The Poisonwood Bible: A Short Story

Nayeli Tarrafa Given Honors English 11 5 January 2018 The Poisonwood Bible Response #3 The Poisonwood Bible ultimately states that storytelling is all about perspective and what side of the story you are on.

Rachel was being discouraged by her family and fellow missionaries. Nate, her younger brother, had a large influence on Rachel’s life. At the beginning of her journey,

While many people would have given up within the first week or so of their hardships of being alone in such a large, unforgiving city, Doris keeps her head held high. Though, this is because she is willing to do whatever it takes to survive. In a letter to her mother, Doris remarks: " . . .you [my mother] were poor as I am poor, you slept with men because you liked them or because you needed money - I do that too" (Keun 73). Doris 's self-candor is both her best and worst quality: it helps her make sense of her surroundings and stay a step ahead of others, though she often is self-critical because of it.

This further expands on the meaning by showing the contrast of how little the Congolese care for others’ appearances when compared to the American view. The Congolese shared their view on appearances near the beginning of the novel when describing Mama Mwanza and Mama Nguza. The Americans think Orleanna became tainted while she was in the Congo. Even though Orleanna used to live in Bethlehem, the other residents of the town don’t view her the same way as they did before she went to the Congo. Adah even commented on their reception: “...welcome home the pitiful Prices!

In this chapter, Foster discusses the portrayal of Christ-like figures throughout literature. An allusion to Christ may include: uncanny knowledge of scripture, being good with children, being alone in the wilderness and being burdened with the task of redeeming a sinful world - all of which are traits that Nathan Price from The Poisonwood Bible exhibits or distorts. Nathan Price serves as an ironic depiction of Christ. Like Jesus, Nathan is intimately familiar with the Bible and can summon any portion of it from memory to support his arguments, such as when Anatole tells the Price family why the Kongolese people are not receptive to Nathan’s family. However, Nathan is abusive and dismissive towards anyone who disagrees with him, especially his children and wife, a perversion of

In many ways the Congo changes the young fourteen-year-old girl into a strong independent woman. There are many encounters in the novel where she starts to question her faith in God as well as in her father. For example, hearing stories about rubber plantation workers getting their hands chopped off because they were not able to get the desired about of rubber startles Leah and makes her question race relations. Race becomes a dominant issue at this point and her experiences in Kilanga have invalidated all she had been taught about race in America. At this point, Leah starts to go on her own and figure out whom she is.

How do you describe the characteristics and requirements of a real “home”? In the Poisonwood Bible, by Barbara Kingsolver, the outspoken and bold character known as Leah Price experiences a major rift between her family and former American homelife that leads her to transfer her obsessions over acceptance by her father to the conflict within the Congo and her lover, Anatole. Leah’s failure to receive the approval from her father through religious excellence and prestige along with the death of her youngest sister, Ruth May, led her to resent the ideals and oppressive hand that her father had implemented since her birth. Anatole’s evident acceptance and admiration of Leah’s individuality allowed Leah to feel fulfilled in her need for acceptance by a

Family members and close friends impact people’s lives in immeasurable ways. Octavia E. Butler uses this to develope Lauren in Parable of the Sower through interactions with the people around her. Growing up in a bleak area of a now dismal United States, her faithful upbringing contrasts with the necessary survival mentality demanded by the outside world.Two effectual characters in Lauren’s journey are her father, Reverend Olamina, and her younger brother, Keith. These two characters represent extremes of both devotion and destruction as they influence Lauren to choose her own path as an adult. Each character has a separate impact on Lauren as she matures into adulthood.

Her completely refuses to believe that this is now her life. Her way of coping with the Congo is trying to cling to anything that reminds her of home. Her small hand mirror is something that she holds very dear. It is one of the first things she thinks of to grab in a life or death situation. Rachel never fully connects with any of the Congolese people, and finds it absolutely revolting about the idea that the Chief wants her as a wife.

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.

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.)

The tone of the story is important in making the story sound like it is being to through the eyes of an eleven year old girl, such phrases like “pennies rattling in a band-aid box” and “my whole head hurts like when you drink milk too fast.” All these are certain phrases that would be used in an eleven year old's life, bandaids for the bumps and scrapes, and the milk that your parents would make you drink. That is the tone Eleven sets, a young girl telling us her humiliating story while she is still a child. Sandra Cisneros does an excellent job at using literary devices to characterize Rachel in “Eleven”. By using imagery, simile, and tone we can see that Rachel is a empathetic, bashful, wise, but still naive in her own ways.

Bearing Guiltiness within The Poisonwood Bible Foreshadowing is a literary device many authors use to hint at future events containing influential and thematic material; and authors tend to introduce their major themes through foreshadowing in opening scenes or a prologue. Barbra Kingsolver’s novel, The Poisonwood Bible, follows this very trend. Orleanna Price, in the first chapter, describes her burden of guilt toward choices she has made and the death of the youngest of her four daughters, Ruth May. Throughout the story, you discover the guilt within each of the five women: Adah, Leah, Rachel, Orleanna, and Ruth May. Due to supporting implications within the opening chapter of The Poisonwood Bible, with continuing evidence throughout the novel, it can be concluded that guiltiness is a motif.

The author, Sandra Cisneros, uses literary techniques in “Eleven” to characterize Rachel by using metaphors, comparisons, and repetition. In the beginning of Sandra Cisneros’s short story, she states that when a person becomes an age older they will not feel a difference. The character Rachel explains that in different situations, for example, “Like some days you might say something stupid, and [you will feel ten]” a person might feel different from their actual age. She then competes growing old to layers of an onion, rings of a tree, wooden dolls that fit inside each other because, according to her, “that’s how being eleven years old is”.

As the family travels down the wooded, unpaved trail, the grandmother suddenly recalls that the plantation is actually in Tennessee. In her embarrassment, she accidently frees her cat from its cage and it causes her son to wreck (O’Connor 503). Then, a car filled with three armed men slowly approaches them. As the men inspect the scene, the grandmother recognizes that the leader is the Misfit, a criminal on the loose. As the other two men take the rest of the family in the woods to kill them, the grandmother tries to appeal to what remained of the man’s integrity and capacity to