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The Poisonwood Bible Essay

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A Mother’s Testimonial about her Change: an interview with Orleanna by a literary critic Preamble: I started from the premise that The Poisonwood Bible is a bestselling autobiography in which Orleanna describes her experiences in the Congo. Hello Orleanna. I am ¬_____, a literary critic and it’s my pleasure to have you today. We all know you wrote the autobiography The Poisonwood Bible. But before we start discussing about the novel, may I ask you, what is your background and how did you become a writer? A: Orleana’s background Short characterisation- cultural background I am a wife to Nathan, a mother to my four daughters, and a missionary to the Church. I have never thought of being a writer myself How did you view your role as a wife, …show more content…

A: What made you decide on the structure of the autobiography A: I have always considered my journey in the Congo through the biblical experiences, from the Genesis, to the Revelation, to the Judges, and so on. After all, my husband was a fierce Baptist and we lived by the laws of The Bible and I cannot escape this influence anymore. The Genesis was basically my life in the beginning --- Entering the Congo, I felt like I was Eve in the Garden of Eden- a scary garden nevertheless, where we had much to learn. Talk about symbolism of snake/serpent The green mamba snake acts as a motif throughout The Poisonwood Bible. Again, as I do view myself as a missionary, I make many allusions to the Bible throughout my autobiography and the green mamba snake is perhaps one of the most important ones. In the Bible, we often interpret the snake or the serpent as the devil or an evil object. In my autobiography, the green mamba snake is a reoccuring motif that symbolizes the serpent in The Genesis that provokes Eve to dispute God’s command of eating the fruits from the knowledge tree. Well thank you so much for coming, Orleanna. I really enjoyed having this discussion and knowing more about The Poisonwood Bible. Thank you for coming again, I hope to see you soon.

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The Poisonwood Bible explores multiple different meanings ranging from love and loyalty, to ignorance and political oppression. While it is a story of the journey of the Price family in the Congo, Kingsolver uses these narratives to draw a bigger picture of the geopolitics that are at play in the Congo. I think the overarching theme of the novel is ignorance and its opposite: empathy. We follow the journeys of ignorant characters such as Rachel and Nathan Price and are given a parallel with the journeys of Adah, Leah, and Orleanna. However Kingsolver showcases the realities of life here or beyond by the end of the novel where it is clear that none of the characters we met at the beginning would end up with lives that fulfilled all their dreams

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With great power comes great responsibility—even if said power was not rightfully earned to begin with. In positions of power, humanity is prone to an overexertion of force to ensure those positions are secured, vying to push them to greater heights that cannot be overtaken. In Poisonwood Bible and Things Fall Apart, these tendencies manifest into ardent displays of cruelty; within itself, cruelty becomes a defense mechanism, a coping method, a disciplinary tool, rash and injust from fear of this superiority being lost. The driving point of this cruelty is that it festers within insecurity and is fed by greed. In the novels it reflects the presence of not only patriarchal dominance, but also religious, cultural, and racial puissance.

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This is Orleanna’s chance at salvation saving herself from misery and redeeming herself of guilt coming from the death of her daughter. Orleanna realizes her initial ignorance towards the Congo by “bringing Betty Crocker cake mixes into the jungle” (Ognibene 8) and her hesitance to learn the culture of the Congolese, but at the same time she also realizes she has been treated as Nathan’s “instrument, his animal” (Ognibene 8) which was dissatisfying. It took time and a period of reflection, but Orleanna soon realized that she was a puppet and could have done so many things differently. Ironically she needed to be delivered in a godly way as well as delivered from her toxic relationship. The limited power she had led to limited knowledge as a whole in Congo which caused ignorance.

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The Poisonwood Bible, a literary text in the Western canon, undermines colonialist ideology through its representation of the lives the Price daughters lead and the things they see and experience in the Belgian Congo, a colonized country with colonized people. Throughout the story, we see as the characters realize the desperate condition the natives are left in following the arrival of King Leopold II. To highlight the gap between the colonizers and the colonized, Kingsolver shows us the differences between Rachel’s Kinshasa, a primarily white town, and towns such as Kilanga, which are populated mostly by the natives. The former is clean and looks much like a modern-day US village. It has everything that could ever be needed and even the problems of nature do not

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In The Poisonwood Bible, Barbara Kingsolver creates a character Orleanna Price who was semi-voluntarily exiled to the Congo. She was exiled from a happy life due to her marriage to Nathan Price, she was exiled from both America and Americans when she moved to the Congo, and she was exiled from her family when her youngest daughter died. With each exile, Orleanna’s personality is enriched by the things she learns during that exile, and Orleanna finds herself alienated from the people and lifestyle she used to have before each exile. In the first exile, Orleanna’s personality is enriched from the general life lessons she learns with the experience of age. During that exile, she is alienated from everyone she meets if they meet, have met, or even

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In the book The Poisonwood Bible, many characters aim for redemption. In Orleanna's story, she is dreading the death of her daughter Ruth May. In Rachel’s narrative, she puts on a poker face and acts like she does not care about Ruth May’s death and finally, in Leah’s narrative, she blames other people and calls them out as a way of coping with her guilt. These three characters experience deep regret and guilt in their stories, but embrace it differently in a compelling way. All of these characters seem to think that they had contributed to the death and live with regret and wish they could change what happened.

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In literary works, the theme of loss of innocence serves as a powerful exploration of the human condition, revealing the profound effects it has on individuals and their understanding of the world. This theme is exemplified in both William Golding's "Lord of the Flies" and Barbara Kingsolver's "The Poisonwood Bible," where the characters are confronted with harsh realities that shatter their innocent perceptions. Through examining the causes, effects, and realizations of the loss of innocence in these novels, we gain insight into the tragic transformation of individuals in the face of challenging circumstances. As we delve into the depths of these narratives, it becomes evident that the loss of innocence is a universal experience that transcends

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Much like a symbol, the snake also effectively works as an analogy; snakes attack people when they are not fully aware, corresponding to how debt can attack students at any given moment. Beeler thoroughly exploits the elements of color, symbolism, and an analogy, allowing viewers of all backgrounds to comprehend the ultimate message of the

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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

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Each narrator relays the same events in different ways that are accommodating to their personality and their disposition on being in the Congo. For instance, Ruth May’s narrations of events typically have a cheerful connotation and perceive the Congo as an adventurous, whereas her older sister, Rachel, relentlessly demeans the Congo through her recollections. Although both girls are recounting the same events, the dissimilarity between their storytellings creates contrasting impressions on the reader. Overall, The Poisonwood Bible and the five distinct narratives within it, create five alterations of history: the five separate stories adapted from the single

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Although this large, frightening snake is ultimately feared, and also causes the death of a young character in the novel, its is a symbol of the spirit of the jungle. After Ruth May’s sudden and tragic death, it suggests in the novel that she becomes the trees of the vast jungle watching over everyone. In the final chapter of the story it says “I forgive you, Mother. I shall turn the hearts of the fathers to the children and the hearts of the children to their fathers” (Kingsolver 543). This quotes gives us reason to believe that it is Ruth May that is narrating this final passage, and that she has become the trees and is now apart of

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