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Orleanna In Barbara Kingsolver's The Poisonwood Bible

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"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. However, the one person who finally accepts her changes and becomes the complete opposite of what she was when she arrives at the Congo? Orleanna Price. Orleanna is not the favorite character among all the different individuals, but she does have an impact when she loses one of her little ones. This is her breaking point and quite honestly shows the first change she has in the book. Orleanna, herself, is an intelligent woman, but because of her husband’s …show more content…

What conceit. I was his instrument, his animal.” (Kingsolver 89) She realizes that after all this time that her husband never really truly cared for her. His mission was to spread his word of God and to “help” people in his own way. It took getting away from Nathan, losing Ruth May, and being alone once again to teach Orleanna that she never really needed Nathan. The only reason that she stayed with him is because she thought she could fix him, she thought that their love could help him get over what happened to him in the war. She was wrong, losing his other “family” made him unable to attach to his actual family. It took a long harsh move to the Congo for Orleanna to see this, but it was something that needed to happen. Otherwise she would’ve never grown the strength to finally be who she

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