Leah Price In The Poisonwood Bible
Pauline Hopkins once said that “our surroundings influence ours lives and characters as just as much as fate, destiny, or any supernatural agency does.” In most cases, Hopkins would be correct. One can absolutely see this concept in the case of Leah Price from The Poisonwood Bible. Early in this novel, Leah Price is the daughter that tried to follow in her father 's footsteps. Almost everything that Leah does is to gain the respect from her father, Nathan, that she so craves. Leah’s fight for Nathan’s attention and love has gone on for years, since she was born basically. Things quickly change for Leah, however when she meets Anatole. Being with and around Anatole shows Leah exactly how bad life in the Belgian Congo really is for the Congolese …show more content…
She takes all of their belongings and puts them in their front yard, telling the people of Kilanga that they can have whatever they want, that she has no need for anything anymore. Orleanna, Leah, and Adah just leave. Nathan is oblivious to their action of leaving him, and Rachel ran off with the pilot, Eeben Axelroot. When Leah catches malaria from being outside and walking for a while, Anatole convinces some people of another village to let Leah stay there and rest. Meanwhile, Orleanna and Adah hit the road, leaving Leah behind. After a while, the village that Leah was being harbored in kicks her out and says that she can no longer stay. At this time, the people of the Belgian Congo are completely against all westerners, which happen to be white people. The Congolese blame the white people for everything wrong that has been done to them. When Leah learns of this hatred, she understands and takes their side. Leah takes on the burden of the black man. The burden of the black man is the time in the lives of the Africans where they have to defend themselves from the colonizers, or to them, the white westerners. In the poem The Black Man’s Burden, by H.T. Johnson in 1899 as a reply to The White Man’s Burden, Johnson says “Pile on the Black Man’s Burden/His wail with laughter drown/You’ve sealed the Red Man’s problem/And will take up the Brown.” (Johnson 9-12) This excerpt shows readers exactly what the Africans were forced to go through. The people of Africa were taken over and forced to do hard labor with no reward. This part of the poem says that the white men have already dealt with the red man’s problem, which were the American Indians. After receiving word of this, they knew that they weren’t far behind them. By witnessing Lumumba’s speech and moving to the Belgian Congo, Leah sees the pain and suffering that the African people
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1632 Words | 7 PagesIn addition, Leah starts to slowly fall in love with Anatole and no longer view her dad’s view as a model for her own. Meanwhile, Rachel is pretend to be engaged with Axelroot to avoid a proposal with the chief Ndu. Ruth May gets better, but is very weak and pale. Leah wants to participate in the village hunt and this upsets
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1420 Words | 6 PagesImagine being ripped from the comfortable normalities of the sunbelt United States, to the desolate, malnourished Congo, where food is scarce and morals are low. Barbara Kingsolver spent years studying the Congo and their people in order to provide an accurate representation in her historical fiction piece, The Poisonwood Bible. In this novel, Leah Price is first described as a young, Christian woman. However, this description soon becomes distorted the longer the Price family remains in the Congo. Leah’s character traits shift as she becomes alienated from the rest of her family’s ideals.
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490 Words | 2 PagesLeah forms a strong bond with the Congolese people and their culture, which stands in stark contrast to her father's limited perspectives on religion and civilization. Leah declares, "I love the people here. I love the way they act and think" (Kingsolver, 319). She becomes aware of the negative repercussions of her father's mission and Western influence on the African continent as a result of her empathy for the Congolese people.
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994 Words | 4 PagesFrom Georgia to the Belgian Congo, a white southern missionary family during the late 1950’s moved to Africa with the hopes of exposing the native people to the Christian way of life. Throughout the novel, the Price family is met with many obstacles while trying to learn this new culture in which they were surrounded. Many of the obstacles were directly due to their ignorance of the country. A character in the novel, Leah Price, was faced with the challenge of following her father’s will but also assimilating to the people of Congo. Leah was the older twin, and a young, free-spirited, passionate girl who once worshipped her father and believed in his philosophy.
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1462 Words | 6 PagesHer 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.
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1046 Words | 5 Pages(51) Rachel has never seen something like this before because in Georgia most people probably have all four of their limbs. Her closed mindedness causes her to quickly judge the Congolese even though they can make it through their everyday life just as well as Rachel can. It has become dangerous that she looks at them this way because she does not realize how lucky she is compared to them. The people in Kilanga quite literally can not compare to Rachel’s body image. In no literal terms, the people of Africa have way less and are put at a disadvantage compared to white people, but still make do.
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