The Poisonwood Bible is a novel written by Barbara Kingsolver, portraying the life of the Price family, coming from Georgia to the Congo as a missionary family. By analyzing the cultural arrogance Kingsolver includes in the novel, it is possible to understand the many compositions the bring books, in relation to how the people live in comparison to different geographical and economical locations of the country, why certain things are necessary to happen and the relation of nature and man. Analyzing the cultural arrogance allows the readers to understand the two major perspectives in the book, and how they interact with each other.
The cultural arrogance found in this book is the driving force of any and all conflicts in the book, because it is the cause of conflict between nations, between the people in these nations, and last but not least, between the man and nature. Firstly, and more obviously, cultural arrogance will create a conflict between people of different nations. The Price family moves into Kilanga, a village in the middle of the Congo, thinking they know the most for coming from highly educated country. This means that this family alienates themselves from the rest of the village because of their way of thinking, avoiding any help from the neighbors, and judging their way of life, including their religion. As a missionary family, they went into Kilanga to try to convert the people there into Christianity. However, they failed their mission because they were unable to adapting their lives and way of thinking into the lives of the Congolese people, therefore they were unable to reach to them and teach them the “correct” way of living. This arrogance was in a much localized area, where it couldn’t affect many pe...
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...er, and the outcomes of this way of thinking in every corner of the story.
Works Cited
Kingsolver, B. (2005). The Poisonwood Bible: a novel. New York: Harper Perennial.
Nzongola-Ntalaja, Georges. "Patrice Lumumba: The Most Important Assassination of the 20th Century." The Guardian. N.p., 17 Jan. 2011. Web. 20 Oct. 2013. .
Wallerstein, Immanuel, and Dennis D. Cordell. "Patrice Lumumba (Congolese Politician)." Encyclopedia Britannica Online. Encyclopedia Britannica, n.d. Web. 20 Oct. 2013. .
Eley, Tom. "World Socialist Web Site." Fifty Years since the Murder of Patrice Lumumba. N.p., 22 Jan. 2011. Web. 20 Oct. 2013. .
The change in narrators in The Poisonwood Bible by Barbara Kingsolver conveys the theme of western arrogance through naiveté, malapropisms, and the change in mentality found in the various narrations of the characters.
In Barbara Kingsolver’s novel The Poisonwood Bible, characters Adah and Rachel Price differ in their outlooks on life. Adah contrasts Rachel with her inside reality, her dark fiction, as well as her dependence on others due to her slant. Rachel, on the other hand, loves the outside reality, compares her life to that of a light fairy tale, and is independent. Kingsolver’s choice of two vastly different characters aids in the demonstration of the complexity each character has. In order to portray each character’s aspects, Kingsolver uses forms of diction, metaphors, and symbolism.
In “The Poisonwood Bible,” Barbara Kingsolver illuminates on how a rift from one’s homeland and family can simultaneously bring agonizing isolation and an eye opening perspective on life through Leah Price’s character development. As a child exiled away to a foreign country, Leah faces the dysfunction and selfishness of her family that not only separates them from the Congolese, but from each other while she also learns to objectify against tyrants and embrace a new culture.
Nathan Price is the epitome of opposition in regard to cultural ignorance and global injustice. When Anatole is first introduced, he is invited to dinner with the Price family. At dinner Anatole tries to explain to Reverend Price that “Tata Ndu is concerned about the moral decline of his village”(127) because of the introduction of Christianity that is causing many Congolese to disregard their traditional religious duties. Anatole also tells Nathan that the villagers are carefully watching to see whether the Price’s god is capable of bringing them better luck than their local gods. In trying to explain this situation to Nathan, Anatole explains that most, if not all, of the congregation present in the Reverend’s church are known as “the lenzuka”(128). These are the people who have either shamed themselves or have had very bad luck. Such bad luck in fact, that many of the peo...
"We are supposed to be calling the shots here, but it doesn't look to me like we're in charge of anything, not ever our own selves." This quote reveals Prices inability to convert the Kilanga through his astringent witnessing techniques. It was Price’s intent as a missionary to lead the masses to God. In the end, it was his stubbornness and unwillingness to change that caused him to lose his family. It also resulted in him losing his life after being attacked by angry villagers who blamed him for the deaths of their children in the river. His efforts in leading the village to Christ ended up to be what turned everyone away.
The Poisonwood Bible by Barbara Kingsolver is a work of historical fiction. The novel is based the Congo in 1959, while it was still under Belgian control. Nathan Price is a southern Baptist preacher from Bethlehem, Georgia who uproots his family, consisting of wife and three daughters, and takes them on a mission trip to Kilanga. Orleanna Price, Nathan’s wife, narrates the beginning of each book within the novel. Rachel, Leah, Adah, and Ruth May rotate the narration throughout each book. Rachel is the oldest Price child, and high materialistic. She refuses to accept the ways of the Congo, believing that she is better than everyone simply because of where she had her start in life. Leah is the next oldest, and she is a self-proclaimed tomboy. She likes to climb trees and practically worships at the feet of her father. Adah is the handicapped one, with a physical deformity. However, this deformity does not limit her, instead making her the smartest of the Price girls. Ruth May is the baby of the family, and has not yet lost the childhood innocence that she views the world with. Barbara Kingsolver uses a very interesting narrative style in the novel, switching between four narrators between the ages of five and fifteen, who are all female. Kingsolver's use of multiple narrative perspectives serve to amplify life in the Congo during the early 1960s through characterization, religion, and politics.
George Washington Williams was a black American. He had come to the Congo over a route that seemed almost as if it took him through several different lives. He was in the U.S. Army, fought battles, attended University`s, and graduated from Newton in 1874. Williams married and became a pastor. He also created a milestone in the literature of human rights and of investigative journalism. This work is titled An Open Letter to His Serne Majesty Leopold 2nd , King of the Belgians and Sovereign of the Independent State of Congo, by Colonel the Honorable Geo.W. Williams, of the Untied States of America(102). As well as submitting a statement to the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations urging recognition of the International Association of the Congo. Williams had a plan to go to the Congo to collect material for his book. As Williams traveled up the the great river he had time to take in Africa. When he reached Stanley Falls he could no longer contain what he had felt and saw. He then writes h...
The actions of our ancestors precede us thus making it impossible to change the impact they imprint on our lives. Whether it be acts of heroics or conflict that lead to destruction, everyone is marked by their predecessors at birth. This is Leah Price’s burden. Leah, a character from the novel The Poisonwood Bible whose father seeks to revolutionize the Congo. From the first step off the plane his actions had already affected her reputation to the native people. At the beginning she accepts this status that is placed on her by her father and blindly follows his every step. She admires his ideal of justice of a white man civilizing the Congo and she steals from this. Her theory of justice ,the one of bringing the barbaric Congo on its knees
One can easily note the physical and sexual violence brought upon the people (black and white) of Congo after independence, but we must locate the other forms of violence in order to bring the entire story of Patrice Lumumba to light. The director’s attempt at bringing the story of Patrice Lumumba to the “silver screen” had political intentions.
Around the 1970s, due to South Africa’s internal contradictions with its economy and people, the Apartheid began its slow demise. Soon the united nation began to take notice of South Africa and began to get involved. With South Africa now in the spot light, Prime Minister P.W Botha left office due to his belief that he had failed to keep order in the country. After the reassignment of P.W Botha, F.W Klerk had taken office. The final stage of the demise of the Apartheid began when Klerk lifted the ban off the ANC and other African political parties. The last blow was the release of Nelson Mandela after 27 years in prison. Now that South Africa’s hope was out of prison he continued to ...
Over the course of human history, many believe that the “Congo Free State”, which lasted from the 1880s to the early 1900s, was one of the worst colonial states in the age of Imperialism and was one of the worst humanitarian disasters over time. Brutal methods of collecting rubber, which led to the deaths of countless Africans along with Europeans, as well as a lack of concern from the Belgian government aside from the King, combined to create the most potent example of the evils of colonialism in the late nineteenth and early twentieth century’s. The Congo colonial experience, first as the Congo Free State then later as Belgian Congo, was harmful to that region of Africa both then and now because of the lack of Belgian and International attention on the colony except for short times, the widespread economic exploitation of the rubber resources of the region, and the brutal mistreatment and near-genocide of the Congolese by those in charge of rubber collecting.
Soon after the missionaries began to teach the tribal people about the Christian faith, their tribal customs began to be questioned. This caused a sense of unrest in the village. The missionaries were trying to bring with them new ways of life, and mostly better ways of life. Mr.Achebe tries to show us that the missionaries showed people who were hurt by the beliefs of the tribe that this did not have to go on in their religion. This is one of the main reason people switched to their religion.
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stories caused both flawed characters with their wild ambition to attempt to stop or change the
“I believe that the biggest factor which changed South Africa’s government was the international pressure it got, mostly from the UN. I would love to believe that South Africa’s government eventually understood their mistakes but the UN played a huge role. Without the tension from the United Nations, I probably wouldn’t have been able to get out of prison as soon as I did.”