Lumumba

Unfortunately for the people of the Congo this became a time to forget. Almost immediately after independence and the general elections, the country went into civil war. Major developed cities like Katanga and Kasai wanted to be independent from the Lumumba government. Different factions started to fight the government and Katanga and Kasai tried to secede from the rest

Kingsolver, Barbara. The Poisonwood Bible. New York: HarperCollins Publishers Inc., 1999. Orleanna Price is presented with the difficult task of moving her four daughters, Rachel, Leah, Adah, and Ruth May, and her husband, Nathan. However, this is not a typical move to another house within their city limits or even to another state. Orleanna has to move her family of six from southern Georgia to a less than rural village in the Congo. Her husband, Reverend Nathan Price, believes God wants him

The European conquest in Africa reinforced the notion of seizing seemingly primitive nations occupied by natives whose culture and lifestyle must be rationalized and modified to fit the standards of a modern country. Following the post-World War II era came the opportunity for the world's most powerful nations to make a significant impact on a war-torn world. The two super-power nations of the time, the United States and the Soviet Union, craved to influence vulnerable and poverty-ridden nations

a large area in Central Africa that was privately owned by King Leopold II. Because of public pressure and many conflicts concerning his sovereignty, his ruling came to an end and the Congo was later annexed as a colony of Belgium. Patrice Émery Lumumba became the Republic of the Congo’s first democratically elected Prime Minister in the June of 1960. He was an African nationalist and an advocate for Congolese freedom from the Belgian monarchy. He was very candid about his resentment towards American

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. The novel centers around the Price family, an idyllic nuclear unit consisting of four daughters, a mother, and the head of the family, Reverend Nathan Price, who has decided to embark on a 12-month Southern Baptist mission (despite the

It has been said by Palestinian American literary theorist and cultural critic Edward Said that “Exile is strangely compelling to think about but terrible to experience. It is the unhealable rift forced between a human being and a native place, between the self and its true home: its essential sadness can never be surmounted.” Said has also said that exile can become “a potent, even enriching” experience. The fourteen and a half year old Leah Price goes through this potent and enriching experience

Biographical Connection: Barbara Kingsolver was born on April 8, 1955 in Annapolis, Maryland and during her seventh and eight years of life she spent in the Republic of Congo where her parents worked there as healthcare officials. During her time there, she kept a diary documenting how different and curious everything was compared to Maryland. She was mostly fascinated how these people could live so peacefully and happily without certain necessities that she considered necessary, such as running

Cultural relativism embraces the idea that one particular cultural idea varies from one society to another; therefore, ethical and moral standards are relative to what a particular culture believes to be right or wrong. Surroundings affect the way a character is shaped because of the influences they are exposed to and the opportunities available. In Barbara Kingsolver’s novel, The Poisonwood Bible, the Price family departs from the United States to go on a twelve-month evangelical mission to the

It also talks about Patrice Lumumba getting assasinated. It also talks about the diseases the people in the Congo were going through. Some of these diseases are: malaria, and malnutrition. They had scarce food sources. They often die from both of these things. This can be read as

The Poisonwood Bible Response #1 The novel opens with a narrative directive, to the reader: Imagine a ruin so strange it must never have happened. First picture the forest. I want you to be its conscience, the eyes in the trees. The effect of the directive is that it puts the reader in the setting the author wants the book to be seen in. This directive suggests that something has happened that left the forest with ruins in it. When Orleanna narrerates and mentions “you” it appears she is talking