The Poisonwood Bible Character Analysis

Throughout the beginning of the novel, Leah is wholly under her father and is obedient, but as the novel progresses she gradually becomes more rebellious. When a vote is held regarding her and she defies her father, he washes his hands of her and declares that he is no longer responsible for her. She then becomes further rebellious and throws off his

Her writing is very detailed and descriptive. She is very religious and follows her father as if he is god himself, hoping to impress him and win approval by following his words. This is opposite to her twin, Adah, who prefers to have no religion at all and does not care for her father much. Throughout the book, she makes multiple references and allusions to the Bible. Unlike Rachel, who does not understand the Congolese and their ways, Leah is interested and is open about learning African culture and she does not look down upon them the way that many Americans do. Later on, she starts to realize the injustices occurring in Africa and strives to fix them. The third sister, Adah, barely talks to anyone except herself and considers herself to be different because of her disability. With her free time, she enjoys writing palindromes, reading books backwards, and quotes poets such as Edgar Allen Poe and Emily Dickinson. Due to Adah having hemiplegia, which paralyzes her on one side, she has a cynical view of life and does not view herself in a very positive light compared to her sisters, ultimately letting it rule her

Adah discovers that her hemiplegia was a misunderstanding between her body and her brain. She had to embrace this new change and that takes bravery. “Tall and straight I may appear, but I will always be Ada inside. A crooked little person trying to tell the truth. The power is in the balance:we are our injuries, as much as we are our successes.”

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.

He does not care about their welfare, only that he saves as many souls as he can. Adah, who can most identify with the Congolese, recognizes what it is like to be ignored and forgotten, much like the countries occupying the Congo do too. Imperialism. Instead of helping the country fend off invaders, the US becomes an invader; only caring when the invaded countries misfortune can benefit the intruders cause. Rachel says it best after reading a Belgian newspaper that claims the Belgians find the Congolese participating in cannibalism. “If they came to our village that day, they would have interrupted Mother in the middle of scrubbing the floor and about twelve little naked boys having a pee-pee contest across the road,” (161). The Belgians paint themselves as heroes to the Congolese instead of villains who enslave and cut their hands off, similar to Nathan who sees himself as the man of God saving the

“Don’t try to make life a mathematics problem with yourself in the center and everything coming out equal. When you are good, bad things can still happen. And if you are bad, you can still be lucky.’ I could see what he thought: that my faith in justice was childish, no more useful here than tires on a horse. I felt the breath of God grow cold on my skin” (Kingsolver 310). From the very start of the book, Leah worshipped her father and Father. She associated one with the other, losing faith in both when she lost faith in one. As she grows more connected with the Congolese, witnesses injustice, and grows farther away from her father, Leah’s faith is tested

1909, over one hundred years ago, was the death of King Leopold of Belgium the sole owner of the Congo. Even years after he has left this earth and is no longer in the reign, the long-lasting effects he has had on the people and the land has forever changed the Congo. The memories left behind from the atrocities that occurred and the diminished resources due to extreme exploitation has prompted the author Adam Hochschild to write the novel, King Leopold’s Ghost. Using an Afrocentric point of view Hochschild describes how the events that took place under Leopold’s orders were acts of true terror and inhumanity.

In Barbara Kingsolver’s novel, The Poisonwood Bible, the reader is introduced to Patrice Lumumba, the first Prime Minister of the Republic of the Congo, through the voices of the fictional Price women. Unlike the Price family, Patrice Lumumba was a non-fictional character who was elected and served only 7 months as the Congo’s Prime Minister. His reign was brought short by his execution in 1961. Though his tenure may have been short and occurred more than 50 years ago, Patrice Lumumba remains to this very day, an important man in history.

promises his utmost respect and loyalty in an attempt to make her want to leave with him. He

realized she would never be like the other girls. She blamed her father for troubles she

Laura Bohannan writes about her times in West Africa in Shakespeare in the Bush. Experiencing Tiv culture enabled Bohannan to witness first hand the

With her virginity lost, and her inability to handle the death of her father, she becomes insane and turns to

Taking notice of Darling’s appearance, she begins empathetically discussing the horrors of Africa with misty eyes. She asks, “’…isn’t it terrible what’s happening in the Congo?’” as if Darling from Zimbabwe would know exactly how it is in the Congo (p. 177). As the conversation continues, the reader can feel how the woman is using her sympathetic front to feel better about her ignorance of African

Award winning author, Tsitsi Dangarembga was born in 1959 in Bulawayo, Rhodesia. Her early childhood was spent in England but later returned home and began to study in missionary schools. Returning to England, she studied medicine at Cambridge University, just to go back home and begin her psychology degree at the University of Zimbabwe. Today she writes as a scriptwriter, consultant and film director. Tsitsi Dangarembga’s work focuses on the unfortunate oppression of women in African societies, along with children living in Africa. She spent most of her childhood in Zimbabwe attending missionary schools, seeing first hand how women could be treated in education along with in general society. Tsitsi Dangarembga grew up witnessing obstacles that women at this time to gain any sort of power, she would know the most about life in this time and she clearly shows that in her writing.

In history, there is a brutal civil war, but not many people know or talk about it. The war in Sierra Leone lasted for years, and many families were affected. The rebel army destroyed villages and killed countless individuals. People lost their homes, families, body parts, and most importantly, their reality. Young boys were taken on both sides to fight in the war. The books The Bite of the Mango and A Long Way Gone tell two different points of view during the war. The first being from a young girl, named Mariatu Kamara, who was physically mutilated, and the other from a boy soldier, named Ishmael Beah. Even though Mariatu Kamara and Ishmael Beah were both victims of the war in Sierra Leone, each had a different recovery process.