...Barbara Kingsolver’s Poisonwood Bible tells the story of the Price family's arrival and failed assimilation of baptism in the village of Kilanga. Reverend Nathan Price selfishly leds his wife and four daughters to the harsh and unforgiving African Congo in hopes to exoterically save the souls of the villagers. Nathan failed to see the significance in unchanged traditional culture and only wished to promote his self interest. This same selfish promotion tragically brings the Price family to it’s end. The novel is told through the eyes of all four daughters(Rachel, Adah, Ruth May, and Leah Price) and Nathan’s wife, Orleanna Price. Since we are given numerous perspectives from the Price family, we see Nathan’s actions happen first hand. Within the first few chapters we see Nathan’s decision of completing a mission in Africa consume the already established life of the family. Although the daughter’s fail to understand the significance of the mission, the family reluctantly follows. This decision creates conflict from the very beginning of the novel, and initiates a line of dominos pieces, placed with conviction, that...
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...Book Three • What is the significance of the Kikongo word nommo and its attendant concepts of being and naming? How do the Price sisters’ Christian names and their acquired Kikongo names reflect personalities and behavior? The word nommo means pretty much your name. In the Kikongo, they have named things because that is their name. A further explanation as explained in the book, is “you wouldn’t name a machete a human because if so it might raise up and start dancing around.” Some of the people, for example Rachel, received their name because of their name’s role in the bible. Rachel was one of the first named from creation in the bible like how she is the oldest in the family and first named. Also in many parts of the Bible, Rachel was...
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...“ And, after all, our surroundings influence our lives and characters as much as fate, destiny, or any supernatural agency,” Pauline Hopkins, Contending Forces. Starting off in the non realistic novel, a family, the Price’s, move to the Belgian Congo from Bethlehem, Georgia, in 1959 due to missionary. The Poisonwood Bible is based off of being told from different perspectives of how the life is living in the Congo. Mainly from the mother and her four children point of view. A character within the novel has been shaped by cultural, physical, or geographical surroundings. Development for someone can occur in different ways. It is possible that your surroundings can make who you truly are. Through trials and tribulations for this specific character,...
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...The Things We Took Away Orleanna simply says it best: “We can only speak of the things we carried with us, and the things we took away”(10). The five Price women enter the Congo with certain things: a stainless-steel thimble, materialistic tendencies, Betty Crocker cake mixes, white privilege, ivory hand mirrors, and stereotypical American ignorance, to name a few. However, the things they leave with are significantly different. They took away a sense of enlightenment, worldly balance, guilt, and shame from Africa, and, most importantly, the loss of Ruth May. Throughout The Posionwood Bible, the Congo molded the Price women, it shaped their souls. Orleanna, Rachel, Leah, Adah, and Ruth May were all affected by their time in the Congo, varying greatly in their final philosophical perceptions— they lie on a spectrum of apathy to deliberating guilt, with cynicism, realism, and balance speckled throughout the...
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...The Poisonwood Bible contained several symbols, but perhaps the biggest symbol is a parrot left to the Price family by Brother Fowles, Kilanga's previous missionary. This parrot, Methuselah, who seemed to just be a pet in the story, ends up being a major symbol for the Republic of Congo, both of whom had been kept "caged" and had little control over themselves. In the book, the parrot causes some trouble amongst the Price family by mimicking profanity expressed by Orleanna. After Methuselah repeated some more profane language, Nathan decided it would be best to set the parrot free. This troublesome behavior can be compared to the actions of the citizens of the Congo trying to gain freedom from their owners, the Belgians. When the Price family...
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...A Poison Tree: Concealed Anger and Growing Wrath When confronting growing anger, humans are more likely to confront their friends than their foes. William Blake’s A Poison Tree confronts the issues of concealing one’s anger. By using metaphor and symbolism the speaker indicates that concealing one’s anger will cause the anger to grow out of control. The speaker in A Poison Tree indicates that concealing one’s anger will cause the anger to grow out of control by using metaphor. The most important metaphor used in A Poison Tree is that wrath is a growing tree. This metaphor is shown in the poem with the quote, “I was angry with my foe:/ I told it not, my wrath did grow.” (Blake 2-3). This metaphor is also shown with the title of William Blake’s poem “A Poison Tree.” This extended metaphor shows that wrath is a growing tree. This metaphor compares a growing tree to wrath. This shows that wrath is a growing organism. This growing tree came to be from the wrath being concealed. This helps support the theme because it shows the intense growing of wrath when one does not tell one’s foe about one’s wrath. The speaker in A Poison Tree indicates the theme by using symbolism. One of the symbols in A Poison Tree is smiles and deceitful wiles representing falsehood and lies to the speaker’s foe. The speaker did not speak of his wrath, therefore he “sunned it with smiles,/ And with soft deceitful wiles.” (Blake 7-8). This supports the theme because it shows that not speaking of one’s wrath...
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...In The Posionwood Bible, Barbara Kingsolver examines the interactions between differing mindsets of the Price Family. Nathan, the abusive patriarch of the Price family, purposely sacrifices his family for his own salvation. Nathan Price beleaguered and demeaned his family especially his wife, Orleanna, because of his own guilt over his failures during WW2. Nathan feels like in God’s eyes he is despised and labels himself as a coward, to counteract his faults by devoting his life to missionary work. As his first act of sacrificing his family, Nathan forces his family to move to the dangerous jungles of the Congo for his own mission to save the souls of the Congolese and rid himself of his own cowardice. However his devotion to God is not to save others but to feed his own ego and...
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...Reverend Nathan Price is diversely defined by each of each of his daughters and wife at the beginning of the Poisonwood Bible. Throughout the story each of the girls opinions of their father begin to change and the reader is able to determine and build his/her own opinion of Nathan Price. Orleanna, Leah, Adah, Rachel, and Ruth May portray their own side of Nathan throughout their chapters, giving the reader enough information to formulate an explanation for his actions and beliefs. Although we do hear her side of the story, Orleanna is not outspoken with her family. We hear from Orleanna in her chapters of the regret she has of never having a life of her own because of everything that she had given up for her husband or daughters. Although at the beginning of their marriage Orleanna loved the man that Nathan was, quickly after he was drafted into World War II everything seemed to change. When...
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...The Impact of Childhood The Poisonwood Bible ,by Barbara Kingswood, is a remarkable tale that expresses the several political transitions in the Congo through the eyes of a Baptist family. Nathan Price , a cruel and ironically a fiercely religious man, is the head of this family followed by his once effervescent wife, Orleanna, and his four daughters; Rachel the eldest and vainest, Leah, a tomboy who strives for her father's attention, Adah, Leah's disabled and genius twin, and Ruth May the youngest of the family. In the midst of several familial struggles, the conflict between Adah and Nathan Price is one that greatly contributes to the interpretation of this piece. At their birth, Adah and Leah appear to be a healthy set of twins. However, as time passes it is discovered that the left side of Adah's body is paralyzed because of a lack of nutrients in the womb. Due to her condition, she spends her detached from the world and maintains a cynical perspective at a young age which can be seen in her words concerning her twin," But I am a lame gallimaufry and she remains perfect" ( Kingsolver 34). Over the course of her early life, she maintains her position as an observer in the life of others and absorbs much information. Clearly, Adah's disability greatly affects her outlook on life....
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...In the modern day, America faces constant problems of inequality, yet we are conditioned to have a notion of superiority to other countries with similar problems. This ultimately leads the American people to become more ignorant. Similarly, The Poisonwood Bible, a novel by Barbara Kingsolver, introduces characters that are forced to deal with their ignorance in the Congo, as well as reflect on their inner self. The main theme Kingsolver touches upon are the ideas of indifference and ignorance, and whether or not it is part of the human conscience to escape. Typically, Americans are not aware of the many atrocities that occur in other countries. Even when they recognize these unjust acts, they tend to look down on these poor countries in which...
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...The Poisonwood Bible “I used to threaten Ruth May’s life so carelessly just to make her behave. Now I had to face the possibility that we really could lose her.”(kingsolver-3.5.130) Often times the true value of something is not realized until it could be lost, especially a human life. This is a problem that the entire Price family had to face after Ruth May’s death. How did they respond to her death? Well, it was different for the entire family. The reaction that stands out the most is Leah, she didn't take Ruth May’s life for granted, she always realized the true value in everyone and everything. The reason Leah always understood true value is not by coincidence, it is because she was always the one in the family making sacrifices. The sacrifices...
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...Alejandro Fasquelle September 22, 2013 English Lit. C Leah: Voice Essay Tall men with dark skin are using the red car with old tires. They are headed towards the big yellow grocery shop. Details are used everywhere because they help to explain ideas, events, panoramas, and others. But when over used they can become exhausting to the reader. Leah, a character from the book “The Poisonwood Bible” by Barbara Kingsolver has a very distinctive way of speaking. Leah’s voice is very detailed and descriptive which shows us how she is very meticulous. She expresses this characteristic through diction, syntax, and figurative language. Leah’s diction is very advanced since her words choices are very sophisticated. She used words like “contemptuous,” as well as different synonyms when talking about the same thing. She also described things with a lot detail like when she described her father, while he was gardening: “a film of red dust on his hair and eyebrows and the tip of his strong chin gave him a fetish look true to his nature.” Her speech is so descriptive that it’s not hard to imagine in great detail whatever she describes. Leah’s diction is very wonderful and great and if she were to write a book it would be a pleasant experience for any reader. Her diction might be one thing, but structure or syntax of her writing is different. Since she is very descriptive some of her sentences are very long so Leah uses many commas and conjunctions. Sometimes her sentences can look long...
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...I was very pleasantly surprised by the novel Poison. I had expected the book to be like the other young adult dystopian novels that I have read recently, which I still enjoy, but it was very different. Poison is the first novel in the Wind Dancer series written by Lan Chan. It is the story of a 16 year old girl named Aurora Gray, and takes place in post-apocalyptic Australia where scientists known as the seeders have poisoned the plan and made it illegal to save any seeds for future use, in order to maintain control on the country. Aurora is what is known as a wind dancer, and when she was a child worked in the circus at the citadel as an aerialist. When Aurora was six, her mother was killed by the seeders for being a Wanderer, and six years...
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...“That one, brother, he bite” (Kingsolver 39), Mama Tataba says as she warns Father about the Poisonwood. The white sap seeps from the frayed bark, but this doesn’t stop the Reverend. He forces Africa to conform to him, yet it fights back leaving him with a repulsive rash the following day. Barbara Kingsolver’s novel The Poisonwood Bible shows a vivid explanation of how the Congo controls its natives and guests. The feverish father, husband, and Baptist priest, Nathan Price, drags his four girls and wife to do missionary work into the center of the Congo. Little did they know, this would be the start of a whole new world. Shortly into the book Father, with the green thumb, begins to start his vegetable garden. “You can’t bring the bees” (Kingsolver...
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...In Barbara Kingsolver's novel, The Poisonwood Bible, one can obviously see support for Edith Wharton's claim that "lighting up episodes" serve as windows into the significance of a work. Here, Kingsolver uses the passing of most youthful girl Ruth May as a window into the subject of blame and its place on the planet. Through the family's responses to her passing and Ruth May's message to her mom, Kingsolver builds up the subject of blame and obligation. It is fascinating to take note of the diverse responses and ways of dealing with stress every relative utilizes in reacting to Ruth May's passing. Her dad promptly says "She wasn't purified through water," and spends whatever is left of his life going insane in the wilderness attempting to...
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