The Themes Of Guilt In The Poisonwood Bible By Barbara Kingsolver

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Recommended: Marginalisation of women in religion

Guilt is a powerful force in humans. It can be the factor that alters someone's life. On the other hand, forgiveness can be just as powerful. In The Poisonwood Bible by Barbara Kingsolver, her characters-the Price family-travel to Africa on a religious mission. Throughout the novel, the concept of guilt and forgiveness is reflected on multiple occasions. Each character has a different experience with guilt and how it affects them in the end. By structuring The Poisonwood Bible to include five different narrators, Kingsolver highlights the unique guilt and forgiveness to each individual experiences as well expresses the similarities that all humans face with these complex emotions. One of the first ways Kingsolver shows the difference of guilt …show more content…

From her first section Orleanna expresses the blame she places on herself by stating: “How could a mother live with herself to blame?”(Kingsolver 6). That blame is the condition of her ability to narrate from the future. Therefore the guilt she experiences cannot relate to how her daughters present theirs. The difference in timelines in which the Price women narrate highlights the how structure is utilized throughout The Poisonwood Bible and effects structure can have on developing guilt. In The Poisonwood Bible, Orleanna's guilt stems from multiple places which is reflected by the multiple point of views that occur throughout the framework of the novel. For one example, she often discloses that she feels like she failed in trying to protect her daughters from “absorb[ing] that awful rain” that is Nathan Price’s ideology (Kingsolver 192). Orleanna reveals that while she did attempt to “shield” her daughters; nothing she could have done would not hurt her children in return. This helplessness Orleanna faced as a woman under Nathan’s control is part of the reason she carries such a heavy guilt with her. Orleanna expresses a sense of failure as the chief protector of her daughters. Orleanna confesses that all the answers she

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