The Poisonwood Bible

by Barbara Kingsolver 1998

An Introduction
"Whoever fights monsters should
see to it that in the process he
does not become a monster. And
when you look into the abyss, the
abyss also looks into you.“

–Friedrich Nietzsche
 Basic Framework of the Novel
 Told from the first person point of view of 5 women:
Orleanna, Rachel, Leah, Adah, and Ruth May.
 1950’s-1980’s A missionary family from Georgia go to
the Congo in Africa to spread the word of God. Time of
terrible turmoil in Congo.
 Congo is under Belgian control in 1959 when the Price
family goes to Africa, and the Congolese are working
toward a rebellion to gain their freedom. Congo
receives independence from Belgium in 1960 but no
stable government
The Price Family
Nathan Price: Patriarch of the family. He is a
southern Baptist preacher from Bethlehem,
Georgia who moves his family to The Congo in
Africa to do missionary work (obsessively so) in
the name of God. He is an abusive father and
husband. He is also a A WWII war vet. He is the
ONLY major character in the novel that the reader
never directly hears from.
 The Price Women: 5 POVs in the novel

Orleanna Price: PEOPLE PLEASER Wife to

Nathan Price and mother of the four Price
daughters, Rachel, Leah, Adah, and Ruth May.
She married young and with a very naïve view
on marriage. Her point of view is heard from
after the Prices return home to Georgia. She
writes, in the beginning, as if she is talking
directly to the reader and she is very reflective
of events that already occurred. She was also
abused by her husband and, you could argue,
regretted being a preacher’s wife.

“I could never word out whether we were to view

Religion as a life-insurance policy or life sentence” (96).
 The Price Women: 5 POVs in the novel

Rachel Price: EGOTISTICAL Oldest of the Price

children. She is 15 going on 16 when the family
moves to Africa. She is the typical teenager,
thinking about her friends and her clothes and
her hair. She is extremely selfish and there are
many examples of Rachel butting heads with all
the other characters in the novel. What makes
her unique is that she is the only family member
with pale blond hair and pale skin.

“And no primping, because the only mirror we have in the

house is my faux-mirror brought from home, which we all
have to share” (43).
The Price Women: 5 POVs in the novel
“My father, of course, was bringing the Word of God—
which fortunately weighs nothing at all” (19).
Leah Price: 14 yrs old
DEVOTED/HEADSTRONG Leah and her twin
sister Adah are 1 year younger than Rachel.
Leah, in the beginning of the novel, idolizes her
father and wants nothing more than to please
him. She also begins the novel very devoted to
God and Nathan’s mission in Africa. Leah and
Adah are both gifted children and tend to
understand ideas and concepts
better than any other Price.
 The Price Women: 5 POVs in the novel

Adah Price: 14 yrs old PENSIVE/CYNICAL Adah

is Leah’s handicapped twin sister. Adah suffered a
complication at birth that disabled Adah from being
able to use the right side of her body; therefore,
she walks with a limp. Adah also has a very unique
way of thinking, since she chooses not to speak.
She likes palindromes. (capac) Adah is the most
cynical and skeptical in the beginning of the novel.
You could argue she is agnostic (person who
doesn’t have a definitive belief of whether God
exists), perhaps atheist.
 The Price Women: 5 POVs in the novel

Ruth May: Daring/refreshing Ruth May is 5

when the family moves to the Congo. She is the
youngest and the most spirited. She quickly makes
friends with the Congolese children and seems to be
able to bridge a gap that her father, Nathan, is
unable to do with the locals in Kilanga.
“For the longest time I used to think my name was Sugar.
Mama always says that. Sugar, come here a minute.
Sugar, don’t do that” (20).
 Kilanga, Congo: The people the Price’s
meet
Eeben Axelroot: The white pilot who
flies the Price family into the Congo,
to the small village of Kilanga.
He also “helps” trade with the women of the village.
He is unctuous and sketchy and involved in a few
illegal side jobs.
Mama Tataba: Hired Helper to the Prices.
Anatole Ngemba: Genuine He is the local teacher
in Kilanga. He also helps Nathan translate each
Sunday. He was an orphan and grows up to become
a political activist.
 Minor Characters the Prices meet
 Tata Ndu: Village chief; resentful
 Tata Kuvundu: Village tradition keeper
What you need to pay attention to in order
to get a whole meaning of the novel:
 Differences in the voices of the 4 Price
daughters (CHARACTERIZATION!)
 The significance of Nathan’s garden (think
figuratively)
 How the sisters indirectly characterize one
another.
 Daughters' relationship with their father and
how they view each other
 Methuselah
 Irony in terms of Rachel, America, Nathan,
Adah
 Motifs
 Handicap: Adah is alienated in her own culture for
her disability but not in the Congo, the Congolese
people 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 accept Adah with her
disability but alienate Rachel for her blonde hair, a
contradiction to the attitude of American Society.
 Animals: Tata Kuvundundu: “The animals will rise
up”
 Light vs. dark
 Okapi: The okapi is a rare beast that suggests a
sort of hope in its transience.
 Main Themes

Ignorance: ethnocentrism; White

Man’s Burden
Survival
Guilt and its prolonged effects
Religion
Control by Intimidation
Colonialization
“rooting for the underdog”
 Symbols:
 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.
 Gardens: Nathan’s failed garden, Orleanna’s love of gardening
when she returns home from Africa, Leah and Anatole’s farm
commune. All of their gardens are representative of them as
people.

 Green Mamba Snake: Ruth May says she will become a green
mama snake after she dies because she is scared of them.

 The Parrot: Methuselah symbolizes the doomed Republic of Congo

 The Poisonwood Tree: “bengala” spoken slowly means dearly
beloved, spoken quickly it means Poisonwood Tree. Nathan is bull-
headed & preaches that Jesus is a poisonwood instead of beloved.
 Malaria is a mosquito-borne disease
caused by a parasite. People with malaria
often experience fever, chills, and flu-like
illness. Left untreated, they may develop
severe complications and die. In 2010 an
estimated 219 million cases of malaria
occurred worldwide and 660,000 people
died, most (91%) in the African Region.
 Southern Baptist Customs

 The Baptist tradition is one of the largest of the

Protestant Christian denominations. Most
Baptist churches agree with the basic
Protestant doctrines, but they stress the belief
that only Christian believers should be baptized
(called "believer's baptism") and that this
baptism should occur by immersion, a practice
they trace back to the early Church.
Hookworm
Manioc
 Author’s (Kingsolver) 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 missionaries didn’t understand
what was best for the Congolese and caused great
damage, leaving people feeling responsible and
confused on how to live.
 New Literary Strategies to add to glossary

 Paradox: contradictory statement; “I can resist anything but

temptation.” Oscar Wilde
 Malapropism: an amusing error that occurs when a person uses a
word that sounds like another word. Ex: Alcoholics Unanimous
instead of Alcoholics Anonymous **source of humor Nathan Price
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.
 Litotes: a figure of speech that is an understatement. “Not the
brightest bulb.” “Shakespeare wasn’t a bad playwright at all.”
**ironic effect
 Palindrome: reads same forward as back. Capac; Adah imagines
others consider her “damn mad.”
 Charactonym: a name esp. for a fictional character that suggests
a distinctive trait of the character
 Post Modernism: in literature-using different 1st person narrators
 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 Bible-it 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