Biblical Allusions In The Poisonwood Bible

In The Poisonwood Bible, one of the most significant allusions refers to the Curse of Ham story in the Bible. Essentially, the prophet Noah became intoxicated and when one of his sons, Ham, found him, began laughing as he called his brothers, Shem and Japheth to cover up their father so they would not have to see his nakedness. Surprisingly, when Noah woke up, he was extremely angry when he found out that Ham has mocked his nudity, so he cursed Ham’s youngest son Caanan.

In the novel, The Poisonwood Bible by Barbara Kingsolver, Kingsolver uses different literary techniques to develop the harsh setting and have the characters look weak and overwhelmed. The literary techniques used to define the characters and the setting are violent imagery and violent juxtaposition.

1. Barbara Kingsolver explores a quest in her novel “The Poisonwood Bible”. The criteria of a quest consist of a quester, a destination, a purpose, challenges, and reasons for the quest. In this instance the quester is Orlenna Price whom demonstrate guilt consistently. Orlenna is going there to accompany her husband, who is seeking to convert others. She feels guilty due to the death of her daughter and now that guilt remains as one of the challenges she faces. This is mostly transparent when she says “How do we aim to live with it?” (Kingsolver 9). Her guilt revolves around the destination to the Congo. Due to the Congo her one of her children survives. Now she has to deal with that challenge which is her guilt.

Opinions, self-assurance, and knowledge – these aspects of one’s character constantly develop throughout one’s lifetime. In some cases, opinions shift from one end of the spectrum to the opposite end of the spectrum, while the knowledge gained from the world guides one to become more self-assured. In The Poisonwood Bible, Leah, the daughter of a passionate preacher, gains several unfamiliar experiences after moving to Congo such as the peoples’ way of life and insight on what the Africans think about her family. Throughout The Poisonwood Bible, Kingsolver thoughtfully uses textual features such as figurative language, syntax, and tone to show how Leah’s character gradually progresses from a blinded worshiper who wants nothing more than to follow in her father’s footsteps to an individualistic young woman who strives to live a life without her father’s influence. To begin the novel, Kingsolver establishes Leah’s beliefs by utilizing different forms of figurative language.

In The Poisonwood Bible, written by Barbara Kingsolver, the aspect of biblical allusion is clearly present throughout the majority of the novel. For example, one of the most conspicuous allusions to the Bible is the way that Kingsolver has purposely named some of the main characters in her book after different people and images in the Bible. Kingsolver uses this biblical allusion to develop important themes, events, and characters in her novel. Kingsolver makes references to the Bible by tying in and creating similarities between important events and themes in the Bible and important events and themes in her novel.

Writers use a variety of manipulative stylistics and structural elements to further emphasize the language within their pieces of literature. Whether the purpose is to frame the basis for an autobiography, essay, fictional, mythical or nonfictional tale, they always strive to integrate certain textual features to add distinction to their work. In Barbara Kingsolver’s, The Poisonwood Bible, she composes the novel with the intention of creating a multi-voice layout with distinctive narrative voices and perceptions. About the tragic undoings and miraculous restoration of a missionary family moved to a village in the Belgian Congo, the setup of the novel is unquestionably not one sided. The narrative voices are broken down between the main characters, allowing for each of them to tell their stories.

There is strong juxtaposition in The Poisonwood Bible when it comes to American versus Congolese culture. While Mama Mwanza is viewed as equal in the Congo for her disability, Adah is considered an outcast in American society because of her hemiplegia. Ruth May talks about Mama Mwanza’s disability as if it is something strange, yet she reveals that the people living in their village do not look at Mama Mwanza as any different from them. She says that “Why, they just don’t let on, like she was a regular person. Nobody bats their eye when she scoots by on her hands and goes on down to her field or the river to wash clothes with the other ladies that work down there every day.” The phrasing of this implies that the Price family looks at Mama Mwanza

America has been, and still is, known for its obsession with materialism and ignorance towards lifestyles not surrounded by grandeur. Success in America could be defined as a life full of incredible wealth and few worldly problems, whereas success in a third world country can be defined as simply living to have healthy children. Are Americans truly aware of the stark difference between their own lives and the lives of the majority of humanity? Probably not. In The Poisonwood Bible, Barbara Kingsolver uses the character of Rachel to represent, explore, and explain these American cultural issues. Rachel Price represents the voluntary ignorance, political issues, and materialism woven throughout the novel and America.

In the historical fiction The Poisonwood Bible, Barbara Kingsolver portrays the American perspective on Africa with the use of a physical representation. In the beginning of the novel, the Price family, the protagonists and narrators, have their own perspective of their journey in a village of Kilanga which is located in South Africa in a congo. The family came with mindsets of missionaries because the father of the family, Nathan, has the desire to spread the word of God and the religion of Christianity throughout the the Congo. However, his unusually amount of urge to change the faith and religion of the African people demonstrate the American perspective because of the ignorance and the lack of acknowledgement of the people and setting. Thus, Barbara Kingsolver uses Nathan as a physical representative of the American perspective. In order to demonstrate the arrogance of the American perspective on the African people, Barbara Kingsolver dramatizes the tension between Nathan and the African people, suggesting that the American people view their principles more superior than principles of the African people despite the difference in setting and influences.

Book two is entitled “The Revelation” and the girls’ sections is entitled “The Things We Learned.” The Revelation was intended to mainly the Price family, excluding the father. The theme revelation has another definition: apocalypse. In the bible, the apocalypse leads to destruction and demise right before when God makes it a better place. In connection to the book, at this time the new prime minister, Patrice Lumumba was elected. This election set the stage for the independence movement in the Congo. In addition, Methuselah (the parrot) passes away as soon as he is freed, after being banned from liberation for most of his life. This foretells the destiny of Congo and the delicate independence they acquired. The Book of Revelation explains about how God’s creation encountered savagery and anguish so that it will become altered. The Belgian doctor who treats Ruth May for her broken arm has a little conflict with the Reverend. He prophesies that Congo will experience savagery and anguish if it changes to a self-determining state from a colony. In the Revelation section of the story, all the members of the Price family come to face a new sense of comprehension about the Congo’s culture, plants, animals and tradition. Throughout the book, the characters go through many hardships and success which permits them to learn

The Poisonwood Bible is the story of the Price family and their journey in the Congo. The novel is told from the perspective of the daughters Rachel, Leah, Adah, and Ruth May. The family suffers because of their father Nathan Price’s selfishness. The villainous acts of Nathan result in the loss of a family member and the feeling of guilt bestowed among all of the characters.

Everything is not always what it seems. The things one sees in everyday life may have a deeper meaning to each individual person. A toy may have a deeper meaning for a child, a song probably means something deep to a teenagers, and a certain thing in a book may mean something entirely different to a writer. In Barbara Kingsolver's The Poisonwood Bible, there are many symbols from trees to birds to gardens. The symbol of the poisonwood tree represents Nathan Price’s ignorance, pride, and cruelty.

The Poisonwood Bible by Barbara Kingsolver uses two extremely contrasting places in the Congo and the United States in order to represent contrasting ideas. The United States represents civility and home for the Price family, while Congo in contrast represents a much more savage, sinister, and less developed country throughout the novel. The two places are major contrasts of each and represent entirely different ideas.

In a world full of blame and lack of accountability, an individual’s role in injustice needs to be questioned. In the early 1960’s, after many years under Belgian rule, the Congolese people formed an uprising and gained independance. However, the Congo was ill prepared for the organization that independence demanded. The Soviet Union offered aid to the Prime Minister of the Congo. Since this was during the Cold War, the United States retaliated and supported a coup led by Colonel Joseph Mobutu. Mobutu ruled with an iron fist, resulting in pain and oppression of the Congolese. Looking back on history, it is easy to see who was at fault. But at the time, it was not easy to identify blame, especially for the Americans. Barbara Kingsolver wrote about the Congo’s trials much later in 1991. She used a narration from baptist missionary family to symbolize the different kinds of guilt Americans share. In Anne M. Austenfield’s narrative journal, she described Kingsolver’s ability to use, "several character-focalizers whose limited perspectives project highly subjective views of history" (Austenfeld). This technique allowed for Kingsolver to not only produce a more reliable account of what occurred, but to depict her desired theme and message. Kingsolver, in her novel The Poisonwood Bible, uses a political allegory to explore the different notions of guilt through the limited perspectives of her characters.

In the novel, storytelling is essentially about the experience of the person who is telling it. A story will never be told the same way because people go through different emotions in their life. For example, Adah’s life during the novel changes the most. How would Adah have told stories in the Congo if she would have felt wanted? Would she have told things differently? These factors of life affect the way people tell stories. Stories are never one-hundred percent truthful, solely because of the fact that people have emotions. For instance, Rachel and Leah are both in the Congo at the same time, experiencing similar things, but when Rachel