Poisonwood Bible's 'Every Trip': Questions

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 Chapter 1 the author explains the symbolic reasoning of why a character takes a trip. They don't just take a trip they take a quest. Structurally a quest has a quester, a place to go, a stated reason to go there, challenges and trials en route, and a reason to go there. Quests usually involve characters such as a knight, a dangerous road, a Holy Grail, a dragon, an evil knight, and a princess. The quest also involves the character to gain self-knowledge out of taking the adventure to the stated place where he or she is going.

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

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.

1-3. The main idea of Chapter 1 Every Trip Is a Quest (Except When It’s Not) (pp.1-6) can be concluded in the following sentence: every story is a quest that consists of a person that has a reason to go to a certain place with challenges on one’s way which then leads the particular person (usually the main hero of a story) to the actual, or real, reason associated with self-knowledge, because the quest is always educational.

In How to Read Literature Like a Professor, Thomas Foster presents a guide to help readers further understand the novels they read. In chapter one, he claims that every trip is a quest, and every quest has five main components. Each journey consists of a “quester”, or a journeying character that lacks self-knowledge. This character has a desired destination and a stated purpose of going there. Throughout this journey, the character experiences challenges and obstacles, eventually learning something new about him or her self. Thus, we learn that a simple trip has a deeper meaning and purpose.

In The Poisonwood Bible by Barbara Kingsolver one of the major symbols was the American style garden that Reverend Nathan tries to plant in the Congo. This symbol is a metaphor for the irony where Nathan believes he is enlightening the Congo when he is actually learning from the Congo, while also containing biblical significance, which together, ultimately shows Nathan’s ignorance and one of the aspects of his daughter Leah.

Foster breaks down the aspects of a journey to describe the quester, the destination, the stated reason, the challenges, and the real reason. The character who embarks on the journey, also known as the quester, has a defined reason to do so, whether it is to obtain an object, save one from the lurking dangers, or acquire life-saving knowledge. Along their way to reach their destination, they may encounter various challenges such as a physical barrier, a challenger/defender, or a personal obstacle they must face. Through whatever form it takes, these barriers force the quester to challenge their abilities and beliefs, which ultimately leads to them discovering personal knowledge previously unknown about themselves. Though the quester may have accomplished their stated goal of their journey, they return from their voyage often as a changed person as the real reason for their quest was to gain self-knowledge. After they finish their conquest, the quester realizes that the journey was more important than the destination whether they built upon their relationships with another, conquered a personal fear, or gained new found knowledge about themselves, altering their personality and their identity. Foster believes that every trip is a quest, and the quest is a revelation about one’s

Throughout the Poisonwood Bible, Kingsolver utilizes the experience of the Congo to enhance and rediscover the faith of three of the Price daughters. At the age of fifteen, Rachel, the Price's oldest child, reveals her true beliefs of her religion through her petulant remarks of the Congo. During her stay in Africa, Rachel only talks of possessions she left behind. Rachel misses items such as toilet paper and sets of clean clothes. She, however, doesn't mention the bible in the list of items she longs for. She believes that the only method of survival is not to adapt to the conditions and surroundings. Rachel states, "The way I see Africa, you don't have to like it but you sure have to admit

People in some societies have faced situations that changed them in unique ways. The Poisonwood Bible written by Barbara Kingsolver represents how people are affected by horrific events and different cultures. This is caused by the missionary father; Nathan having led his family to spread their own beliefs in the Congo. In return, each Price woman is influenced in unique ways, according to their own perspectives. Unique ways is included in how transformations were due to the effects of losing someone or something. Ruth May’s death as well as individual experiences in the Congo, act as the catalysts for change in each of the Price woman, transforming their “core selves”

The Poisonwood Bible ultimately says a lot about storytelling. Unlike other books or novels, Kingsolver writes The Poisonwood Bible in the form of different perspectives. Instead of just reading the whole story in one point of view, it is told in a series of events by each Price sister and Orleanna. For example, Orleanna tells the story from a mothers’ view. She talks about her struggles in the Congo for her and her family. Orleanna is mostly depressed and exhausted throughout the novel, so the reader sees the story through a different point of view rather than what they would with the other characters, such as Leah, Rachel, Adah, and Ruth May. Orleanna

The Poisonwood Bible is a book about a man named Nathan Price who takes his wife and four daughters on a mission into the Congo. All of their ups and downs are documented throughout the story. This novel was written by Barbara Kingsolver in 1998. This story was inspired from her own personal trip that her father took her on, to the Congo, where they lived without and water, electricity, and many other necessities. During the time period that this book was being written, a lot of feminist and post-colonial literature was being acknowledged. Feminist literature is both nonfiction and fiction that supports women by defending political, economic and social rights for women. Many works of feminist literature depict strong willed women who

In The Poisonwood Bible by Barbara Kingsolver, the author uses the complex and contrasting societies the Price family lives in to depict how in different societies the norms and concerning issues are not at all the same. The novel begins with the Price family moving from Georgia, USA to a village in Africa called Kilanga Village. The reason for this shift was for Nathan Price, the father, to enlighten the people of Africa

People face difficult and life altering challenges every day. Some of the awful times are more complex and affect more people than other types can. A challenge can start out as a family trying to help the less fortunate, but then take a turn for the worse. Even if it wasn't a specific person’s fault, he or she still feels guilty. In The Poisonwood Bible by Barbara Kingsolver, the author uses symbolism and allusions to prove the theme everyone has and deals with guilt differently.