Book five is appropriately called Exodus, because Orleanna finally reaches her lowest level and leaves Nathan. After Ruth May dies, she feels that she just needs to keep moving, taking the girls with her. The women set route to Leopodville, Leah gets sick and is nursed back to health be Anatole, who she later marries. Rachel escapes with Axelroot on his plane, while Orleanna and Adah try to make it to the Leopodville via ferry. As they try to make their way, they are picked up by soldiers, who get spooked by Orleanna’s eyes and they hand them over to the Belgium embassy that treat them back to health and send them back to Georgia. Rachel and Axelroot move to Johannesburg where they try to fit into higher…
Takes his readers on a journey with him into the hell of Rwanda, vividly recreating the events of the genocide, which the world has almost forgotten about. It is a liberal eyewitness…
Do something for me. Forget everything you know about where you’re at right now, who you’ve spent your life with, and what you believe in. Would you still be the same person you are today? Probably not. How would you be different? In The Poisonwood Bible by Barbara Kingsolver, Leah Price trades her dependent, people-pleasing personality for a strong, independent woman who can do things for herself. When Leah was forced to move to the Congo at age fourteen, she was unaware of who she was and had filled herself with things in which she didn’t really believe. Like people of the Congo, Leah was unsure of her belief system and if it even existed. The people with whom Leah surrounded herself with in America were unlike her in their actions, thoughts, and beliefs. This all changed when she moved to the Congo. This opened her eyes to new people, new belief systems, and a new standard of living. Leah transitioned from being a young, conservative Christian young lady to a strong woman who believed in justice for everyone. Leah learned from her parents, Anatole, a Congolese man that she would soon fall in love with, and the Congolese women about how to live in the Congo and what were the acceptable lifestyle habits.…
Orleanna was unable to make a departure from the Congo because of Ruthmay’s death. She had a love for Ruthmay like no other because she was the youngster daughter. When Orleanna says “My baby, my blood, my honest truth: entreat me not to leave thee, for wither thou guest I will go. Where I lodge, we lodge together. Where I die, you’ll be buried at last (382)” she is explaining that she lost a part of herself when Ruthmay died. Orleanna tried to get over the grief she felt about Ruthmay, but she was unable to. Since Orleanna could not departure from Ruthmay, she was unable to departure from the Congo because Ruthmay is a part of the Congo now; Ruthmay is the eyes in the trees. Oreleanna speaks to Ruthmay, “If you are the eyes in the trees, watching us as we walk away from Kilanga, how will you make your judgment? Lord knows after thrifty years I still crave your forgiveness (385).” This quote proves that Orleanna needs Ruthmay’s forgiveness to move on from the Congo, even though Ruthmay has already given her forgiveness. She can never leave the Congo behind, because her youngest daughter is buried there in a garden.…
Barbara Kingsolver's The Poisonwood Bible examines the culture and tragedies faced by the Congo in 1959. Narrated by the wife and 4 daughters of Baptist preacher Nathan Price, Kingsolver vividly displays how the family is impacted and change as a result of moving to the Congo. Growing up in Atlanta Georgia, living in Africa is a whole new experience completely different from home. Rachel, Adah, Leah and the Congolese all explore the importance and impact of faith, and a religion based on their own private beliefs.…
Note the use of metaphor: “a unicorn that could look you in the eye” (7). Why is it effective to describe events or objects in this way?…
While reading The Poisonwood Bible, I was fascinated by Kingsolver's extensive use of Lingala, the language used in the region of the Congo where the Price family lives. Lingala is a language in which each word has several meanings, and Kingsolver has the characters in the story use language to reflect themselves. Kingsolver also masterfully wields words to connote subtle ideas throughout the novel.…
Nathan embodies the epitome of what the Congolese view of white people. The white people have forced their culture onto them, so that they can assimilate. Nathan tries to force Christianity onto these people, because he knows that his way, the American way is always right. Nathan wants to wash away the sin of their old culture, and baptize them,…
The Boots family was the first Afro-Cherokee union to be officially recognized by the Cherokee National government. In her eyes, this was enough to warrant a book or two, yet still, she saw an even grandeur purpose for them. They were the perfect measuring tool to be used to gauge the societal change occurring from the late 18th century to early 20th century. For Miles, the story of the Boots family encapsulates the bombastic nature of European colonialism, the increasing emergence and prevalence of African chattel, and the slow erosion of old Native American customs and…
“What is the conqueror’s wife if not a conquest herself?” This quote sums up Orleanna’s feeling of guilt she has towards her daughter’s death and towards the crimes of the US against the Congo. By identifying herself as the conqueror’s wife, Orleanna places herself in a position where she is not the chief criminal but connected enough to feel responsibility. In Barbara Kingsolver’s The Poisonwood Bible, she uses diction, imagery, and selection of detail to develop and convey Orleanna Price’s guilt and uneasiness throughout the journey that she was against from the start.…
The trans-Atlantic slave trade was the largest long-distance coerced movement of people in history. From the late fifteenth century, the Atlantic Ocean became a commercial highway that integrated the histories of Africa, Europe, and the Americas for the first time. For several centuries slaves were the most important reason for contact between Europeans and Africans. But why were the slaves always African? One possible answer draws on the different values of societies around the Atlantic and, more particularly, the people involved in creating a trans-Atlantic community saw themselves in relation to others – in short, how they defined their identity. In fact, Africans themselves sold slaves to Europeans for use in the Americas. Given the long-lasting historical repercussions of the estimated eleven million African captives forced to cross the Atlantic from the fifteenth to the nineteenth century, we know amazingly little about the individual experiences of the horrific Middle Passage. Historian Randy Sparks informative book, Two Princes of Calabar, tells the remarkable true story of two African Princes enslaved at Old Calabar in the Bight of Biafra, taken first to the Caribbean and then shipped to Virginia. They then escaped to England where they sued for their freedom in hope to make it back home. Sparks book gave the public a first-hand look on the atrocities the slave trade brought to the Africans. Sparks not only discusses the maltreatment the slaves received but also mentions how the slave trade provided communities with economic benefits. Two Princes of Calabar addresses issues in Africa today from colonialism to the horrific slave trade with this extraordinary true story of two Princes journey back to freedom.…
Around the time of Katie Makanya’s childhood, South Africa was beginning to change rapidly due to the discovery of diamonds, which ultimately kept bringing Europeans into their territory causing their cultures and race to blend together. This book illustrates the black South African life that Katie lives and how she uneasily adapts to the incoming European culture during those years of colonization.…
[19] Samarin William; The Black Man’s Burden: African Colonial Labor on the Congo and Ubangi Rivers, 1880 – 1900; Boulder, CO: Westview Press ; 1989; pg.118…
Heart of darkness is not only an attack on colonialism, but also a criticism of the dark greed that the human heart retains. Moreover, most of the content of the novel is pervaded by symbolic meanings among which destiny and foreshadowing play a leading role, and such is their relevance that both of them are consistently present explicitly and metaphorically throughout the novel. Therefore, the apparently innocent journey to the Congo to meet Kurtz masks a deeper meaning, a symbolic journey to the bottom of the human heart, a heart thirsty for power and wealth ―the heart of darkness ― which is represented by Kurtz and the colonialist lifestyle that surrounds him. “Kurtz 's methods had ruined the district… They only showed that Mr. Kurtz lacked restraint in the gratification of his various lusts, that there was something wanting in him -- some small matter which, when the pressing need arose, could not be found under his magnificent eloquence”.…
This novel is not just a narrative about a native finding a precious jewel and who is overcome with fear, obsession and anger. This novel is a story of how a simple sense of greed can destroy a man’s morals, and view on what is really important.…