Garden Symbolism In The Poisonwood Bible

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. Nathan price is a Southern Baptist missionary whose goal is to bring salvation to the Congolese people through the christian faith. The symbol of the garden 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. Nathan price is the embodiment of ignorance. While explaining to Leah why Mama Tataba formed their garden into mounds, “he assured [Leah] that Mama Tataba hadn’t meant to ruin our demonstration garden…‘She's only trying to help in her own way,’” (Kingsolver 41). Nathan calls the garden a ‘demonstration garden’ to imply that he will be demonstrating the proper way to garden to the Congolese people. In addition to this, his tone in the phrase, “She’s only trying to help in her own way,” is condescending because it implies that Mama Tataba doesn’t know the correct way to garden. However, Mama Tataba clearly knows how to grow crops in the Congo because she is Congolese, and the Congolese people evidently know how to farm in the Congo as there are many instances where women in the
Through his feeble journey of growing a garden himself, he reveals himself as being extremely ignorant. He rejects the help of others who clearly know more than him, and when he finally concedes to the way of the Congo, he doesn’t admit that he learned from the Congo. All of this supports one of the meanings of the work as a whole, which is that even though we may think we are advanced and knowledgeable, we are truly still at the mercy of our