Figurative Language In The Poisonwood Bible

A noticeable pattern in The Poisonwood Bible would be plain old ignorance from the Americans regarding the African people. A huge part of the story is showing how ignorant the west is of the culture in Africa. Nathan Price is constantly showing this off by wanting to baptize children in a river filled to the brim with crocodiles and other awful, dangerous things. Even once this is explained to him he still continues to push the issue because he feels he is right even when it is blatantly obvious he is not. Also he says, “Tata Jesus is bängala!”(Kingsolver 276) Thus constantly pronouncing “bängala” incorrectly; instead of calling Jesus “dearly beloved” he ends up calling him a dangerous tree making any arguments about his religion sound irrelevant

All families have conflicts, and the Price family is no exception. Within the story there is an overriding conflict regarding the Price women‘s opposition to the move to Africa. Beyond this, Nathan has many other conflicts with each of his daughters. Leah and her father had a very different relationship than the other three Price daughters. Leah is the only daughter that wholeheartedly supports her father completely. As the story moves on she is faced with the harsh realities of daily life in the Congo, and begins to see her Fathers faults. She soon wants to be her own person, and not be controlled by her father. The major parent/child conflict arises when Nathan does not recognize his daughter’s

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.

Just like the first book in the Bible, the first book of The Poisonwood Bible is named Genesis. As well as the beginning, Genesis can also mean rebirth. When characters arrive in the Congo they realize the things they brought with them are changed by Africa and can no longer be as they once were. In this way, Genesis symbolizes the process of becoming their new selves. For instance, the first chapter in The Poisonwood Bible, narrated by Orleanna, strongly shows the guilt that the Congo had left her to live with after the death of Ruth May. Likewise, Eve, the first woman in Genesis, forced all of mankind to shoulder the guilt of eating the forbidden fruit.

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

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.

According to Adichie, since the childhood, she was a victim of single story consequences. Her first false conception was caused by the children books, all of which is from American and Britain, filling up characters with totally different features, behaviors and “things which I could not personally identify” (1:43). This used to make she think that there would be no literature for the people like her. However, she got out of this perception when finding out other African authors and books. The second misconception is about Fide’s family when she turned eight. She knew nothing about Fide’s family except their poverty by keeping listening to the single story about them through

Life isn’t black and white and this is a sentiment that the book The Poisonwood Bible by Barbara Kingsolver tried to express. The aforementioned book is about an American family from Georgia, which leaves the comfort of the USA to go to a missionary mission in the country of Congo, in the town of Kilanga. Throughout the novel, it can be seen how the Congo either changes or reveals the true personalities of its 5 narrators (Orleanna, Rachel, Leah, Adah and Ruth May). This can be seen through the use of different motifs, some which even contradict each other help bring life into this novel by creating complex characters and revealing how true personalities are in their own way as, state before, life is not black and white,

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.

In addition, Katie’s use of diary entries at the end of each chapter gives readers a better idea of her experiences in Uganda, and help to tie the novel together. In one entry titled “God of the Impossible” from Sunday, February 8, 2009, Katie writes, “This is my life. My real life. People say to me sometimes, ‘There’s no way that is real, right? You do know how to tell a story, though!’ Let me tell you, as I fall onto my bed at the end of the night, I look up at the sky amazed and wonder, ‘No way is this real, right?’ Yes. It is” (Davis 151). What makes entries like these so important in understanding Katie and her novel is that while Katie wrote her novel looking back on her experiences thus far, her diary entries were written in the midst of her journey. Katie’s feelings about her unique new lifestyle are directly revealed to the reader, giving much insight as to what Katie really thought about during her beginnings in Uganda. The

In the words of Pauline Hopkins, “And, after all, our surroundings influence our lives and characters as much as fate, destiny, or any supernatural agency.” In the post-colonial fiction, The Poisonwood Bible, by Barbara Kingsolver, a family of six is being led blind into the Congo in the name of Jesus and left all their modern conveniences behind. There are many shifts in the daily lives and beliefs of the Price’s from the “simple” change of drinking water to the complexity of what Jesus truly means in their lives.While adapting to the new normal throughout the developing years of the Price children’s lives, the second eldest daughter, Leah Price, starts discovering who she is and how she is going to take on the task of life. By replacing each

Throughout many novels different characters are sent to a new place to explore and find new things in life. An excellent example would be how the characters in the novel Poisonwood Bible explore a new lifestyle in the Congo. While they are there they have to learn how to adapt to a new life, and they try and teach the Congolese people how to worship the God, Jesus Christ. Even though the Congolese people may believe in different Gods, the Price family, especially Nathan feels that it is their duty to teach them different ways. Thus the poem We Grow Accustomed To The Dark by Emily Dickinson, is similar because it is talking about how people become accustomed to a different lifestyle just like the Price family did in the Poisonwood Bible. In

In The Poisonwood Bible, Barbara Kingsolver uses symbolism within her characters to portray the insidious nature of Western civilization asserting their ideals and politics into the post-colonial African Congo, undercut with a description of the events of the time.

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.