The Poisonwood Bible: A Short Story

Just like the village, Rachel started to flee. Before she actually ran, Rachel committed an act that showed her true colors. In a panic, any sensible person with good morals would help their crippled sister or their other sick baby sister. Rachel didn’t do either of these things. In the moment, Rachel thought “I only had time to save one precious thing. Something from home. Not my clothes, there wasn’t time, and not the Bible- it didn’t seem worth saving at that moment, so help me God. It had to be my mirror.” (Kingsolver, 301) In the Congos, nobody is as materialistic as Rachel is. The children around only have clothes that have battered and tattered. They don’t care about how they look. The little boys are out having fun, learning to be

After a string of snakes being found becomes strangely to frequent, Nelson, the family helper, believes he is to be the next victim. In order to help calm him down, the Price sisters come up with a plan to catch who is planting these snakes. The plan is to spread ash around to the chicken coup, where Nelson lives, to see the footprints of the guilty. In the morning, they checked their trap and it was sprung. Footprints that matches the local witch but a snake was hiding in the shadows. It snapped and slithers away. The kids believed they catched away the evil creature but in actuality it did permanent damage to the family. The snake bite Ruth May and in a few moments, she was gone. Leah was the first one of the Price sister to notice their sister being bitten by seeing “Ruth May’s bare left shoulder, where two rd puncture wounds stood out.” (Kingsolver 364) Rachel’s reaction to the death of her sister says a lot about the character she developed into here in the Congos. When her sister passed, she thought about what would happen when she got home. The only thing that really got her feelings in a twist is how she believes she will be seen as the “girl they’d duck their eyes from and whisper about as tragic.” (Kingsolver 367) She was sad at first but just cared about what others back home thought of home. Selfishness is in full force in Rachel at this moment. When a kid dies in Congo, the mother and whole

Rachel from The Poisonwood Bible was forced into a journey that also lead her to her true self, too. One of the many themes of The Poisonwood Bible is of how America can be blinded with their own ignorance to the struggles of race in the world. Rachel is the perfect example of how messed up America can act and its ability of creating people with harmful morals. From America’s history of racism and racism that spread around the world, the place you grow up in can and will affect the person you become. In Kingsolver’s book, Rachel doesn’t open her mind to the people around her and this hinders her morals. This is exactly how Americans can act like and did act like in the 1950-60’s in the Congo, as seen though The Poisonwood