WCTA English 12 Honors
Summer Reading Assignment
The Poisonwood Bible by Barbara Kingsolver
First published in 1998
Pulitzer Prize finalist
Oprah’s Book Club – June 2000
First Person POV from FIVE different perspectives
ORGANIZATION OF THE NOVEL:
The novel is divided into seven different “books,” each opening with an epigraph. Read each epigraph
carefully and consider why Kingsolver chooses these words for each “book” of her novel. The books are
Book One: Genesis, Book Two: The Revelation, Book Three: The Judges, Book Four: Bel and the
Serpent, Book Five: Exodus, Book Six: Song of the Three Children, Book Seven: The Eyes in the Trees.
The chapters within each “book” are named for narrators of the chapters along with a chapter title, the
place, and the date.
The Poisonwood Bible will be the major work anchoring our studies throughout the first few weeks of the
school year, so please be sure that you will have access to a copy of the novel throughout the first several
weeks. Students should acquire a paper copy of the novel. Critical reading and thoughtful annotation of
the novel is crucial to success. In addition, be sure to define any unfamiliar vocabulary words. The
Poisonwood Bible is filled with allusions, so it is essential that you look up any allusions that are foreign
to you. Lastly, many historical figures from both the United States and post-colonial Africa are mentioned
in the novel. You will greatly enhance your understanding of the novel if you are familiar with the
significance of these people during this time period in history. We will culminate our study of this novel
with a research project investigating ethnocentrism around the globe in the 20th and 21st centuries.
SYNOPSIS and COMMENTARY
The Poisonwood Bible is a story told by the wife and the 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. What follows is a suspenseful epic of one family's
tragic undoing and remarkable reconstruction over the course of three decades in postcolonial Africa.
The novel is set against one of the most dramatic political chronicles of the twentieth century: the Congo's
fight for independence from Belgium, the murder of its first elected prime minister, the CIA coup to
install his replacement, and the insidious progress of a world economic order that robs the fledgling
African nation of its autonomy. Against this backdrop, Orleanna Price reconstructs the story of her
evangelist husband's part in the Western assault on Africa, a tale indelibly darkened by her own losses and
unanswerable questions about her own culpability. Also narrating the story, by turns, are her four
daughters--the self-centered, teenaged Rachel; shrewd adolescent twins Leah and Adah; and Ruth May, a
prescient five-year-old. These sharply observant girls, who arrive in the Congo with racial preconceptions
forged in 1950s Georgia, will be marked in surprisingly different ways by their father's intractable
mission, and by Africa itself. Ultimately each must strike out on her own separate path to salvation. Their
passionately intertwined stories become a compelling exploration of moral risk and personal
responsibility.
Dancing between the dark comedy of human failings and the breathtaking possibilities of human hope,
The Poisonwood Bible possesses all that has distinguished Barbara Kingsolver's previous work and
extends this beloved writer's vision to an entirely new level. Taking its place alongside the classic works
1
of postcolonial literature, this ambitious novel establishes Kingsolver as one of the most thoughtful and
daring of modern writers.
In preparation for our study of the novel, please complete the following five assignments:
#1.
Pay particular attention to the following passages and annotate these three passages using close
reading annotation strategies. The annotation of these three sections will be checked the second
day of class:
A. From Leah Price’s first section in “The Things We Carried: Kilanga, 1959” in Book One:
Genesis which begins at the beginning of the section and ends “the same as pierced ears.”
B. From Rachel’s first section of “What We Lost: Kilanga, January 17, 1961” Book Four: Bel
and the Serpent which begins “Maybe I shouldn’t say so” and ends “beat the pants off
anybody in the room.”
C. From Adah Price: Emory Hospital, Atlanta, Christmas, 1968” in Book Five: Exodus, which
begins “I am losing my slant” and ends “Mother May We?”
2
Name:__________________________________________________Date:__________Period:________
The following assignments will be collected, for a grade, on the third day of class.
#2. Define the following words:
WORD
1. Ethnocentrism
DEFINITION
2. vitriolic
3. disingenuous
4. melodramatic
5. wistful
6. pragmatism
7. insight
8. intrusiveness
9. omniscience
10. introspection
11. colloquial
12. deferential
13. reverent
14. irresolute
3
Name:______________________________________________________Date:_________Period:_____
#3. Define the following literary terms:
LITERARY TERM
1. allusion
DEFINITION
2. anaphora
3. aphorism
4. conceit
5. diction
6. ellipsis
7. epigraph
8. hyperbole
9. litotes
10. malapropism
11. metonymy
4
12. non sequitur
13. palindrome
14. paradox
15. synecdoche
16. syntax
17. tautology
#4. Understand the references to the following allusions, people, events, or objects:
Person, Place,
Event, or Object
Alluded to in the
novel.
Okapi
Who or what is this?
Quasimodo
European Settlement
of the Congo/Africa
5
Explain the connection to the novel. Why
is it mentioned?
King Leopold/
Belgium/ Race for
Africa
Leopoldville
Patrice Lumumba
Congo’s
Independence Day
Jim Crow Laws
Dwight D.
Eisenhower
Eleanor Roosevelt
JFK
6
George F. Keenan
Methuselah
Tower of Babel
Lot and his wife
Genesis
Garden (of Eden)
There are many, many more allusions in the novel. Be sure to look up any that are unfamiliar to you in
order to understand how the references illuminate one or more of the following: theme, setting,
characterization, symbolism, etc.
Continue on to page 8
7
#5. Directions: Trace the journey that each character takes throughout the novel. What happens to each of these characters in each book of the novel?
Jot down the significant events using bullet points.
Character
Genesis
The Revelation
The Judges
Bel and the
Serpent
Orleanna
Rachel
8
Exodus
Song of the
Three Children
Eyes in the
Trees
Leah
Adah
9
Ruth May
Nathan Price
10
11