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Questions On The Poisonwood Bible

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Gavyn Englebach Miss Given Honors English 5 February 2018 Poisonwood Bible Response #3 The Poisonwood Bible implies that storytelling is a way to reflect on yourself, to see where you started and how you have changed. “To live is to change, to acquire the words of a story” suggests that living through those experiences changes you and makes you grow. Since you “acquire the words of a story,” you can tell that story to teach other people. If you do not reflect on what happened or you try to tell yourself it did not happen, you will not grow. Storytelling is basically a way of accepting what happened. Orleanna is “owning, disowning, recanting, recharting a hateful course of events to make sense of her own complicity.” She is reminiscing on past …show more content…

Political events that go on throughout the story represent what is happening to the Price family. In the Congo, enslavement of the Congolese people is happening to put them to work in rubber plantations. This can be seen as similar to the situation that the Price family is in because the father, Nathan, is forcing his wife and daughters to stay in the Congo with him. The Price girls do not want to be in the Congo anymore, just like the Congolese people do not want to be forced to work in rubber plantations. Also, women in the Congo are not treated that well. In the Price family, Nathan is controlling of the girls and treats them that way because they are females. These all represent problems that need to be addressed in the Congo and the Price family as well. The Poisonwood Bible is based a lot around religion as well. The entire reason the Price family is in the Congo is because Nathan wants to spread the faith of Christianity. The Price girls actually lose their faith in religion by the end of the book because of the hardships they went through; religion is the reason they went through those hardships. The story seems to make religion actually seem bad and convince the reader not to devout their life to it. Other religious significance appears in the names of the Price girls as well; their names reference people in the bible. I agree with Kingsolver’s conclusion that everyone is complicit, meaning they take part in something that is wrongdoing. The Price girls were along for the trip to the Congo and the reason for the trip was to preach a religion to the Congolese; what went on in the Congo was wrong so the Price girls were a part of that wrongdoing. Also, Ruth May was the reason for the death of a spider, which can be considered a wrongdoing. I don’t believe everyone purposely takes part in something considered a wrongdoing, but rather because of not understanding a situation, not thinking

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