―There are people who eat the earth and eat all the


people on it like in the Bible with the locusts. Then, there are people who stand around and watch them eat it.‖ --- Lillian Hellman,The L


itt Details about Locusts: This is a quotation from T he Li e F es. ttl ox


Addie, an African-American servant in the household, makes this comment about the family she serves. She thinks the Hubbards are like locusts who eat the earth. The locusts she refers to come from the Bible passage Exodus 10:15:


―For they covered the face of the whole earth, so that the land was darkened; and they did eat every herb of the land, and all the fruit of


the trees which the hail had left; and there remained not any green thing in the trees, or in the herbs of the field, through all the land of Egypt.‖


A swarm can stretch up to 460 square miles and pack between 40 and 80 million individual locus. Each insect can eat its weight in plants each day, so a swarm that size would eat 423 million pounds in one day.


The locusts swarms are typically always in motion and can cover great distances; once a swarm flew from West Africa across the Atlantic Ocean to the Caribbean.


They exist all over the world but currently cause the most devastation in Africa. Locusts can affect the economic livelihood, not to mention cause famine and starvation, of nearly one-tenth of the world‘s human population.


They are considered an omen of evil and destruction.


Prompt: Why would a playwright ever compare human characters to ―an omen of evil and destruction‖? What are we doing in our world right now that could be considered ―locust-like,‖ swarming and destroying?


7


Referring to the second half of Hellman‘s quotation, who are the people in our world right now who are just standing around ―watching‖ the devouring of society? What things in our world are currently being devoured?


le Foxes


Page 1  |  Page 2  |  Page 3  |  Page 4  |  Page 5  |  Page 6  |  Page 7  |  Page 8  |  Page 9  |  Page 10  |  Page 11  |  Page 12  |  Page 13