Colonialism And Ignorance In The Poisonwood Bible By Barbara Kingsolver

According to Elizabeth Lowell, “Some of us aren't meant to belong. Some of us have to turn the world upside down and shake the hell out of it until we make our own place in it.” Sometimes what every situation needs is an outsider to flip the script and create a new outlook on everything. In Shirley Jackson’s novel, “We Have Always Lived in the Castle,” the speaker, Merricat, is an outsider of society on many levels, such as mental health, gender, and that she is an upper class citizen in a poor area. Although Merricat is mentally unstable, her outsider’s perspective criticizes the social standard for women in the 1960s, indicating that social roles, marriage, and the patriarchy are not necessary aspects in life such as it is not necessary to have the same outlook on life as others.

Barbara Kingsolver, born in 1955, grew up in Kentucky and lived in many different countries such as : England, France, and Canary Islands. She attended Debauw University and University of Arizona where she earned a biology degree. Kingsolver now is a beloved author of eleven books and has been named the most important author of the twentieth century and has had the honor of receiving the National Humanities medal in 2000. In 1998 she wrote “The Poisonwood Bible” and was short-listed for the pulitzer prize. Kingsolver now resides in Southwestern Virginia with her daughters and husband on a farm.

The poisonwood Bible is a book about identity, growing up and family. The main characters throughout the book grow and learn to become new people through new relationships they develop while in the Congo as well as through struggles they face while in the Congo. Barbara Kingsolver uses the literary elements of plot, the characters, and point of view to develop the characterization and relationships between the Price family in the Poisonwood Bible.

Kingsolver uses different voice to help readers understand the story from variety of perspectives. It also helps the readers to understand the distinct quirks and traits of the sisters. To begin with oldest, Rachel also mispronounces or misuses the words in all the sections. Some of the words that she misuses are: "executrate" (execute), "autography" (autobiography), "Morse Scold" (Morse Code), and "preciptation" (participation). When her sisters tries to correct her error, she gets mad and shuts them up. She thinks that she might as well just die rather than facing the difficulties. She is using the words that are forbidden by her father like “damn it” etc. and comments on the African kids as being vacuous and blames her father for their

Kingsolver uses voice to characterize each sister by giving them a unique viewpoint and narrative. All the girls have different personalities, interests, and speech patterns to distinguish them from each other. The first sister, Rachel, is shown to be an egotist and materialist who's only major concerns are for her well-being and beauty. In the text, she speaks of herself very highly as if she is more privileged than anybody else around her. Rachel is quick and does not hesitate to judge others. She acts snooty towards the Congolese and fails to grasp their culture, only wanting to go back home to her luxurious lifestyle. As shown to not be so intelligent, she has poor grammar and frequently confuses words that have similar spellings and mispronounces

The Poisonwood Bible by Barbara Kingsolver is a classically, well-written novel in modern day. The Poisonwood Bible is a masterpiece that illuminates thematic topics such as religion, alienation, and colonialism. Kingsolver dramatizes each of the characters in the Poisonwood Bible giving them each their own personal agenda. Each character Kingsolver develops discovers his or her true identity while being cut off from their birthplace, friends, family, and/or their homeland.

Culture affects how an individual views the world. In the novel the Poisonwood Bible by Barbara Kingsolver, the Price family is on an evangelical missionary trip from the United States to the Congo. They live in the village of Kilanga from the beginning of Congo Independence in1959 to the Turmoil in the Congo in 1986. The four Price daughters: Leah, Adah, Rachel and Ruth May witness and comprehend the culture of the Congolese. Price family finds out the Congolese and American cultures are different and their outlooks of life differ.

Simon Lewis writes a critique of Karen Blixen’s, also known from her pen name as Isak Densen, novel which is call Out of Africa. The author, Blixen, died in 1962. However, her memoir is still making waves. Simon Lewis decided to write an article that analyzes her writing in 2000, which is thirty eight years after her death. This piece of writing, by Lewis highlights Blixen’s opinions on African lifestyle; Colonialism; Farms; Authors; Literary analysis; and the subtle racism. The novel being critiqued is set in Kenya, Africa. In this article, Lewis examines colonial perspectives written by Blixen, and how they relate to the preservation management, farming, and society in the genre of pastoral. Lewis mentions that Blixen's effort advances her writing material to better sell. Her writing is manufactured by a society that is used to marketing itself to sell their lifestyle, citizens, property, and raw material.

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.

Rachel herself is a child that wishes to someday be a loving caring mother. The whole play itself is a social protest against racial violence and lynching of African Americans. It was first performed in Washington DC in the year 1916. This first play was also known as “The first successful drama written by a Negro and interpreted by Negro actors.” (Locke and Gregory). At the time it was also admired by some critics for its dramaturgical skills. Surprisingly, now days, there has been hardly any criticism. This may be due to the play itself still being unfamiliar to so many and the fact that Grimke’s dramatic writing style is just not what people read these days, it is somewhat outdated. Grimke did not mind any of the criticism she got, she just learned to take the good with the bad. Although she had written a large number of plays sadly they did not become widely popular until after her death.

Barbara Kingsolver uses green space to show the difference in culture between the American culture and the African culture. “Baza? he repeated, pointing at me. He delicately touched my forehead and recoiled, as if my skin might burn him. Any woman who has baza should take the two babies to the forest after they are born and leave them there” (211). The Poisonwood Bible is a story about a missionary family that travels to Africa to spread their religion. However upon arrival they are shocked to see the drastic difference between them and the natives. Throughout the book, the Price family deals with the cultural norms of Kilanga while trying to keep the family stable. The Price family life in Africa leads to a dangerous spiral of unfortunate

According to research found via WWW.GREATSITE.COM, The Bibles of Colonial America, America’s Earliest Bibles. In the early 1600’s, the Geneva Bible became the first Bible to be taken across the Atlantic to America. It was, however, never printed in America. The first Bible printed in America was John Eliot’s Algonquin Indian language Bible, which came off the press in 1663, and again in 1685. The Eliot Bible was in fact, the first Bible printed in the Western Hemisphere. American presses saw no other Bibles printed until well into the next century, when German emigrant Christopher Saur began production of the first European language Bibles printed in America: the German language Saur Bibles. The first edition of Saur’s German Bible came off

The six texts that I have chosen for this anthology link to colonisation and show how race and power can take shape in different forms. When thinking of race and power in relation to colonialism, the obvious form it takes is the white European power of the colonisers over the non-white natives of the lands that are being colonised.

Dominant media produces films using generalized, and distorted images of Africa to create the idea of a dark continent in need colonial help, due to native civilization’s inability to live in a functional society. Mountains of the Moon, follows Richard Burton and John Speke, two explorers in search of the Nile. Set in pre-colonial times, this movie constructs images of Africa, perpetuating African’s inability to live in developed societies, and shows their natural inclination to appease British explorers. The Kitchen Toto, tells the story of Mwangi, who becomes a British officer’s kitchen Toto after his father is killed for opposing the clandestine independence movement. This movie shapes inaccurate images of African independence movements, showing those who are not under colonial rule as threatening, malicious, problematic, and incompetent of leadership. A Good Man in Africa tells the story of a British Diplomat, Morgan Leafy, who lives in Kinjanja, a nation recently freed from British rule. This film portrays Africa’s dependence on neocolonial rule through the Kinjanja’s fait, which rests in the hands of Dr Alex Murray, the man who is in the way of Adekunle’s exploitive building project. These three films represent ho western cultures imagination has evoked stock narratives, creating artificial Africas, in dominant media and films, leading to falsified images expanding from pre-colonialism to twentieth century neocolonialism.

The thesis statement above attempts to examine the role that Elizabeth Bennet plays in the novel as she goes against the women’s idealistic views. This article will help justify my thesis statement in how Greenfield expresses the oppression that women go through and how they lack to see the discrimination they are faced with daily.