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Analysis Of The Poisonwood Bible By Barbara Kingsolver

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The Poisonwood Bible is a novel by Barbara Kingsolver. It is set in the late 1950’s in a small village in the Congo where a fanatically religious man named Nathan Price forced his wife and four children on a mission trip to bring the word of God to the villagers of Kilanga. The story is told from the points of view of the Price women: The matriarch Orleanna, and her daughters Rachel, Leah, Adah, and Ruth May. While there are some issues with the writing style of The Poisonwood Bible, it tackles tough topics such as racial, gender, religious, and political inequality and tension through the voices of these five women in a completely real and relatable way that makes it a book not easily forgotten. An issue with The Poisonwood Bible was its …show more content…

They look up from their lives, woman and animal, amazed to find themselves in the same place… Without taking his eyes from her, he twitches a little at the knee, then the shoulder, where a fly devils him. Finally he surrenders his surprise, looks away, and drinks… It lasted just a moment, whatever that is. One held breath? An ant’s afternoon? It was brief, I can promise that much, for although it’s been many years now since my children ruled my life, a mother recalls the measure of the silences. I never had more than five minutes’ peace unbroken. I was that woman on the stream bank, of course. Orleanna Price, Southern Baptist by marriage, mother of children living and dead. That one time and no other the okapi came to the stream, and I was the only one to see it. (Kingsolver 1.1.2-5) The Poisonwood Bible did have its strong points though. The narrators give the reader a first hand look at the way religion, race, and gender are viewed in different parts of the world; and how those differences are processed by outsiders. I admire the way the author captured the different views people from more privileged countries have on foreign lands through her narrators. The Price women each have their own experiences and perspectives that give them each a unique view of the situation. Adah describes it best in one of the most powerful quotes to come from the

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Atlee Carr Professor Penwell English 1101 14 April 2016 The Poisonwood Bible Evaluation Draft The Poisonwood Bible by Barbara Kingsolver is narrated by Orleanna Price and her four daughters. The Price family moves to the Belgian Congo in 1959 with hopes to spread their faith of Southern Baptism to the Congolese. While there, the Price family had to endure many struggles that the Congolese had to experience in their entire lives. In the middle of the story, the youngest daughter is killed by a green mamba snake that was placed by the local witch doctor.

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854 Words | 4 Pages

Imagine being fourteen years old and living in a small town in Georgia, packing up as much as you can, or what could fit under your clothes and into a bag, and moving to the Congo of Africa. That’s exactly what the Price family did under their father’s will. Throughout Barbara Kingsolver 's Poisonwood Bible, Leah price experiences the Congo to its’ full potential. Both her psychological and moral traits were formed by cultural, physical, and geographical surroundings. The congolese people influence her decisions and thoughts throughout the book.

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120 Words | 1 Pages

The title, The Poisonwood Bible, is an excellent title for the plot of this book. “Tata Jesus is bangala” (331), which has two different meaning because bangala means precious and also the poisonwood tree. Reverend Price says this phrase at the end of every sermon, but he mispronounces the word bangala so that it means poisonwood tree. So the locals think he is saying “Jesus is the poisonwood tree” instead of “Jesus is precious.” This makes the title very important because it makes the Congolese not want to know God because they think He is poisonwood.

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Bearing Guiltiness within The Poisonwood Bible Foreshadowing is a literary device many authors use to hint at future events containing influential and thematic material; and authors tend to introduce their major themes through foreshadowing in opening scenes or a prologue. Barbra Kingsolver’s novel, The Poisonwood Bible, follows this very trend. Orleanna Price, in the first chapter, describes her burden of guilt toward choices she has made and the death of the youngest of her four daughters, Ruth May. Throughout the story, you discover the guilt within each of the five women: Adah, Leah, Rachel, Orleanna, and Ruth May. Due to supporting implications within the opening chapter of The Poisonwood Bible, with continuing evidence throughout the novel, it can be concluded that guiltiness is a motif.

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1623 Words | 7 Pages

In The Poisonwood Bible, Barbara Kingsolver creates a character Orleanna Price who was semi-voluntarily exiled to the Congo. She was exiled from a happy life due to her marriage to Nathan Price, she was exiled from both America and Americans when she moved to the Congo, and she was exiled from her family when her youngest daughter died. With each exile, Orleanna’s personality is enriched by the things she learns during that exile, and Orleanna finds herself alienated from the people and lifestyle she used to have before each exile. In the first exile, Orleanna’s personality is enriched from the general life lessons she learns with the experience of age. During that exile, she is alienated from everyone she meets if they meet, have met, or even

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414 Words | 2 Pages

A Poisonwood Bible When describing Patrice Lumumba, Barbara Kingsolver uses complementary wording that makes the reader like him, or at least respect him. The Belgian doctor puts a cast on Ruth May’s arm on page 149 and calls Lumumba “the new soul of Africa”, which introduces Lumumba to the reader as a positive idea. When Leah sees Lumumba on pages 221-222, he’s described as “a thin, distinguished man” and that “when he stood to speak, everyone’s mouth shut... Even the birds seemed taken aback”. This portrayal makes him appear smart and scholarly and the reader is partial to him.

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In the novel, The Poisonwood Bible, by Barbara Kingsolver, a missionary family travel to the African Congo during the 1960’s, in hopes of bringing enlightenment to the Congolese in terms of religion. The father, Nathan, believes wholeheartedly in his commitment, and this is ultimately his downfall when he fails to realize the damage that he is placing upon his family and onto the people living in Kilanga, and refuses to change the way he sees things. However, his wife, Orleanna, and her daughters, Rachel, Leah, Adah, and Ruth May, take the Congo in, and make the necessary changes in their lives, and they do this in order to survive with their new darkness that they are living in. Curiosity and acceptance help the ones with curious minds,

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The clash of the West and Africa, creates unique situations that everyone must face. The Poisonwood Bible, written by Barbara Kingsolver, shows how foreigners who enter another land are affected by the countries culture and faith, and in return how a society is affected. In the novel, children are led by the missionary father, Nathan into the Congo, where they face the task of religious conversion. Also, the Price children were influenced by the African culture and faith, in which changed how they view life and their attitudes toward the Congo. Each child’s perception of life distinct and molds them into the person they will become.

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2664 Words | 11 Pages

Meals in literature often represent something bigger, bringing communities together in a form of communion. However, this is not the case; in The Poisonwood Bible by Barbara Kingsolver, the meals are ironic they help to show discord and strife among the characters of the book. She uses meals to foreshadow future events, reveal the flaws of the characters, and as the book progresses, allows for the reader to see character development. In novel, Kingsolver twists the normal connotation of a meal and makes it ironic in order to demonstrate the discord and strife that is commonplace throughout the book that shows the lack of community between the Prices and those they interact with for most of the book.

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1440 Words | 6 Pages

The Poisonwood Bible by Barbara Kingsolver shows the women of the Congo as being the workers of the family. They take care of the children, going so far as to carry them around constantly once they reach a certain age, and they are responsible for all the housework. The females are seen as capable and have many responsibilities. In spite of this, the reality for the real women of the Congo is that they are in constant fear of being a victim of sexual violence. Sexual violence can happen anywhere, but in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) it occurs on a daily basis (Ganzamungu and Maharaj 737).

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1160 Words | 5 Pages

Orleanna says, "To live is to change, to acquire the words of a story, and that is the only celebration we mortals really know" (385). Adah says, about her mother, "... she constantly addresses the ground under her feet. Asking forgiveness. Owning, disowning, recanting, recharting a hateful course of events to make sense of her own complicity.

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1237 Words | 5 Pages

“There had been no years between the ducking of this dragonfly and the other one--the one that was part of memory. I looked at the boy, who was silently watching his fly, and it was my hands that held his rod, my eyes watching. I felt

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994 Words | 4 Pages

From Georgia to the Belgian Congo, a white southern missionary family during the late 1950’s moved to Africa with the hopes of exposing the native people to the Christian way of life. Throughout the novel, the Price family is met with many obstacles while trying to learn this new culture in which they were surrounded. Many of the obstacles were directly due to their ignorance of the country. A character in the novel, Leah Price, was faced with the challenge of following her father’s will but also assimilating to the people of Congo. Leah was the older twin, and a young, free-spirited, passionate girl who once worshipped her father and believed in his philosophy.

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154 Words | 1 Pages

Finally, the Puritans would abhor the novel because of how creative it was written. In the novel, the characters swore a lot and the Puritans did not like those types of words being used. Almost every character except the parents did it almost anywhere. When the characters were upset or angry they swore or just because they felt like saying it. Puritans liked writings in the form of diaries and this novel is not written as one.

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One of the major controversies is the criticism that it was received from different religions. People belonging to different religious communities have expressed disapproval at the books because of the books themes revolving around witchcraft. The critics are divided into two categories. One consists of those people that say that the book promotes ideas such as witchcraft and Satan worship that go against the fundamental principles of majority of the religions. There is also another group that says that criticize the book’s lack of portrayal of religion and that they promote

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