Analysis Of Barbara Kingsolver's Rachel Price From The Poisonwood Bible

Does situation make the conformist? As a result of human instinct, people adapt and assimilate to the society around them as a survival tactic. This state of conformity often lasts an entire lifetime; continually taking in the thoughts, expectations, and attitudes of those surrounding the individual and becoming a model of what is interpreted to be society’s ideal. However, distinguishing the difference between growth and individuality, and mere changes that occur from society’s fluctuations in the norms causes debate. A literary character that highlights this dispute is Barbara Kingsolver’s Rachel Price from The Poisonwood Bible who is a nonconformist who after growing up in a household and society of oppression, presents to the public the

desired American social standard of a woman, but in action grows to shows her true nature of rebellion.
Rachel ventures away from the norm and the beliefs taught to her as a child by using seduction and promiscuity to her advantage to survive in life. Nathan had preached against the Congolese nudity and polyamory as he saw it to be boastful sexuality and described by Orleanna as “... profoundly embarrassed by my pregnancies. To his way of thinking they were unearned blessings, and furthermore each one drew God’s attention anew to my having a vagina and his having a penis and the fact we’d laid them near enough together to conceive a child… [Nathan] blaming me for my wantonness” (Kingsolver, Poisonwood 198). She broke away from this belief by having several husbands throughout her life and being the most sexual and vain of the four daughters. Each of these husbands surve a purpose to her in some way: Axelroot is an escape from her household and the Congo, Daniel is to escape Axelroot and move up to a higher class of living, and Remy is to financially secure her. Rachel realizes her sexuality is a bartering chip, using flirtation and manipulation to show just how far she was willing to go to save herself; her sexual politics are a form of self preservation. This employment of her sexuality causes her to have closer ties to the women of Kilanga who are not shameful of nudity or negotiating favors from a husband against the other wives; it is their power and salvation (Kilpatrick). Rachel’s evolution into sexual empowerment is illustrated most clearly through two of her malaprops: “I’m willing to be a philanderist for peace” and “Maybe he’s been in Africa so long he has forgotten that we Christians have our own system of marriage, and it is called Monotony” (Kingsolver, Poisonwood 269,405). Both of which are ironic as philanderer means womanizer which is what Rachel comes to find Axelroot is and what Rachel becomes as she enters several marriages and is involved in adultery, while also showing she believes marriage is boring and tiring.
During the 1960s, the average American woman was to be a housewife to their husband or father, but Rachel was repulsed by this idea.

She equated this work to slavery exclaiming, “Mother was confused, but she always has the good manners to be hospitalizing even to perfect strangers, so she asked them in and told me to run squeeze some orange juice. So back to the kitchen for Rachel the slave!” (Kingsolver, Poisonwood 246). This societal expectation is not ideal for her; it isn’t her dream or fantasy. Rachel is not known for her hospitality or pleasantries like what was expected of a woman: to be submissive, nurturing, and agreeable (Strickland). A woman is stereotyped as being sociable and fostering relationships with those meaningful to them. However, this is not the case for Rachel who isolates herself from all personal connections and being involved in her loved ones lives, from not visiting them to not listening to their stories when they are around, to failing to recognize her nieces and nephews as her own. Instead, she seeks the company of strangers in the Equatorial and even that is only to a limited degree and time and is surface level company. This causes many to label her as a "failure as a true woman [who] underscores the deep connection between commercialism, imperialism, and domesticity that domestic fiction attempts to unmask" (Jacobson). Rachel rejects the cookiecutter and passive life of a housewife for the active role of a business woman. Thus, breaking away from the patriarchal oppression of society in exchange for power and control in her life just as the other Price women are acknowledged for doing (Krishnamurthy). She is establishing the freedom and independence that she was not granted in the hierarchy of her household and society. Rachel is shattering the American time period’s mold of what it is to be a woman, though it is often disregarded because she is not congenial while she does so, but that in itself is breaking the confines of

society’s ideas of what a woman is.
Moreover, vulnerability and openness are frequently connotated with women and girls in American culture, yet Rachel has built a resilient wall around herself. It is part of her isolation from others, hiding her true self from their eyes. Even her mother, Orleanna, attempting to fulfill her motherly duties is kept away from her truth, divulging “Sometimes she tries to get chummy and ask me a lot of personal questions. She’s hoping to find out, Who is the real Rachel Price? But I won’t tell her. I prefer to remain anomalous” (Kingsolver, Poisonwood 270). This subtle confession exposes that the Rachel the reader sees and that the other characters refer to, is not her true nature and self. In these brief moments of vulnerability, Rachel shows a fear of death, tragic associations, and emotional intimacy, which are why “Rachel insists on maintaining a placid, albeit isolated, life” (Kilpatrick). All of which are not the emphasized image of American domesticity and womanhood. The facade she builds for herself in turn takes her one more step away from the societal standard. Rachel’s depiction of strength contrasts directly with the illustration of women as weak and feeble.