ipl-logo

What Is The Theme Of Imperialism In The Poisonwood Bible

1037 Words5 Pages

Through the voices of five female narrators with contrasting perspectives, Barbara Kingsolver analyzes the extent to which imperialism affects the lives of indigenous populations and the lives of the imperialists. Each perspective places blame for the events of the novel on a different entity and each narrator feels a different degree of guilt for those events. The Poisonwood Bible’s secondary themes include the extent to which an environment affects the way that children grow up. This secondary theme creates the connection between familial dynamics and international relationships. While the novel paints a picture of imperialism by recounting the brief independence of the Congo, the relationship of the Price family and their interactions with Africa are more representative of the effects of imperialism on different types of people. In the novel, the father and missionary Nathan Price represents an imperialist power, his wife and daughters represent the civilians of imperialist countries, and Kilanga and the Congo …show more content…

The Price family’s politics mirror the politics between imperialist powers and target countries. Just as the majority of imperialist powers disregard the lives and desires of civilians living in their target countries, Nathan Price, the symbol of an imperialist power for the Price family, did not take into consideration any of his family’s needs, eventually resulting in inevitable tragedy and loss of his family. As the perpetuator of numerous injustices against his family, Nathan was blamed for both the tragedy and his own abandonment. While Nathan is to blame for most all of the events in the novel, the narrators of the story feel guilt simply being involved and doing nothing to stop him. The Poisonwood Bible is, comprehensively, a lesson on imperialism portrayed through a long-term, personal

Show More
Related

  • Differences Between The Poisonwood Bible

    608 Words  | 3 Pages

    Barbara Kingsolver’s novel, The Poisonwood Bible, follows the story of the four Price daughters and their mother in the Congo. The Prices are originally from the southern United States, a much different place than where they now find themselves. Throughout the novel, Kingsolver uses the differences between these two countries and what they represent to enhance the meaning of the work. The Congo and the United States have many physical and cultural differences that appear throughout the entirety of the novel.

    Read More

  • Creating African Americans Chapter 1 Summary

    485 Words  | 2 Pages

    This chapter addresses the central argument that African history and the lives of Africans are often dismissed. For example, the author underlines that approximately 50,000 African captives were taken to the Dutch Caribbean while 1,600,000 were sent to the French Caribbean. In addition, Painter provides excerpts from the memoirs of ex-slaves, Equiano and Ayuba in which they recount their personal experience as slaves. This is important because the author carefully presents the topic of slaves as not just numbers, but as individual people. In contrast, in my high school’s world history class, I can profoundly recall reading an excerpt from a European man in the early colonialism period which described his experience when he first encountered the African people.

    Read More

  • To Kill A Mockingbird Good And Evil Essay

    885 Words  | 4 Pages

    Concluding the statement, ‘To Kill a Mockingbird’ is a book by author Harper Lee, containing many content and morals which are to be explored. The book is set during the ‘Great Depression’ in Southern Alabama, in a county described to be very slow, wet and hot. The novel is narrated in a first-person perspective through an adult recounting her past as a 6 year old, who didn’t understand much of the things she observed around the adults. Her innocence as a child allowed her curiosity to ask any question and as an observer, she is able to describe the context enough for the readers to understand, even if the child Scout didn’t. The theme ‘coexistence of good and evil’ is one of the major messages in the book and is shown in every corner of the county.

    Read More

  • Guilt In The Awakening And The Poisonwood Bible

    1793 Words  | 8 Pages

    Two women on two different paths to self-enlightenment but both paths end in a realization that one cannot simply focus on oneself; Victorian society, the jungles of the Congo, or the person next door are a part of life. Edna, in The Awakening discovers that she cannot live outside of society’s norms; whereas, Orleanna of The Poisonwood Bible learns how deep seeded guilt can spark self-awareness. While The Awakening’s Edna develops into the beginnings of a self-actualized woman by understanding her deep inner self and finally develops into a version of herself most disillusioned, whereas, Orelanna Price from The Poisonwood Bible becomes enlightened after experiencing the death of a child and understanding how years of obedience brought her

    Read More

  • The Poisonwood Bible Character Analysis

    2036 Words  | 9 Pages

    In the beginning of the novel, Leah is a young Christian, American girl who looks up to her father, Nathan Price. Leah looks up to her father, describing him as “having a heart as large as his hands. And his wisdom is great” (42). This shows how much respect Leah has for her father. She puts her father on a high pedestal as he “understands everything” (66).

    Read More

  • Analysis Of John Thornton's African Dimensions Of The Stono Rebellion

    1204 Words  | 5 Pages

    In this article “African Dimensions Of The Stono Rebellion”, John Thornton a professor of history and African American studies, who wrote about the African slaves in the Americas, and specifically the servants in South Carolina during the early eighteenth century. In his writing, the author describes the personality of Africans and their desire to escape from slavery, going through obstacles on their path to freedom. John Thornton is primarily an Africanist, with a specialty in the history of West Central Africa before 1800. His work has also carried him into the study of the African Diaspora, and from there to the history of the Atlantic Basin as a whole, also in the period before the early nineteenth century. Thornton also serves as a consultant

    Read More

  • Grimes Everet And The Mrunas

    299 Words  | 2 Pages

    Aunt Alexandra hosts a tea party for the ladies in the missionary circle to discuss various topics. The main topic that the ladies discuss is J. Grimes Everet and the work he is doing with an African tribe called the Mrunas. The women, especially Mrs. Merriweather, all praise J. Grimes Everet for all he does claiming that, “Not a white person’ll go near ’em but that saintly J. Grimes Everet” (309). These women are all very supportive of him helping a tribe that is halfway across the world in Africa that they decide they want to help. Although, these women praise what he does and want to help people over in Africa,they are repelled by the idea of even being associated with the African Americans there in Maycomb.

    Read More

  • Truth In Plato's Allegory Of The Cave

    1640 Words  | 7 Pages

    The character of Rev. Nathan Price in Barbara Kingsolver’s The Poisonwood Bible attempts to evangelize a country as a religious philosopher-king, acting as a prime example of Plato’s work. Throughout the novel, Kingsolver shows us the inherent problems that occur when an individual takes it upon himself to be the sole deliverer of truth and the road of destruction that position leads to when Truth is mistaken as the authority of one rather than the entitlement of

    Read More

  • Nathan Price Character Analysis

    994 Words  | 4 Pages

    From 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.

    Read More

  • Icarus Girl Analysis

    1468 Words  | 6 Pages

    This essay will argue what is meant by the representation of the Other in the novels The Icarus Girl and Shadow Tag. The other is a representation of the questions surrounding identity that arise in these texts. The Icarus Girl focuses on the alternate identities of Jessamy Harrison and her struggle to find a fitting identity because of having a multi-national heritage. Shadow Tag takes a different approach to the question of identity, as Irene America attempts to escape her identity as a domestic abuse victim in the blue diary that she keeps hidden from her husband Gil. There is also the question about the identity of the narrative voice of the novel.

    Read More

  • The Poisonwood Bible Literary Analysis

    1462 Words  | 6 Pages

    In the novel, The Poisonwood Bible, by Barbara Kingsolver, a missionary family travel to the African Congo during the 1960’s, in hopes of bringing enlightenment to the Congolese in terms of religion. The father, Nathan, believes wholeheartedly in his commitment, and this is ultimately his downfall when he fails to realize the damage that he is placing upon his family and onto the people living in Kilanga, and refuses to change the way he sees things. However, his wife, Orleanna, and her daughters, Rachel, Leah, Adah, and Ruth May, take the Congo in, and make the necessary changes in their lives, and they do this in order to survive with their new darkness that they are living in. Curiosity and acceptance help the ones with curious minds,

    Read More

  • Foreshadowing In Barbara Kingsolver's The Poisonwood Bible

    485 Words  | 2 Pages

    he Poisonwood Bible by Barbara Kingsolver focuses on both real life and fictional events and tells the story of the Price family’s experience in the Congo. Kingsolver makes good use of foreshadowing to dramatize the tragic incidents that occur in Africa. Orleanna Price is the most reliable narrator in the novel and is used to foreshadow future events and to explain various aspects of the past. In the first chapter, Orleanna maps out all the major events that will occur throughout the book.

    Read More

  • Political Allegory In Nathan Price's The Poisonwood Bible

    826 Words  | 4 Pages

    Title The title The Poisonwood Bible is very fitting. The poisonwood tree is described as “The tree that was plaguing us all to death” (29). Just as the painful, venomous and hazardous if mishandled poisonwood tree is, so is Nathan Price's theology. He mistranslates key words and therefore the biblical message doesn't make sense to the people to whom he preaches (73).

    Read More

  • Poisonwood Bible Analysis

    854 Words  | 4 Pages

    Imagine being fourteen years old and living in a small town in Georgia, packing up as much as you can, or what could fit under your clothes and into a bag, and moving to the Congo of Africa. That’s exactly what the Price family did under their father’s will. Throughout Barbara Kingsolver 's Poisonwood Bible, Leah price experiences the Congo to its’ full potential. Both her psychological and moral traits were formed by cultural, physical, and geographical surroundings. The congolese people influence her decisions and thoughts throughout the book.

    Read More

  • The Neo-Marxist Criticism In James Joyce's Araby

    1102 Words  | 5 Pages

    On one hand, Joyce executes his political beliefs as an anti-English imperialist of the alienated labor force, as we see the boy ultimately buys nothing from the bazaar. This is extrapolated from the material reckoning between the buyer and seller as well as the result of failed capitalism – which Marx viewed as a catastrophe from its incapability to stabilize social and economic qualities by the lower classes. Moreover, the protagonist alienates himself from the normative, religiously induced way of thinking from euphoria for the fantasy created by the bazaar to defeat- reflective of defeated Ireland at the time. On the other hand, Joyce incorporates the boy’s desire to escape from the hegemony of Irish Catholicism. The characters like the protagonist, Mangan’s sister, are tropes of the societal tension between Irish and England, but in this context is suggestive of the incompatibility of capitalism in Joyce’s time.

    Read More

More about What Is The Theme Of Imperialism In The Poisonwood Bible

Open Document