Essay On The Poisonwood Bible

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,

Barbara Kingsolver does a wonderful job with incorporating literary devices into her novel. These literary devices help the reader to experience the words written on the page and it allows the reader to think that they are actually living the story. One major literary device that Kingsolver uses throughout the book to show her ideas to the reader is imagery. “Her dark hair is tied in a ragged lace handkerchief, and her curved jawbone is lit with large, false-pearl earrings, as if these headlamps from another world might show the way.” (pg 5) When I hear these words, I am able to paint a picture inside of my head of Orleana Price. I am able to imagine what she looks like and this imagery provides the reader with direct characterization of

In Barbara Kingsolver’s work, The Poisonwood Bible, Nathan Price is a character which responds to injustice in some significant way. Out of all the other characters, Nathan is the one who responds the most to an act of injustice by going on a campaign halfway around the world to somehow repay his obligation to God. He plans to do this by spreading Christianity, or at least his version of Christianity, to the native people of the Congo. The whole reason for him doing this is that he believes being wounded and leaving battle right before the rest of his company dies is an act of injustice and feels as if though he should have died there with his men. Nathan feels like he is a failure and is guilty for not dying with his brothers on the battlefield.

Having read, The Poisonwood Bible book, it was both fascinating and interesting. The author, Barbara Kingsolver, was quick with her diction and used quite a lot of figurative language. The objective of the book was to show the true meaning of Africa and show how it was difficult to convert the people of Africa to Christianity religion. The setting was present in Georgia, which later they traveled to a village called Kilanga in Congo, in which they started their journey. The main characters includes, Nathan Price who was the main character, his wife Orleanna Price, and their four daughters, Rachel, Leah, Adah, and Ruth May.

However, the positive attributes of home outweigh it’s negatives in its definition; therefore home is a place where individuals feel secure financially and emotionally. Even if a person lives in poverty, they learn to make the best of it. For example, Jeannette and her family move

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

Through Garnet’s struggles and success of finding his real home, Richard Wagamese outlines the importance of people having a home.

Ultimately, the human heart seeks comfort and familiarity. The great unknown strips away this feeling of safety, leading to a vulnerability that draws the true nature of a person into the harshness of reality. Unfamiliar environments, newly met strangers, the imminent and all-too-unpredictable future--these things generally incite feelings of insecurity and anxiety; for some, panic accompanies the thought of not having control. Some avoid matters of fear altogether, opting for a life softened with intentional ignorance. It is the fatal tendency of mankind to manipulate their troubles into trivial tasks that can easily be ignored and eventually forgotten, or at the very least, left to the side. Humanity thrives on acknowledging, promoting, and

Orleanna says, "To live is to change, to acquire the words of a story, and that is the only celebration we mortals really know" (385). Adah says, about her mother, "...she constantly addresses the ground under her feet. Asking forgiveness. Owning, disowning, recanting, recharting a hateful course of events to make sense of her own complicity. We all are, I suppose. Trying to invent our version of the story. All human odes are essentially one. ‘My life: what I stole from history, and how I live with it. ' (492). What does this novel ultimately say about storytelling? The Poisonwood Bible claims that, in storytelling, everyone tries to reform their own version of their life into an appealing story, talking mainly about the struggles they face in their life and “how they live with it” (Kingsolver 492). Adah claims that all stories are exactly based off of this essential element, a type of archetype that has many archetypals, but are all still considered the same thing. For example, if a war hero wrote a story on his life in WWII and another writer, a biologist, wrote a story on a Grizzly Bear. Both are different in topic, setting, characters, and plot, but both address the story of a living being that lived and faced good times and hardships along the way.

Leah’s fight for Nathan’s attention and love has gone on for years, since she was born basically. Things quickly change for Leah, however when she meets Anatole. Being with and around Anatole shows Leah exactly how bad life in the Belgian Congo really is for the Congolese

Home is My Life Burden Home. An alternative life kept from the outside world. Behind closed doors, it can be filled with tension but others may see happiness. Life outside my home is my escape from the anxiety that’s built from within the walls of what is called my home. But now, it’s not fully a family with just me and my mother.

In the Novel “Homecoming” a family of children, the Tillermans, are having a rough time finding a place they can call home. There is many definitions for the word home, but to the Tillermans a home is place where they can not be separated. The children have been through and have thought about four homes, Cousin Eunice, foster care, Will and Claire, and their grandmother’s home. They chose to stay with their grandmother, but the children could have went to any of the other three homes. Each home offers something in both a positive and negative way, and the Tillermans prefer one home of the others.

In the novel, The Poisonwood Bible, Barbara Kingsolver illustrates Nathan Price’s desire for power over the people of Kilanga and the women of his family through his religious beliefs to depict the materialization and effect the “White Man’s Burden” and misogyny can have on an individual.

Frequently, we just pass by people and look down on them since they have no home; but who is to say they don’t have a home? Home is not the house you live in or the country you belong to. It is a place that incites certain feelings and those feeling are what makes a place home. The people on the streets with no “home” may simply find that anywhere in the world is where they call home. Home has two specific set of values that make it more than just a place which are privacy, and safety.

Vahan’s perspective on home changes a lot throughout the book and Vahan even wonders if he will ever have a home. Vahan realizes that home is not a physical state but a state of mind. To start, Vahan’s an innocent boy who lives in his comfortable home with his maids and cooks.