Moralism In The Poisonwood Bible

The Poisonwood Bible ultimately communicates that as humans live they acquire their own history, and therefore their own story. History is originally retold through the perspectives of people who experience it, therefore it is littered with, and consequently altered by, their own personal emotions and memories attached to the moments. Adah Price, arguably the most introspective narrator in the novel, sums up human life to be “what [they] stole from history, and how [they] live with it,” which further reiterates the concept that humans redefine history by telling their own stories and recollections of what is most true to them, and how they are managing what they experience. The notion that humans “steal” something from history is clearly conveyed

I agree with Kingsolver that people have ill-natured ways about them, but I also believe that there is a certain goodness most people possess. One thing I have learned through The Poisonwood Bible is that opposites typically come in pairs: good and evil, life and death, forgiveness and guilt and salvation and damnation. For instance, Nathan Price, the antagonist of the novel, continually proves to be only detrimental to the well being of the people he surrounds. He supressess his family and imposes Christ on the Congo. On one side, Nathan can be viewed as the damaging force within the Price family, hence associating him with complicity; although on the other side, when observing Nathan from a perspective similar to his own, it is clear that his goals, despite how he goes about accomplishing them, are simply to better mankind. Because he thinks that spreading the Lord’s name is the way to save the damned, it is precisely what he intends to do. From that point of view, Nathan can be viewed as a good-intentioned man who goes about things in the entirely wrong and maniacal way, supporting my opinion that as Kingsolver proposes, all people are complicit, but can also possess good