The Poisonwood Bible Literary Analysis

"You never really understand a person until you consider things from his point of view...Until you climb inside of his skin and walk around in it." —Harper Lee, To Kill a Mockingbird (Page 39) In the well written novel by Barbara Kingsolver, The Poisonwood Bible, all the characters are thrown into a world that they know nothing about. They’re pulled away from their home and expected to help people that don’t even wanna be helped. All while trying to maintain the who they are. But the Congo doesn’t allow this, it changes this family in more ways than one and will forever impact their lives once they step into it.

When in Georgia, Orleanna has no concern for dangerous diseases such as this, but now she is surrounded by contagious viruses that distract her from the real reason Nathan brings the family along on the mission. Furthermore, the culture of the African Congo influences Orleanna Price in the way that she has no care for her own appearance. Her concern is keeping her children safe. “Mother feared for our lives with fresh vigor (Kingsolver 145).” A mother knows when something is

She takes no part in, and mostly ignores the movement for an independent and just Congo, despite living there. Rachel’s adult life consists of benefiting from other people’s pain and hard work. She says so herself, at the novel’s conclusion: “That’s my advice; Let others do the pushing and shoving, and you just ride along. In the end, the neck you save will be your own.” (516.) While some readers consider Rachel Price’s static character nothing more than a pointless trope, it is clear that Kingsolver has carefully crafted Rachel’s accounts of her experiences in the village of Kilanga to subtly illuminate the deeply engrained racism present in the minds of the white missionaries living in Congo at the time, a result of hundreds of years of European colonization and degradation of Sub-Saharan

No child should go through the pain and neglect that Saranell felt in Leaving Gilead. Saranell feels the negative effects of being neglected. Although Geneva viewed her daughter as a waste of years, Saranell loved her still; getting nothing in return. The pain of neglect is far worse than the pain of losing a loved

In the novel The Poisonwood Bible, by Barbara Kingsolver, Leah Price moves to the Congo with her family as part of a missionary. Through their experiences in the Congo, and living amongst a community with many political conflicts, Leah discovers the importance of justice and selflessness. Kingsolver uses assertive and benevolent tones, and symbolism throughout the story to portray the voice of Leah, illustrating Leah’s determination to adamantly strive for justice and equality for Africa and its people, rather than believing that her heritage, her father and God are superior to those around her. Her father’s authority and idealism overshadows her point of view, as she is highly set on her father’s approval and ultimately, God’s approval too. By using phrases such as “But my father needs permission only from the Saviour, who obviously is all in favor of subduing the untamed wilderness for a garden (36)”, Kingsolver establishes Leah’s narrow-minded belief that her father is ‘A Chosen One from God’ and he will pacify the Congolese.

In the novel, The Poisonwood Bible by Barbra Kingsolver, poetry is continuously used to illustrate Adah’s character. Adah Price is the one character that always appears as though she does not belong. During her childhood while her family lived in Africa, she did not speak, and also was born with hemiplegia, which caused her to walk with a terrible limp. She was created to be very analytical, intelligent, and extremely outside the box. Her habits from when she was younger, such as reading and thinking backwards, can directly relate to her disability and is seen as her way of handling how it feels to be so different from those around her.

The Poisonwood Bible is a realistic fiction story written by Brenda Kingsolver in which a family from Georgia travels to the Congo for African missionary work. The Price family, made up of Nathan, Orleanna, and their four children, are not accustomed to the Congolese ways of life, for they come from completely opposite conditions. When they witness the culture of these African people, they are all in disbelief at how a village could live in that way. Therefore, The Price family, mainly the preacher Nathan, see it as their duty to “civilize” the people of the Congo. They are in Africa to solely to teach the people about morals and Christianity, and throughout the book, the girls seem to be more connected to the African people.

Yolanda “…never felt at home in the States…” (Alvarez 1304) and is experiencing the same alienation feelings with her family. This leads to her antojos of guavas as she tries to reconnect with her heritage. Yolanda’s greatest conflict is finding her place in Dominican and American culture and her identity. She could never fully assimilate in American culture and way of life because of her strong Dominican background. Over the years of fitting in, she enjoyed her independence but believed it “…didn’t have to be an exile…” (Alvarez 1304) from her native ways.

Furthermore, an outsider is a character that is set apart from the established cultural pattern. The most character that was an outsider was Franky, Bernice, and the soldier. Therefore, Franky didn’t feel like she wasn’t part of any club “we”. Bernice is part of the family, but again she’s not part of the family because if they ever move or go somewhere out of the town she can’t go. The soldier didn’t know anybody when he came back in town and he felt unnoticeable because nobody said anything to him at all.

As her father, Nathan Price, continues to preach the word of the almighty God to the citizens of the Congo, Rachel begins to take on household duties along with forming her own opinions of this new foreign land because her view of religion isn’t as strong as her father’s.With the need to survive, Rachel accommodates to her surroundings in order to grow and flourish independently despite her high maintenance attitude. The culture of the Congo was one that Rachel had never experienced before. Being as narrow-minded and superficial as she was, at first everything about the African culture was a disgrace to her. “Man oh Man, are we in for it now”(Kingsolver,22), were Rachel's

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. She grows old with the self-condemnation of staying with Nathan for as long as she did, for if she mustered up the courage to leave the Congo earlier, Ruth May would not have died. Ruth May’s plea for Orleanna to forgive herself, just as Ruth May has forgiven her, presents the possibility of repentance for anyone, no matter how great of consequence their mistakes are. Though she never passed the age of 6, Ruth May seems to have learned better than most the importance of finding strength from and learning from wrong-doings.