The Poisonwood Bible
By: Kindra, Liz, Allison, Rachel P,
Rachel A, and Kiri
Setting
• Events take place in Georgia, in the Congo and in
South Africa, depending on which narrative voice is
engaged.
• Most of the novel takes place in Africa from 1959 to
the late 1980s.
• Begins just prior to the Congo’s historic declaration
of independence and the election of the first native
prime minister.
BIG Characters
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Nathan Price – Cruel
Orleanna Price – People Pleaser
Rachel Price – Egotistical
Leah Price – Devoted and Headstrong
Adah Price – Pensive and Cynical
Ruth May Price - Daring and Refreshing
Brother Fowles – Wholesome
Mama Mwanza – Kindness
Anatole – Genuine
Images and Symbols
• The variety of ways the Price women channel
their guilt over Ruth May’s death, whether it be
the “doer” like Leah or the “forgetter” like
Rachel, mirrors the multifarious responses from
U.S. citizens about their country’s part in
exploiting and destroying of the Congo.
Images and Symbols
• Ruth May – Patrice Lumumba: Ruth May has a
vivacious, childish energy and an unfettered
spirit that cannot be touched by her oppressive
father, similarly Lumumba had a charisma and
passion when he spoke that inspired others and
relit the fires the western influences has
extinguished. However, both die prematurely,
before their potential is ever fully tapped into.
• Nathan’s sexism towards his family parallels
the western racism toward the Congolese.
Nathan’s refusal to acknowledge the
intelligence of Leah and Adah; his statement,
““sending a girl to college is like pouring water
in your shoes,” mirrors the Belgian rule that the
Congolese must stop school after age 12, as
Nelson must. Nathan’s failure to see his
daughters independent worth, remarking “not
marrying veers from God’s plan” reflects the
western influences inability to see the
Congolese as human being which breeds their
cruel, inhumane treatment towards them.
Images and Symbols
•Methuselah symbolizes the crippling
effects of oppression, even after he is
granted freedom he is hesitant,
confused, and ultimately ill-equipped
to survive on his own. Adah finds
Methuselah's feathers scattered
around the yard, and realizes that he
has been eaten by a predator on the
day that independence is granted to
the Congo, foreshadow the inability of
the exploited Congo to stand on its
own. Both tragedies show that there
must be an interim period, a time of
learning to bridge the gap from
oppression to freedom.
Motifs
• Handicap: Adah is alienated in
her own culture for her disability
but not in the Congo, the Congo
see their bodies as tools. Mama
Mwanza shows an acceptance
and movement past her
disability, unlike Adah who is
bitter and struggles to define
herself when her disability is
gone. Adah comments that the
Congolese accepts Adah with her
disability but alienates Rachel for
her blonde hair, a contradiction
to the attitude of American
Society.
Motifs
• Animals: Tata Kuvundundu: “The animals will rise up”
• Green Mamba Snake: Ruth May says she will become a green
mama snake after she dies because she is scared of them.
• Okapi: The okapi is a rare beast that suggests a sort of hope in
its transience.
• Ants: The ants demonstrate that even the little of organisms,
when they rise up, are powerful; this provides a sort of
encouragement that the belittled and oppressed are capable of
the same.
• The Lion that “Eats” Adah: This is a David and Goliath tale of
sorts - handicapped girl escaping a lion – and illuminates the
“rooting for the underdog” theme that is prevalent throughout
the book.
Motifs
• Gardens: Nathan’s failed garden, Orleanna’s love of
gardening when she returns home from Africa, Leah
and Anatole’s farm commune
Gardens are seen as the fostering of new life,
and symbolize the ability to grow and adapt.
Nathan’s garden fails because of his stubborn
attitude and inability to change. However, Orleanna
and Leah and Anatole’s success with gardening
speaks volumes of their character, that even after
tragedy, they can adapt and nurture something
different back into life.
Main Topics
• Ignorance
• Grace
• Guilt and its prolonged effects
– Nathan is determined to save souls because of
the guilt he feels from losing his troop to the
Bataan Death March in WW2.
• Religion
• Control by Intimidation
Conflicts
• Nathan Price vs. the land
o
Nathan struggle to plant his seeds in the
African soil using American techniques.
o
“He declared he would make them grow, in
the name of God, or he would plant again.” (p. 63).
Although Nathan took careful note of how he planted his
seeds and took all the right steps, he was ignorant to the
fact that those types of vegetables would not grow in the
Congo. This also leads into the conflict of Nathan and the
Congolese people, just as he was negligent when caring
for the plants, Nathan failed to accept (and learn) their
culture.
Conflicts
• Adah vs. herself
o
Adah is born with a condition that
prohibits her from using the left side of her body and,
not wanting to get in anybody else’s way, she places
herself in voluntary exile from the world, looking on it
as only an observer, rather than an active participant.
• United States vs. the Congo
o
Nathan’s willful ignorance and
mistreatment of the native Congolese correlates to
the American policy/judgment towards the Congo.
o
Countries of power such as the United
States and Belgium feel it is there duty to control
places like the Republic of Congo just as Nathan feels
it is his responsibility to “save” them.
Main Themes
• Arrogance of Western Society: Nathan Price in a political
allegory throughout the story of the cultural arrogance and
sense of superiority the West (aka the United States) feels
over the weaker countries, such as the Congo. Nathan
believes his solutions and religion will help to better the
Congolese people and he continues to try and convert them
to Christianity and the ways of a civilized Western culture.
The US also believed their thoughts and ideas to be superior
and thought they had the right to take out the Congo’s new
leader in order to place what that they deemed fit. Nathan’s
and the United States’ attempts turned sour and didn’t help
or advance the Congo, it hurt the people and the economy.
This shows their arrogance and how they only view things
their way, and don’t take into consideration what is actually
best for this poor country.
Main Themes
• How to deal with the burden of guilt: The author uses the
viewpoints of five different women to show a variety of
ways that people deal with guilt. There is no right answer
and Kingsolver believes there are money different ways
from one extreme being that one blames herself for
everything and goes into a deep depression to the other
extreme of acting as though there is nothing to be guilty
about and that nothing wrong has occurred. In between
these extremes some turn to religion, activism, or science
to deal with what they believe to have done wrong. The
guilt these women feel or deny is not only possibly being
the cause of their sisters death, but they represent what
Americans must feel about potentially being part of what
the United States did to the Congo.
Author’s Position
• The author seems to take a stance that the US
is to blame for what happened in the Congo,
and that their great ideas to “help” the Congo
actually made things worse. They didn’t
understand what was best for them and
caused great damage, leaving people feeling
responsible and confused on how to live with
what they had let happen.
Powaa Scenes
• Genesis
• Opening scene (Orleanna Price's Narration)
– Foreshadowing (6)
– “How do we aim to live with it?” (9)
• Mama Tataba gives Nathan gardening lessons
– Nathan's arrogance (40-41)
•
Revelation
Powaa Scenes
• Breaking of the bone-china platter
– Orleanna's only “pretty thing in the big old mess
they had to live in.”(128 & 134)
• Methuselah is killed
– Foreshadowing/Microcosm
• Judges
• The Nsongonya
– Rising of the oppressed (Microcosm) (299)
Important Quotes
• “How do we aim to live with it?”
• "When I finally got up with sharp grains imbedded in
my knees, I found, to my surprise, that I no longer
believed in God." Adah,171.
• "We are going to make the Congo, for all of Africa, the
heart of light." Patrice Lumumba,184.
• "In Congo, it seems the land owns the people." Leah,
283.
• "Not my clothes, there wasn’t time, and not the Bibleit didn’t seem worth saving at that moment, so help
me God. It had to be my mirror." Rachel, 301.
• “I felt the breath of God go cold on my skin.” Leah,
book 3
Important Quotes
• “I am the unmissionary, as Adah would say, beginning
every day on my knees asking to be converted.” Leah,
book 6
• “But my father needs permission only from the Saviour,
who obviously is all in favor of subduing the untamed
wilderness for a garden.” Leah, 36
• “That one, brother, he bite.” Mama Tataba, 39
• “Around here the people seem content to settle for
whatever scars life whangs them with as a decoration.”
Rachel, 127
• “Live was I ere I saw evil.” Adah, 306
• "The death of something living is the price of our own
survival, and we pay it again and again.” Adah, 347
Examples of Satire
• Words have numerous meanings that differ due to
the slightest change in intonation or sound.
• Nathan Price could just not grasp the language.
Nathan continues to preach that "Tata Jesus is
bangala," which as Adah puts it, “will make you itch
like nobody’s business” (277), however what he
means to say is that Jesus is beloved and precious.
• The word “Bangala” means “dearly beloved” if
spoken slowly, but also is a reference to the
Poisonwood Tree. The village doesn’t understand
why they would want to worship a god that hurts
them, therefore frustrating Nathan.
Important Quotes
• The humor however has a deeper meaning to the
book as a whole.
• Just as poisonwood causes physical pain, the
American religion has a negative effect on the
Congolese in that they reject Christianity when the
congregation has a vote to decide if they favor or
oppose Jesus. It does them absolutely no good for
Nathan to force his religion upon them.
• This passage allows Kingsolver to assert that what is
good in one culture may not be good in another. As
Nathan misuses the word bangala, Kingsolver
underscores his ignorance to learn the language
and culture of the Congolese.