Kingsolver often uses storytelling to symbolize the novel's conflicts and themes. For example, the story of "Six Pigs in Heaven" is told twice in the novel, each with a different interpretation. The story, an old Native American myth, involves six boys who would not do their chores, which included work for the tribe. As a result, their mothers cooked their leather balls and served them for lunch. When the boys complained to the spirits that their mothers treated them like pigs, the spirits agreed. The spirits then turned them into pigs and pulled them up into the night sky where they remain to this day.