter because Termite could easily be perceived as merely a handicapped hinderance on the success and flourishing of his hardworking and kind half-sister, Lark.