Compare And Contrast Essay On The Poisonwood Bible

Poisonwood Bible Super Essay

In Barbara Kingsolver’s The Poisonwood Bible, relocating to the Congo has contrasting effects on each character. Facing the grueling elements and the lack of normalcy, these characters both react differently to this change and grow in their own way. Rachel and Leah are two distinctive characters who both exhibit change and growth from their time in the Congo. In addition, as a result of white colonization, the Congo has seen significant changes throughout history.

Rachel, who embodies the definition of vanity, arrives in the Congo and quickly misses her modern commodities from back home. Flustered with the thought of her hair getting stained, she states, “Already I was heavy-hearted in my soul for the flush commodes

In contrast to Rachel, Leah does not care about her appearances and is a bit of a tomboy. Describing Leah, Ruth May states, “Leah runs everywhere and climbs trees” (21). This passage presents how Leah is not a typical girl and that she loves to do what she wants. She does what she believes is right, and as a result of growing up, “she becomes a teacher and freedom fighter” (Croisy 230). Different from Rachel, Leah goes out, participates in the hunt, and kills her own Impala. Displaying her excitement, she says, “I have killed an animal larger than myself! I screamed as if struck by an arrow myself” (349). As a result of, killing the animal, Leah proves to herself that she is her own person and can stand up for herself. In the beginning the novel, Leah stands by her Father and followed his every step. In “Re-visioning Southern Identity: transatlantic cultural collisions in Barbara Kingsolver’s The Poisonwood Bible,” Sophie Croisy

The Congo has been a place of abundant resources and minerals that has put a kind of a target on its’ back. As a result of the land and people being stripped, wars have broken out. Furthermore, western capitalists who steal from the Congo, are the only ones who see the profits while the people of the Congo suffer in misery. Because of the interference of western countries, the Congo as a country has been “under-developed” (Renton 172). The Congolese people have assumed a position of dependence, therefore were unable to grow properly as a country, resulting in the Congo unable to stand on its own. Similar to the Price family, missionaries came and set up houses where they lived like kings compared to the Congolese. As a result of this privilege and poverty living close to each other, the locals did not approve and tensions rose. The missionaries ran a school for “orphans, who were mostly mixed raced children” (Mcalister 35) which greatly upsetted the Congolese. The role of race had a huge impact on the Congo as it created problems between the local Congolese and the