In Barbra Kinsolver’s novel, The Poisonwood Bible Kingolver uses biblical allusions to provide an in-depth analysis of a story, character, etc. For example, towards the beginning of the novel, Leah says that her "father was as tall as Goliath and pure of heart as David" (Kingsolver 49). After conducting research I found out that David was born in Bethlehem, and youngest son of Jesse at the age of 18. I don’t believe it to be a coincidence that Nathan was also born in Bethlehem, Georgia. When David was young he was a Shepherd; Leah also saw Nathan as a “shepherd” specifically while he was in Congo. Nathan also has red hair just like David, and he was strong just like David. When Leah mentions that Nathan “planned to make a demonstration garden” that they would feed the villagers she was alluding to the Garden of Eden (35-36). Nathan was acting as the shepherd that…
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.…
“To Kill A Mockingbird” by Harper Lee is a perfect example of how the plot progression of the story was closely related to the character development. Lee used Jean Louise, also known as “Scout” as a main model of character development, as she grows through her understandings of racism, how to handle social situations and her intelligence . The plot progression throughout the novel was very close in relationship of bildungsroman in the characters personal stories. This book being fiction is not true but it depicts how life was during the time period of the 1930’s. The characters also are very close to portraying common people of the time in Macon County of Alabama.…
Harper Lee is considered one of America’s most enigmatic and influential writers of the twentieth century. Lee’s popular novel, To Kill a Mockingbird, offers readers deep insight into the dynamics of an unconventional family and Southern lifestyle in the1930s. Harper Lee was born Nelle Harper Lee on April 28, 1926, in Monroeville, Alabama (Sparknotes.com). According to the author’s official website, Harper Lee was a descendant of famous Civil War general, Robert E. Lee, and daughter to a former newspaper editor turned state senator and practicing attorney. She studied law at the University of Alabama from 1945 to 1949 and spent a year at Oxford University Wellington Square as an exchange student (Harperlee.com). Dean Shackelford, author of “The Female Voice In To Kill a Mockingbird: Narrative Strategies In Film and Novel,” explains that To Kill A Mockingbird “portrays a young girl's love for her father and brother and the experience of childhood during the Great Depression in a racist, segregated society which uses superficial and materialistic values to judge outsiders, including the powerful character Boo Radley.” Harper Lee struck literary gold by creating parallel experiences between her life and her novel. Similarities between Lee’s relationships and experiences and that of the protagonist and the spotlight she places on important struggles of the time create a lasting impact on all her readers.…
It’s said that when feeling alone, one should turn to a group of people for support. However, the sad reality is that often, when surrounded by people we don’t share the same views with, we feel even more secluded. This theme is present in both “The Cherry Orchard” by Antonin Chekov and “St. Lucy’s School for Girls Raised by Wolves” by Karen Russell. In the works, main characters Madame Ranevsky and wolf-girl Mirabella are forced to adapt to a change they don’t want to undergo. Madame Ranevsky, who lived her life on a cherry orchard, is being asked to sell her home and to move on to a new life, one more urban and less extravagant. Mirabella, the youngest of the wolf girls, is sent to a reformatory girl’s…
I will be comparing Christian worldview with the The Crucible, The Scarlet Letter and Teenage Wasteland.…
The Poisonwood Bible can be read as a political allegory more than a biblical one. Nathan Price’s character embodies the western arrogance of the era, similar to the western colonialism and postcolonialism occurring in African in the 1950-1960’s. Without any consideration for the new culture he will immerse into, came in with a sense of superiority that will be his downfall. It was his mission, to replace the old traditions and replace them with his own ideas. While on the side the U.S. is doing the same thing with Africa. They have replace killed off the old president and replace him with they believe Africa needs. As for Kingsolver’s statement that everyone is complicit, nobody has a say to where they are born or who they are born to. We…
The biggest reoccurring theme in the Poisonwood Bible is the cultural arrogance of the United States. At the beginning of the book the reader hears Ruth May say, “Rex Minton said we better not go to the Congo on account of the cannibal natives would boil us in a pot and eat us up.” This was the ignorance that the Americans were saying, and the reader knows the kid didn’t come up with that by himself.…
The main characters are parallels to each other. For example, when Melinda and Cady start out in in highschool, they enter having no ideas what to expect. “My first class is biology. I can’t find it and I get my first demerit.” (Anderson 6). In the Mean Girls movie, Cady asked where her health class was and her friends made her miss her entire class. Another example is how they favourite one class and excel in it. For Cady shes so good at math that in Junior year, she takes senior AP trig. Melinda also favours art “Art follows lunch like a dream follows a nightmare.” (9). One final similarity is that they enter high school with no friends. On the first day of school, Cady gets denied seats in her first class because people didn’t want her to sit near them. When Melinda goes to school on the first day of school she has a hard time finding a seat on the bleachers because all of her friends abandoned her “I am an outcast. There is no point looking for my ex-friends.” (4).…
The father of The Poisonwood Bible represents the weaknesses of religion. Nathan is a strong evangelist who is consumed entirely by his…
Through the use of symbolism the authors of both Things Fall Apart and The Poisonwood Bible make the characters in both books more complex because not only do we read the discriptions the author has given us but also we see the use of symbolism that connects parts and objects in the book that we can recognize to give us a better idea of the characters. Chinua Achebe uses fire for Okonkwo to show his unstable personality. In The Poisonwood Bible Barbara Kingsolver uses the Poisonwood Tree to show Nathan's ignorance and inability to learn from cultures other than his. Both Chinua Achebe and Barbara Kingsolver use symbols to add to the character and to the story…
When the Price family is placed in a life or death situation, the daughters are forced to choose and bring their most valuable object with them. The Poisonwood Bible, written by Barbara Kingsolver, takes place in a small village named Kilanga during 1959. The family is in the Congo for a missionary mission to help the Congolese people and make the Congo a better place. When an ant invasion terrorizes the small village, the Price girls must make a quick decision on what to bring with them while the ants destroy the remaining things. Rachel, the oldest daughter, chooses her hand held mirror but Adah, brings her own voice with her. While Leah, chooses her love for the Congo and Congolese people. The physical or mental objects that the daughters…
By the time many of the children of the inner city have hit adolescence, they have witnessed and experienced many tragedies that even an adult would find disturbing. They have sold drugs, joined a gang, have seen their best friend shot, or even killed their neighbor. "By season's end, the police would record that one person every three days had been beaten, shot at, or stabbed at Horner. In just one week, they confiscated twenty-two guns and 330 grams of cocaine. Most of the violence here that summer was related to drugs." (32) There events seriously impact the childhoods of the youth, and rob these children of their innocence by showing them events that are not healthy for a child's growing mind to see. Pharaoh and Lafayette, like most all of the other children in the ghettos, are faced with a hard choice: stand up for yourself and succeed by refusing to accept the cities violence, or succumb to the pressure that pushes down on you from…
To defy a family, practice, or even a life style is an arduous challenge considering one’s willingness to give up their cultured protection from society and take responsibility as an individual. The strength in a person who believes that success comes from surviving the struggle of fighting the consequences that society imposes on defiance is prodigious. Not enough recognition is granted to those who risk their dignity exclusively for the freedom of personal choice and ability to live their life in the way in which they decide. In Nathaniel Hawthorne’s The Scarlet Letter and Mark Twain’s Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, characters Hester and Huckleberry Finn choose to defy their culture and upbringing in order for the betterment of their lives…
The most prominent and significant similarity of both novels is the idea of racism. Entwined throughout the books, the theme of racism is the backbone, which reflects the hardships African Americans experienced throughout the 1960’s. In the novel, Coming of Age in Mississippi, the main character, Anne, and her family, are African Americans. Along with the other "black" plantation workers, her and her family live in shacks without electricity or indoor plumbing. On the contrary, the "white" family's houses have electricity and indoor plumbing. This is overbearing discrimination as the black families work unbelievably hard on the plantation just to live unsanitary while the white families live comfortably through them. In the novel The Help, the main character, Eugenia "Skeeter" Phelan, asks different black maids, referred to as the “help”, domestic questions. She discovers her friend’s attitudes about the "help” and her friend, Hilly Holbrook, made something for her home called a "Home Help Sanitation Initiative". This initiative is for separate bathrooms for black maids because they carry different diseases. Hilly's thoughts reflect extremely racial judgments. Treating the African Americans as though they are not people, she often depicts them as dogs or wild animals that are bringing diseases and infections into her house. Both novels involve the public having an opinion that African…