The Poisonwood Bible Character Analysis

Bestolarides 1
Paul Bestolarides
Professor Stark
HRS 196: Global Histories
18 May 2015
Visions of the Cosmopolitan in The Poisonwood Bible
In Barbara Kingsolver’s The Poisonwood Bible, an American family resides in the Congo in 1959, determined to spread the message of Christianity to the villagers. The novel wields a cast of contemporary U.S. characters that are forced to observe the existence of the African people. The chapters that Kingsolver strategically strings together are with knowledge of a ‘post-colonial’ mindset, limiting each character’s perspective to various Cosmopolitan outcomes. Here, the novel plays as a re-examination of the non-linear structure as a means to collect the beliefs about African religion, politics,

agriculture, and living conditions. With this ideology, the attitudes of each of the narrators in The Poisonwood Bible are how Kingsolver focuses on the effects that Christianity has on the village of Kilanga in the Congo
An illustrious way Kingsolver explores the African community are through her descriptions of the Congo. The Congo plays as a separate entity in the novel. The character, Leah describes, “In Congo, it seems the land owns the people." (Leah, pg. 283).” It is the ‘all-spirit,’ or “muntu,” in African. But, the simplicity of the Congo is often limited to the mistaken title of ignorance. The ignorance lies within the interpretations of African culture and the contributions of Christianity made on Africa. Thus, the missionaries engagement of the African societies bring for a lack for a better term, are ‘social consequences.’ This denouncement of African beliefs is America’s dislike of their traditional customs. In whole, post-colonialism America is an argument by Kingsolver that is to be viewed through the lens of the ‘Cosmopolitan.’ The author does not specifically imply in choosing how someone should live or behave, but instead, convey

the result of their actions. The Poisonwood Bible instead focuses on the various Cosmopolitan visions and how they impact the novel in accordance to the characters of Nathan Price and Reverend Fowles. Americans should value identity of others and their religious beliefs, while looking at the missionary as an institutional construct in Africa and seeing the way Kingsolver complicates it.
Through researching African studies, authors much like Ram Desai sees missionaries as an inspired humanitarian motive, (Desai, pgs.

16-19). Most westerners are under the impression that sharing beliefs were all good for the African tribes. But, with Western attempts, the contribution of converting tribes to Christianity can be rather troublesome. This can lead to social consequences in the Cosmopolitan motive. These social consequences are the result of the outcomes for the characters of Nathan and Fowles. As both characters are Christians and assume it’s religious implications, they are fundamentally completely different characters. Nathan and Fowles play as archetypes that Kingsolver presents as missionaries. The Nathan archetype includes the devout Christian who sees every word of the Bible as truthful. Fowles character lives off the experience of the Word of God, in hopes to fulfill his duties diligently. With this in mind, Kingsolver’s main goal is to highlight the characters shared Cosmopolitan interests, with intentions of separate values. And this brings to question if being a Cosmopolitan tie into Christianity? Kingsolver lets live the religious morality play as the novel progresses with purposes to propose a Cosmopolitan ideology. To apply Kingsolver’s interpretation of these character archetypes, we must investigate other cosmopolitan viewpoints as a means to investigate Nathan’s and Fowles’ mindset. The other great thinkers, essential in exploring Kingsolvers’ intentions are the political theorist, Kwame Anthony Appiah, Emmanuel Kant, Appiah and Frantz Fanon. Appiah is a modern cosmopolitanism and popular author. Emmanuel Kant is one of the most influential philosophers as well as arguably the most profound political theorist, Frantz Fanon. With three different visions, the reader will be able to assess Kingsolver’s critique through her intended

lens.
Appiah wants people to strategize a humanistic approach to bettering a world’s outlook. One can assume one of the most helpful outreaches a collaborative group of people can do is through the missionaries of a religious sect. This way there is a more helpful hand, while bringing materialistic goods to share with helpfulness. But, perhaps the humanitarian efforts are not enough to actually emanate shared interests.
Cosmopolitan, Appiah makes an admirable assessment on emphasizing both difference and universality based on a shared morality. To Appiah, forming relationships is essential for a community of individuals of differing belief systems. Appiah concludes Chapter 6 in his book, Cosmopolitanism: Ethics in a World of Strangers, with this particular philosophy: You can make a stranger into a common human if you discover each other’s shared interests. And in keeping this shared interest, it is beneficial in sustaining a culture. By examining a culture of any kind, a connection can be made, concerning how cultures can make up an identity. His seminal book, “Cosmopolitanism,” is a moral manifesto, for a world where identity has become a weapon and where difference has become a cause of pain and suffering. Appiah challenges the reader to look beyond real and imagined boundaries that divide us, and to see our common humanity.
Appiah clarifies the meaning of Cosmopolitanism, by the use of morals by saying: “Cosmopolitanism moral judgment requires us to feel about everyone in the world, what we feel about our liberal neighbors (a strength of feeling that is perhaps exaggerated by the suggestion that for them at least, we would risk our lives, (Appiah, p. 157-158).” In a sense, Appiah’s conclusion is the strongest because it encourages ways individuals can help others in the future. The fact that Appiah’s chapters about ‘Imaginary Strangers, and ‘Kindness to Strangers,’ conveys his initiative to focus on the individual A cosmopolitan must first asses the situation above all else, and that takes effort in critical thinking and obtaining righteous values. With values, we are able to determine the best possible outcome in the world. When determining this
best possible outcome it becomes no longer a choice, but an intelligent decision. Appiah’s use of choice is examined closely. He re-assesses the Western influence and world politics to have us come to the realization we should respond to the aspirations of others, as well. Appiah reveals that preserving a collaborative culture helps continue the cycle of identity. A progressing culture is always changing, and mostly in a positive sense. The culture can nourish itself leading on new traditional practices, and beliefs. The problem we have is with cultural imperialism and to eliminate this problem we must respect others for their differences. The main goal for Kingsolver was to discover a universal problem with clashing cultures.
Immanuel Kant is considered to be an important figure in modern political philosophy. Kant contributes to Appiah’s idea from his writings in his final published essays called ‘Perpetual Peace (1975).’ In his essay, he proposes a peace treaty to be implemented by governments. His advocating was made famous because he wanted world-wide peace. His argument, criticized government inventory, specifically the way they organize the states. “The establishment of a world state would involve the development of a new kind of law which would supplant the law of nations, (Thompson, pg. 18).” With this quote, Kant is aiming at a world with citizens of an equal amount of status with external mutual relationships. He continues stating, “The point is, however, that political structure must follow community, not precede it, (Thompson, pg. 20).” Kant argues that the ‘league of states,’ should not acquire any military ‘powers because that would violate the internal sovereignty of states, (http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/cosmopolitanism/).’ Kant’s idea was to look beyond man’s individual development by progressing by not attaining prejudices of race. Kant believes the nature of man is not evil. The individual, at birth begins with an empty conciousness of the world. But, “the capacities implanted in man by nature are not all for evil: they are, he says, “destined to unfold themselves completely in the course of time, and in accordance with the end to which they are adapted, (The Idea of Universal History from a Cosmopolitan Point of View, 1784, Prop. 1 / Perpetual Peace, Translator’s Introduction, pg. 47).” To an extent, Kant demands the mutual regeneration of man. This implies that man should not reduce their prejudices unto history in order to re-gain a moral sense of other people (Thompson, pg. 56). Like Appiah, both thinkers strive to attain a universal agreement with cultures to better our understanding of cultural values.
Another Cosmopolitan activist that studied the dehumanizing effects of colonization is Afro-American, Frantz Fanon. In his famous book, ‘The Wretched of the Earth,’ Fanon uses a psychological approach to see the effects of individuals of both man and woman in establishing a social movement brought upon by a nation. Like Kant, Fanon explores the dangers of the separation of states and their overarching effects. Fanon’s novel describes the psychological prescience of citizens in other lands as either the rule of ‘slave or master,’ (Fanon, pg. 36-37). This, in a sense, in context is the intellectual approach as the inception to a revolution. Thus, the classless society, or the ‘lumpenproletariat,’ is unlikely to never achieve a class consciousness as proposed in a positive sense because of a loss of socially useful productions (The Marxist Archive).
Fanon adds that, “It is not enough for the colonist to affirm that those values have disappeared from, or still better never existed, the colonial world, (Fanon, pg. 41).” He better alludes that all values then, if not all acceptable, are poisoned or discussed once encountered by another colonized race. This is mainly due to religious interference by fanatics who disapprove anything other than the Biblical text (Fanon, pg. 42). Fanon’s logical conclusion can be seen as an ending to the oppression of natives because of religious differences. A strong example to highlight the oppressive nature in Christianity is revealed in the text, “Narrative of the Life of Fredrick Douglas.” Douglas’ autobiography reveals that the slave masters would keep slaves ignorant by oppressing them with false teachings of the Word of God (Douglass, pgs. 2-3). Nathan is guilty of this crime and the reader sees the result of that throughout Kingsolver’s text.