Symbolism In The Poisonwood Bible By Barbara Kingsolver

After I have read the Poisonwood Bible by Barbara Kingsolver. I realized that there were multiple different symbols that helped convey complex ideas. For me I have found that in the Novel there are three important symbols that help shape the plot of the story and these are Methuselah the Parrot, Palindromes: Which is Ada’s journal, and lastly the green Mamba snake that killed Ruth May. The significance about all of these symbols is that they tend to add a meaning and depth to the story. After all I feel like the most important symbol out of all of these is Methuselah the parrot. Methuselah is a parrot who was left by Brother Fowles and he serves as a symbol for the republic of Congo. He was then later on given to the Price Family and kept as a pet. Throughout Methuselah life he was not given freedom at all which resulted into him relying on the Price family for most of his needs. Even after Nathan Price set him free, Methuselah still decided to stay close to their

Adah is saying that to make her father pleased even though most of the statements that he says to the people of Kilanga are wrong. The best example to show that Nathan was trying to get himself killed in which his wife and the Price girls try to save him is when He was told by his family that everyone in Kilanga is afraid of baptism because there are crocodiles in the river. In the end when a child really did get eaten by a crocodile, some angry villagers then decided to chase him and kill him as he got blamed for killing most of the innocent children in the village of Kilanga. In this example we saw how Nathan is trying to convince all of the people of Kilanga to baptize themselves in the river which didn’t work out