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Survival In Barbara Kingsolver's The Poisonwood Bible

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Imagine traveling to a foreign country on a mission trip with your 4 children and husband. Doesn’t sound too bad, right? What about being forced to drag yourself and 4 children on a perilous trek at the command of an overzealous, religion obsessed husband to the African Congo in hopes of “saving” a community from their “wrong” way of living? In Barbara Kingsolver’s The Poisonwood Bible, a missionary family, ruled by an extremely opinionated and controlling husband, moves from their acquainted home in Bethlehem, Georgia to the poverty-stricken village of Kilanga in the Belgian Congo. As the family gathered and packed their most essential items needed for survival in a territory where they were not wanted, the thought of never returning flooded …show more content…

Rachel's only concern when first arriving in the Congo was her hair and personal items. As the novel progresses, Rachel finds herself desperate to survive rather than choosing which hair brush she was going to use that day. She was extremely self-centered and even related to the bible, “But the Lord said to Samuel, “Do not look on his appearance or on the height of his stature, because I have rejected him. For the Lord sees not as man sees: man looks on the outward appearance, but the Lord looks on the heart” (The Holy Bible, New International Version). As her father, Nathan Price, continues to preach the word of the almighty God to the citizens of the Congo, Rachel begins to take on household duties along with forming her own opinions of this new foreign land because her view of religion isn’t as strong as her father’s.With the need to survive, Rachel accommodates to her surroundings in order to grow and flourish independently despite her high maintenance attitude. The culture of the Congo was one that Rachel had never experienced before. Being as narrow-minded and superficial as she was, at first everything about the African culture was a disgrace to her. “Man oh Man, are we in for it now”(Kingsolver,22), were Rachel's

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