Poisonwood Bible Essay, Research Paper
Barbara Kingsolver is the author of many well-written pieces of literature including The Poisonwood Bible. This novel explores the beauty and hardships that exist in the Belgian Congo in 1959. Told by the wife and four daughters of a fierce Baptist, Nathan Price, Kingsolver clearly captures the realities this family and mission went through during their move to the Congo. The four daughters were raised in Atlanta Georgia in the 1950’s therefore entering the Congo with preconceived racial beliefs, and a very different way of life than they would soon experience. Throughout The Poisonwood Bible Kingsolver explores the importance and impact of faith, and a religion based on your own private beliefs.
Orleanna Price, the wife and mother, of this struggling family is a very honest woman, lacking some of the stronger religious background of which her husband possesses. Orleanna, struggles with the hardships of daily life; toting and disinfecting the family’s water, scrambling to make ends meet and trying to protect her family from the myriad terrors of the bush. Orleanna uses irony to describe the early days of her marriage. As she describes them, the days when there was still room for laughter in her husband’s evangelical calling, before her pregnancies embarrassed him, before he returned from World War II a different man, a man who planned ”to save more souls than had perished on the road from Bataan.” Her husband, Nathan Price, had escaped those miseries simply by luck, and knowing it curled his heart ”like a piece of hard shoe leather.” As her husband continually preaches the good Lord’s word, she is faced with what seems to her to be the more important burdens of life, survival and keeping her family safe and sane. She doesn’t appear to have nearly so strong of a religious background as her husband would have hoped for her, however, throughout the novel it is made quite clear that she is in fact a better person than her husband could have ever hoped to be. Her daughter, Leah, captures her mothers religion very well when she says, “my father wears his faith like the bronze breastplate of God’s foot soldiers, while our mother’s is more like a good cloth coat with a secondhand fit.” This quote is very true, as her father is the evangelical missionary leader who parades his religion around, as he craves for the reputation of being a “good person,” because he preaches the bible. Orleanna does nothing of the sort she worships the lord, because she believes in him, and his word, she does not praise him, simply to look good. As Mathew 6:1 states, “Be careful not to do your ‘acts of righteousness’ before men, to be seen by them. If you do, you will have no reward from your Father in heaven,” Nathan Price, is very hypocritical as he does his good deeds to be noticed, while Orleanna does them out of faith and moral righteousness.
Rachel is the oldest of the four daughters, at 15 years of age, the whiny would-be beauty queen who “cares for naught but appearances,” can think only of what she misses: the five-day deodorant pads she forgot to bring, flush toilets, machine-washed clothes and other things, as she says with her willful gift for malapropism, that she has taken “for granted,” the bible and her faith were no where near the top of her list. Her only way of surviving in the Congo was simply to not adapt at all; as she says ”The way I see Africa, you don’t have to like it but you sure have to admit it’s out there. You have your way of thinking and it has its, and never the train ye shall meet!” Thi
quote not only applies to her views of the Congo, but also of her views on religion. While growing up with her father, her religion was forced upon her, as for their punishment the children were sentenced to “the verse”, in which they were required to right out one hundred lines direct from the bible by memory. She doesn’t seem to enjoy the idea of faith, but there is no doubt that she realizes it’s there. Rachel chose to live a very superficial life in the Congo, as she leaves behind not only a life in America, but her religion also.
As for the youngest, 5-year old Ruth May, she brightly tries to make sense of the exotic new world in which she finds herself, even as she makes friends with the children of Kilanga. Through her games of “Mother May I?” she becomes accepted and loved by the Congolese people, and for this reason the other members of the family seem to be jealous of her; for in her childish ways she seems to be the only one accepted by the Congolese people. Ruth May, is the innocent whose words betray the guilty; she is the catalyst that splits the Price family apart. Her religion is found in her innocence, which protects her from the hardships around her. At five years of age, she doesn’t fully understand the bible, or the messages conveyed within it, but God is clearly present in her free-willed spirit that allows her purity to bless those around her. As she plays her childish games, it is as if the Congolese can feel her altruistic spirit therefore they choose to accompany her, when they wouldn’t give any other whites a chance to prove themselves. Ruth May is symbol of how God works in the lives of those who do not have the opportunity to reject him, for out of ignorance only they do not follow him.
Leah, a feisty tomboy, pledges herself to her father’s mission in the face of mounting opposition. She tries with all of her might to be accepted by her father, until she finally realizes what kind of a person her father truly is. Leah’s struggle then becomes the challenge to rebalance herself morally when she finally comes to the realization that her father is simply “an ugly man.” She sees that her father’s ”blue eyes with their left-sided squint, weakened by the war, had a vacant look. His large reddish ears repelled me. My father was a simple, ugly man.” Within her earlier years she practiced her religion in many of her father’s ways, however, as she realizes her fathers true spirit she wanders from this path and chooses to practice her religion, as she feels necessary. Leah not only becomes wed to a Congolese man, Anatole, but to the continent itself; however, she does not fail to come to the conclusion that, ‘‘everything you’re sure is right can be wrong in another place. Especially here.” Although she sees many problems within the Congolese nation she remains there, because of her love for Anatole. It is in this way that she practices her faith, through the eyes of her father, many problems with the Baptist religion were presented to her, however out of her love for God she remained a very religious person. Leah’s religion is a clear example of what faith should be, undying regardless of the difficulties that may stem from that choice.
Adah, damaged since birth and unable (or unwilling) to speak, records her observations of her family with a shrewd poetic intelligence; she is a verbal gymnast, a dedicated diarist, and a profound skeptic. Adah feels somewhat jealous, and irritated with her twin sister, Leah, as she describes how she got her condition. “Oh, I can easily imagine the fetal mishap,” she says, “we were inside the womb together dum-de-dum when Leah suddenly turned and declared, Adah you are just too slow. I am taking all the nourishment here and going on ahead. She grew strong as I grew weak. (Yes! Jesus loves me!) And so it came to pass, in the Eden of our mother’s womb, I was cannibalized by my sister.” Her condition is hemiplegia, which simply means that she is
aralyzed on one half. While referring to her father she feels as if he viewed her condition as, “God’s Christmas bonus to one of his worthier employees.” For Adah, adaptation comes in the form of unforgiving self-discovery, the realization that ”even the crooked girl believed her own life was precious.” Adah chose to remain mute within the earlier years of her life, therefore creating her own beliefs from the beginning, she was never forced to agree with her father; for they didn’t believe she possessed the verbal abilities to do so. However, she was very intelligent and religious, as she refers to the bible within many of her entries in The Poisonwood Bible. Adah chose to make a dedicated commitment to Christ within the earlier stages of her life, a commitment that stayed with her eternally.
Nathan Price narrates nothing, and yet his character is very clearly defined and developed through the females in his family. He is a fiery evangelical missionary, very similar to, Roger Chillingworth, the coldhearted, and judgmental villain of Hawthorne’s “Scarlet Letter.” Both characters believe themselves to be very holy in spirit, when in reality they are closer to the gates of Hell than the Serpent in the Garden of Eden is to sin. Although the Congolese people are reluctant to abandon their traditional deities (and fearful of baptizing their children in the crocodile-infested waters of the nearby river), Nathan vows to convert them. He proves equally oblivious to the welfare of his own family when he refuses their entreaties to leave, even in the face of illness and escalating violence against whites. Indeed he will end up sacrificing the life of one of his daughters, as well as the value of his own, to his self-righteous beliefs. As Nathan’s faith was superficial and to the benefit strictly of himself he was denied the bliss of a life with Christ.
The Congolese People also portrayed a very dedicated view of religion. As Nathan committed his entire life to converting them to his God, he failed to realize that they already did believe. For the Congolese were a faithful nation, they just were oblivious to the actual being of “God.” This was an idea Nathan Price could not comprehend, for the Baptist faith was the only faith he had ever been presented with, or given the knowledge of. The Congolese People simply knew God by a different name, many different names actually, but all of them combined created the same image of what Nathan Price believed in, God. These people helped to show the different forms of which our God takes on, many cultures may appear to be non-believers but in reality each society’s God aims for the same goals.
As this novel is told entry by entry, narrated by the women of the family a clear picture of life in the Congo is very accurately represented as well as the influences of faith on each character. Leah clearly points out, “We’ve all ended up giving up body and soul to Africa, one way or another.” Each of us, she adds, “got our heart buried in six feet of African dirt; we are all co-conspirators here.” This is true of each and every character throughout the novel, as their faith is altered and influenced by the events within their stay in the Belgian Congo. Kingsolver presents to her reader many separate versions of faith, from Nathan’s forever devoted, to Orleanna’s incredibly subtle but morally strong. While reading the passages narrated by the women of the family it is realized, that without your own personal beliefs a life filled with success is unfathomable.
Другие работы по теме:
Beowulf And Irony Essay Research Paper OConnor
Beowulf And Irony Essay, Research Paper O?Connor uses irony in ?Good Country People? to give the reader a better sense of what she is trying to communicate to the reader, and show the meaning
Ecclesiates 318 Essay Research Paper Interpretation of
Ecclesiates 3:1-8 Essay, Research Paper Interpretation of Ecclesiastes 3:1-8 The Bible verses Ecclesiastes 3:1-8 are Solomon?s words as he is telling of the relationship that we may have with God and of His master plan. We are to understand God?s impeccable timing, absolute control, magnificent grace, and eternal glory.
A Crime Of Compassion Essay Research Paper
Who has the right to take one’s life from them? The Supreme Court says that no man shall take the life of another man without punishment. The Bible says, "Thou shalt not kill" (Exodus 20:13), yet humans are still the only
The Poison Wood Bible Essay Research Paper
The Poisonwood Bible is a story told by the wife and four daughters of Nathan Price, a fierce, evangelical Baptist who takes his family and mission to the Belgian Congo in 1959. They carry with them everything they believe they will need from home, but soon find that all of it, from garden seeds to Scripture, is calamitously transformed on African soil.
The Poisonwood Bible Essay Research Paper Adah
The Poisonwood Bible Essay, Research Paper Adah Price: the Embodiment of Congo She says she spent thirty years waiting for the wisdom and maturity to dare write this book. Never has such patience been more rewarded (Forster 3). Yes, Barbara Kingsolver has every right to thirty years of contemplation before attempting to create such a complex political novel as The Poisonwood Bible, and yes, never has such patience been more rewarded, for the novel has opened the eyes of citizens and politicians alike.
William Tyndale Essay Research Paper How has
William Tyndale Essay, Research Paper ?How has William Tyndale?s translation influenced all the following English translations of the Bible?? In 1525, William Tyndale began to write his famous version of the scriptures. Printing had already been achieved, so Tyndale had the desire to give the people a Bible of their own, in their own language.
The Theme Of Uncertain Journey In The
Bean Trees Essay, Research Paper Uncertain journeys are numerous in Barbara Kingsolver’s The Bean Trees. Many characters in the novel put their current lives aside to go off in hopes of finding a better one. By embarking on these journeys, the plot lines begin and end with risk taking. Taylor’s move away from Pittman and her taking Turtle, Louann not going after her husband, and the many risks of Estevan and Esperanza, create conflicts which drive the plot of The Bean Trees.
Adultry Essay Research Paper Adultery is stated
Adultry Essay, Research Paper Adultery is stated 69 times in the bible. It is also the seventh commandment. “Thou shalt not commit adultery”. In every case stated in the bible, the answer
God Existence Essay Research Paper I do
God Existence Essay, Research Paper I do not believe God exists. I have many reasons why I think that there is no God. One of my many reasons is that there is no way that one man could have
Stereotyping In Mona And The Promised Lan
Essay, Research Paper Throughout the book, Mona in the promised land, the main characters are faced with stereotypes which they cannot control. Stereotypes in society shape the way people are perceived. Everyone deals with their stereotype s in a different way. The two characters who deal with the most stereotypes are Mona, and Barbara.
Christians Essay Research Paper I agree with
Christians Essay, Research Paper I agree with the Uncle that the Bible should be analyzed and interpret like any other book. Just because you are a Christian does not mean you can interpret it correctly. I come from a Christian family and we all have read the Bible. But I know that I have interpret parts of the Bible in a different matter then other members of my family, they have as well.
Margery Kempe
– Holy Roller Or Evil Doer Essay, Research Paper Margery Kempe: Holy roller or Evil doer Upon reading, and re-reading, Margery Kempe, I realized just how much this text refers to the Bible. The first thing that I noticed was on pg.299, “she was laboured with great accesses, till the child was born”. I think that it is safe to say that this passage was written with the Bible in mind.
Bean Tree Essay Research Paper In many
Bean Tree Essay, Research Paper In many stories that we read there are characters that use a thing called their attitude they will use this attitude in a way that they look at the ways they live in the story. But these ways are different for each and every character. In the story The Bean Trees by Barbra Kingsolver uses this as the theme.
The Bean Tree Essay Research Paper There
The Bean Tree Essay, Research Paper There are many themes add up to a well-made story. ‘The Bean Trees’ by Barbara Kingsolver, she introduces a lot of themes that develop her well written novel. One of the more obvious themes in the book is that of immigration. There are also several references to child abuse.
Pigs In Heaven Essay Research Paper As
Pigs In Heaven Essay, Research Paper As a sequel to The Bean Trees Barbara Kingsolver?s Pigs in Heaven continues the story of Taylor and Turtle. The main events of the story start at the Hoover Dam where an illegally adopted six-year-old Cherokee kid, Turtle, saved the life of a man who fell off from the dam. This incident brings Turtle and her mother Taylor not only great recognition, but also to the attention of Annawake Fourkiller, a young Cherokee lawyer in Heaven, Oklahoma.
Galileo Essay Research Paper After reading this
Galileo Essay, Research Paper After reading this letter I feel that Galileo had a very opinionated outlook on life and was heavily involved in a struggle for freedom of inquiry. Galileo was a person who had many strong beliefs and would not let people or a document have a say in what he believes.
Proving The Bible Right Essay Research Paper
Proving the Bible Right Now a days it s hard to trust anything. With so many things going wrong in today s society there is one thing that you can trust. That s the Holy Bible. There are many reasons to trust the Bible, the most common is that it s Gods word but for some people that just isn t enough. But if you do your research you learn many more reasons why to trust the Bible.
Review Small Wonder By Barbara Kingsolver Essay
, Research Paper Of bears and bobcats, stars and stripesSmall Wonderby Barbara Kingsolver282pp, FaberBarbara Kingsolver is one of the few American writers who have refused to join George Bush’s cheerleaders. A writer who reminds her readers, as Kingsolver has done, that “every war is both won and lost” would hardly seem extreme over here, but in the US such talk can receive some pretty nasty responses.
Bean Trees Essay Research Paper In the
Bean Trees Essay, Research Paper In the sequel, Pigs in Heaven, how does Kingsolver s solution to the problem of where Turtle belongs strike a balance among the needs of the child, Turtle; the needs of the adoptive mother, Taylor; and the needs of the tribe as represented by Annawake?
Social Critism In The Bean Trees Novel
Essay, Research Paper Throughout the novel, kingsolver shows that poverty is very prominent in the U.S, despite the fact that it is a very rich country. From the
Bean Trees Essay Research Paper The Bean
Bean Trees Essay, Research Paper The Bean Trees, by Barbara Kingsolver, is the story of Taylor Greer and her struggle to find a place to belong. Like Kingsolver, Taylor began her journey in Kentucky and ended in
The Scarlet Letter And The Bean Trees
Essay, Research Paper The Scarlet Letter and The Bean Trees Roles of the Protagonists In The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne and The Bean Trees by Barbara Kingsolver, both authors cast their protagonist as a single, unwed mother. Though the time and setting that they are put into are very different and greatly effects the way the character is portrayed, there are many similarities between the two main characters.
The Importance Of The Bibles Many Interpretations
Essay, Research Paper Having several different translations of the Bible is very important. Each translation highlights different aspects of the book. Providing familiar language to special groups, some interpretations make it easier to understand. Having one translation of the Bible would not make sense , but, several different versions make the Bible able to be read by almost everyone.
Divine Command Essay Research Paper Divine CommandIn
Divine Command Essay, Research Paper Divine Command In my opinion, trying to differentiate between the Divine Command and the acts of God that impinge on one’s consciousness is one in the same. Divine command to me would basically be the entire Holy Bible. An act of God to me is just waking up in the morning and being able to breathe new air and live another day.
Comparison Essay Essay Research Paper Comparison EssayThere
Comparison Essay Essay, Research Paper Comparison Essay There are many different ways to explain the beginning and creation. Genesis and Edith Hamilton?s ?Mythology,? are two of many literary works you can find. Both show how characters were created and formed. They give detailed understanding and examples of creation.
When Loss Is A Gain Bean Tree
Essay, Research Paper When loss is a Gain Barbara Kingsolver makes her characters change and grow through negative experience. The three main character s loses gain them maturity. Barbara Kingsolver s The Bean Trees reveals through the characters Lou Ann, Turtle, and Taylor, that everybody needs to experience some loss before they can mature.
Johan Guttenberg Essay Research Paper Johann GutenbergChoosing
Johan Guttenberg Essay, Research Paper Johann Gutenberg Choosing the man of the millennium is a big job. There are so many candidates to be evaluated, for instance, Martin Luther King Jr., Christopher Columbus, and Charlemagne are among the few people to be considered. One other candidate to be considered was Johann Gutenberg.
The Bean Trees Essay Research Paper There
The Bean Trees Essay, Research Paper There were many sacrificial elements that existed in The Bean Trees. Sacrifices that the characters in the novel made for the benefit of others or themselves. These sacrifices played a role almost as significant as some of the characters in the book. Some prime examples of these sacrifices are Mattie?s will to offer sanction to illegal immigrants, the fact that Taylor sacrificed the whole success of her excursion by taking along an unwanted, abused Native-American infant, and Estevan and Esperanza?s decision to leave behind their daughter for the lives of seventeen other teacher union members.
The Bean Trees Essay Research Paper he
The Bean Trees Essay, Research Paper he Bean Trees Differences in Characters In “The Bean Trees,” by Barbara Kingsolver, readers are given the chance to see how two characters that have completely
She Is Dead Essay Research Paper She
She Is Dead Essay, Research Paper She is dead. She does not appear physically but haunts mentally. She is Codi and Hallie’s mother Alice, the late wife of Homero Noline. Throughout the novel Animal Dreams by Barbara Kingsolver Alice impacted the characters, action,
Inherit The Wind Essay Research Paper In
Inherit The Wind Essay, Research Paper In our Consititution, citizens have many righhts, but do we have the right to think? In the play Inherit the Wind by Jerome Lawrence adn Robert Lee, a man is on trial for teaching his students about the theory of evolution. Drummond, the lawyer for this man, said “With all respect to the bench, I hold that the right to think is very much on trial.”