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Questions On The Poisonwood Bible

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Gavyn Englebach Miss Given Honors English 5 February 2018 Poisonwood Bible Response #3 The Poisonwood Bible implies that storytelling is a way to reflect on yourself, to see where you started and how you have changed. “To live is to change, to acquire the words of a story” suggests that living through those experiences changes you and makes you grow. Since you “acquire the words of a story,” you can tell that story to teach other people. If you do not reflect on what happened or you try to tell yourself it did not happen, you will not grow. Storytelling is basically a way of accepting what happened. Orleanna is “owning, disowning, recanting, recharting a hateful course of events to make sense of her own complicity.” She is reminiscing on past …show more content…

Political events that go on throughout the story represent what is happening to the Price family. In the Congo, enslavement of the Congolese people is happening to put them to work in rubber plantations. This can be seen as similar to the situation that the Price family is in because the father, Nathan, is forcing his wife and daughters to stay in the Congo with him. The Price girls do not want to be in the Congo anymore, just like the Congolese people do not want to be forced to work in rubber plantations. Also, women in the Congo are not treated that well. In the Price family, Nathan is controlling of the girls and treats them that way because they are females. These all represent problems that need to be addressed in the Congo and the Price family as well. The Poisonwood Bible is based a lot around religion as well. The entire reason the Price family is in the Congo is because Nathan wants to spread the faith of Christianity. The Price girls actually lose their faith in religion by the end of the book because of the hardships they went through; religion is the reason they went through those hardships. The story seems to make religion actually seem bad and convince the reader not to devout their life to it. Other religious significance appears in the names of the Price girls as well; their names reference people in the bible. I agree with Kingsolver’s conclusion that everyone is complicit, meaning they take part in something that is wrongdoing. The Price girls were along for the trip to the Congo and the reason for the trip was to preach a religion to the Congolese; what went on in the Congo was wrong so the Price girls were a part of that wrongdoing. Also, Ruth May was the reason for the death of a spider, which can be considered a wrongdoing. I don’t believe everyone purposely takes part in something considered a wrongdoing, but rather because of not understanding a situation, not thinking

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347 Words | 2 Pages

In the Poisonwood Bible by Barbara Kingsolver, the Price family is living in the ever changing country of the Congo, the author seeks to make a statement on the way that colonialism affects the people of the country being colonized. Kingsolver achieves this effect by adding instances of change and people of different countries coming in and out of the country in order to add the effect of colonization. Colonization in the Congo is shown in The Poisonwood Bible in the way that Nathan rules over his family, he drags his family to the Congo and often acts as the leader and makes all the decisions for the family. Kingsolver uses this as a metaphor comparing Nathan to the European countries and the rest of the family as the Congo. Nathan asserts

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854 Words | 4 Pages

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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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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524 Words | 3 Pages

Golding clearly gives this novel a religious allegory. He uses biblical symbols and characters to add to the novel. He knew it would make the novel more interesting instead of just a few boys stranded on an island.

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835 Words | 4 Pages

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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589 Words | 3 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.

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891 Words | 4 Pages

Pain, both physical and mental, affects every character in The Poisonwood Bible by Barbara Kingsolver. However, the biggest loss, which is that of the Price family’s youngest child, Ruth May’s, life also brings about some positive effects as well. Here, similarly to in Twelfth Night, a person is sacrificed for the greater good. Naturally, it may be more difficult to imagine the benefit of Ruth May’s sacrifice than to imagine the benefits of Viola’s, but if given adequate thought, it becomes clear that the death of Ruth May helps the other women in the Price family to realize Nathan Price’s destructive ways. Kingsolver first exposes Leah Price’s newfound argumentative and bold personality, and her opposition towards her father in the following exchange, “”She wasn’t baptized yet,” he said.

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1623 Words | 7 Pages

This further expands on the meaning by showing the contrast of how little the Congolese care for others’ appearances when compared to the American view. The Congolese shared their view on appearances near the beginning of the novel when describing Mama Mwanza and Mama Nguza. The Americans think Orleanna became tainted while she was in the Congo. Even though Orleanna used to live in Bethlehem, the other residents of the town don’t view her the same way as they did before she went to the Congo. Adah even commented on their reception: “...welcome home the pitiful Prices!

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1479 Words | 6 Pages

In her novel ‘The Poisonwood Bible,’ Barbara Kinsolver themes of sacrifice are shown through the character of Nathan Price. Nathan is a Baptist minister with a family who sacrifices his life full of commodities to bring God’s gospel to Kilanga, a small village in the Congo. His sacrifice exhibits his appreciation for persistence, as well as it highlights the guilt and fear he carries with him. Additionally, the story shows his arrogance. Through his character, the work explores colonial ideas and the way in which religion can be used to spread fear.

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1462 Words | 6 Pages

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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805 Words | 4 Pages

The closing chapter describes the Price women returning to Africa many years later as group. The significance of this final chapter is marked by the narration of the deceased Ruth May, who though she is not alive, has came to a spiritual reassessment of her own. Ruth May, who seems to have encountered the worst trial of Africa, death, comes to one of the most preeminent reconciliations of any of the characters. Ruth May offers her mother advice stating, “you can still hold on but forgive, forgive and give for long as long as we both shall live I forgive you” (pg. 543). Orleanna, like Leah, deviated from the ways of Nathan Price after succumbing to the guilt of complying with of his overbearing and disrespectful actions towards the Congolese.

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1959 Words | 8 Pages

Obviously, her worst decision was to marry the controlling missionary, Nathan Price. After going through the years with her mentally abusing husband, her family moving to the Congo, and her daughter Ruth May dying from her husband 's decisions to stay in the Congo, she finally understands how Nathan is treating her and the injustice he is causing his family. Orleanna Price finally becomes successful on her own after packing up her kids that were still alive and moving back to America for freedom from her husband and for her kids to be safe. It 's just sad that she had to witness her daughter dying before she finally realized she didn 't need Nathan in her life which would make her life better for not only herself but her kids as well. From all the events that happened in Orleanna life, she finally understands the meaning of justice and making her search for justice successful.

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994 Words | 4 Pages

In many ways the Congo changes the young fourteen-year-old girl into a strong independent woman. There are many encounters in the novel where she starts to question her faith in God as well as in her father. For example, hearing stories about rubber plantation workers getting their hands chopped off because they were not able to get the desired about of rubber startles Leah and makes her question race relations. Race becomes a dominant issue at this point and her experiences in Kilanga have invalidated all she had been taught about race in America. At this point, Leah starts to go on her own and figure out whom she is.

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1421 Words | 6 Pages

This village is a spot where a lot of trading, traveling, and manufacturing take place. Leopoldville is covered with rainforest and is walking from the Congo river. This is more of a civilized area even though it has no comparison to the home that was once Leah Prices in the United States. Living in the Congo showed Leah that things were not going to be as easy as simple as it was back home. The Congo forced Leah to grow

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407 Words | 2 Pages

In contrast, it has a Christian theme in the ‘Goblin Market’ it is based on religious, the two sisters Laura and Lizzie. Laura commits sin when eating the fruit, But Lizzie refuse to not eat it. But in ‘Lady of Shalott’ doesn’t base at all on religious beliefs. The Lady of Shalott ventures to explore Camelot and the outside world, this is what leads to her fatal demise. Her attempt to traverse societal lines and explore what a woman should not explore is the ultimate deviation from the strictness of Victorian society.

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