The Poisonwood Bible Character Analysis

The Poisonwood Bible Everyone in the world has someone that they want to grow up and be just like them in every way, and in the Poisonwood Bible by Barbara Kingsolver, the reader views a young girl named Leah Price who is devoting her life to being just like her father. As a young girl, she absolutely adores everything about her father while trying to be his favorite; she follows him around doing everything he does until he makes them move across the world to a city named Kilanga in the deep Congo. Throughout the novel, Leah begins to change her viewpoints about her father as his decisions put their family in danger. The geography, culture, and the physical presence of others all contribute to Leah’s complex character and help shape her

She learns that doing things to please herself instead of her father makes her feel more accomplished and have that sense of worthiness that her father wasn’t giving her. Kingsolver uses these factors to get the audience to notice the change in Leah’s views and beliefs as the book proceeds on and as she grows up into a woman. Her relationship with her father is a lot like her relationship with God since she talks to both of them and neither of them ever respond directly to her. She feels unwanted and like a distraction to her father’s main purpose in life, which is to save people through the word of God. Her surroundings in the Congo begin to shape her morals and psychological beliefs that push her away from not only her father, but God as well. This is why Leah is such a complex character since she moves away from Nathan’s footsteps and pushes for her own independence through the three factors of geography, culture, and the physical

Kingsolver uses her beginning to show the vast change from relying so heavily on her family early on and trying to get acceptance from her careless father into going completely independent in the end. As the family prepares for their journey into the vast unknown and not knowing what to bring or what to expect from this foreign place Leah says “Someday perhaps I shall demonstrate to all of Africa how to grow crops.” (Kingsolver 38) The reader could read this two ways. Either it could mean she just wants to help Africa grow crops, or it could be her trying to be like her father because he is going to the Congo to help the people get saved in the word of God, and Leah believes she is going to keep progressing and help all of Africa grow crops just like the healthy crops of America. As the Price family arrives in the Congo and they aren’t arriving to a nice paved airport or security, but they are arriving on a dirt airfield and the whole Kilanga community is waiting there ready to greet them. Although the Congo doesn’t have the supermarkets, paved roads, or running water; according