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Analysis Of The Poisonwood Bible By Barbara Kingsolver

589 Words3 Pages

In the novel, The Poisonwood Bible by Barbara Kingsolver, she uses the contrasts between America and the Congo to show how the pressures of living in the different environments effected the Price family and the choices they made about their future. After the Price family moved from America to the Congo, they experienced many struggles while trying to adapt to their new surroundings in Congo and introduce Christianity to the villagers. Adapting was difficult for them because they went into the Congo with American thoughts, ideals and materials that they thought were necessary, such as Rachel’s hand mirror and cake mix, which Leah later realizes that their “supplies from home seem to represent a bygone world” (14). Their life in America was very luxurious compared to Congo. In America, they owned cars, television, and decent …show more content…

Unlike the villagers that have housing made of tin and any random pieces of metal, and often times limited resources for food and water. The villagers of the Congo lived a life of poverty with no way to become something greater than they were. If you were born poor, you would be poor for the rest of your life, unlike America where there are many opportunities to achieve the “American Dream”. The Prices not only faced challenges with domestic life, but their religion. The villagers’ religion was very different from Christianity. Christianity is based on God, Jesus and the Holy Spirit, but the villagers’ version of religion consisted of earthly gods and sacrifices to the earth. Nathan’s mission was to convert all of Congo, have them baptized in a river—supposedly filled with crocodiles—and convert them to Christianity. The villagers and Nathan

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Her family, as she realizes the people they truly are, also change her thought process and mindset from when they lived back home in Georgia. As the Congo becomes their home, moral lessons were taught until the day the Price family departs from the Congo, but not all of them. Leah Price was introduced as a fourteen year old girl who is very intelligent and who idealizes her father, a godly man whose rules are stricter than most. The family is departing from Bethlehem, Georgia on a mission trip to Africa for a year with not much from home. Prior to the touchdown in the Congo, Kingsolver helps the reader understand Leah’s character by showing how she describes herself as the favorite and the smartest of the four girls.

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Orleanna Price and her husband, Nathan Price, live in a comfy home with their four children. As a devout Christian’s wife, Mrs. Price attends church every Sunday. Mr. Price receives an offer to spread the teachings of the Christian faith as a missionary in the small village of Kilanga in the Belgian Congo. This is not the happiest of news to Orleanna and her daughters for the reason that they must attend the journey as well. Now in the Congo, Orleanna is not the same person as before.

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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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Sometimes, personality can be perpetual. Even faced with the most adverse surroundings, a teenager’s character can remain virtually unaffected. Rachel Price, the eldest Price sister, experiences almost no change over the course of The Poisonwood Bible, written by Barbara Kingsolver. Characterized as an ignorant, superficial, “ditzy blonde”, Rachel makes no attempts to assimilate or adapt to the customs of Kilanga, frequently enjoying luxury and leisure at the expense of the villagers’ hard work. Rachel’s persona is perfectly captured in the nsongonya ants attack, where she simply decides to “stick out [her] elbows and raise up [her] feet,” and be carried in the stream of fleeing villagers, despite jabbing her elbows “very hard into the ribs” of the villagers carrying her (305).

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