In her multi-layered, 543-page novel The Poisonwood Bible, Barbara Kingsolver addresses numerous themes, although perhaps the most significant one is the idea that no one culture is superior to another. In the novel, Nathan Price, a zealous Baptist minister brings his wife and four daughters to the Congolese village of Kilanga in 1959. While his wife Orleanna and daughters Rachel, Leah, Adah, and Ruth May begin to adapt to the local culture, Reverend Price is unyielding in his religious conviction. He preaches that “Tata Jesus is bängala,” unaware that he is describing Jesus as poisonwood, a plant that produces an extremely irritating sap. His refusal to understand local culture is contrasted with the adaptation of Brother Fowles, his missionary predecessor. After Ruth May’s death by venomous snake, the four remaining Price women react differently. Orleanna returns to America, seeking some form of forgiveness from Ruth May. Rachel gets married and divorced repeatedly, and ends up running a luxury hotel in Africa. Leah marries Anatole, a school teacher from Kilanga. Adah returns to the United States and becomes an epidemiologist. Reverend Price remains in the Congo, preaching ineffectively and in vain until his death.
The theme that cultures are not superior to each other is both important and universal. Nathan ineffectively sought to change Africa to reflect his own culture, planting his doomed vegetable garden and preaching the seemingly foreign gospel. He refuses to conform to his surroundings, but sought to change them to fit his desires. Rachel settles on changing her immediate surroundings, deciding that when “there’s ugly things going on out there, well, you put a good stout lock on your door and check it twice before you go to sleep. You focus on getting your own one little place set up perfect, as I have done, and you’ll see (Kingsolver).” Leah completely adapts to African culture, living with her Congolese husband and raising her children in Angola. She feels the violation of Africa that was European colonization, and states that she begins “each day on my knees, asking to be converted. Forgive me, Africa, according to the multitudes of thy mercies (Kingsolver).”
"Most have no earthly idea of the price of a snow-white conscience. I would have been no different from the next one, if I hadn't paid my own little part in blood. I trod on Africa without a thought, straight from our family's divinely inspired beginning to our terrible end." -Orleanna Price
While presenting the characters’ different responses to Africa, it is Leah’s that seems to be the most admired and advocated by the author. The author suggests through this work that when we arrive in new culture, perhaps we should not change those cultures, but ourselves, as Leah did. Failure to adapt has caused countless atrocities throughout history, from the displacement of Native Americans to the European colonization of Africa, from the greedy massacring of Incans to the heartless enslavement of West Africans. As globalism continues to change cultures, this message of cultural equality and wealth indicates that we should maintain our cultures and avoid cultural homogeneity. This message is both timeless and universal.
Not only is the message of the novel worthy of its status as a book of superior merit, its realization is both complex and effective. The author uses all five Price women to narrate the story, giving each of them a unique voice and perspective. This type of narration allows the reader to see events from multiple perspectives, and creates an engrossing story. The story covers a large time span, and does so in a very effective way, avoiding both superficiality and discouraging depth. It provides a full narrative while still feeling selective and focused. The realization of this engrossing story is absolutely exquisite.
It addresses the critical thinking, global perspectives, and Christian scriptures, traditions, ethics, and stewardship elements of the general education objectives. The cultural elements included in the story broadens the reader's perspective regarding global issues, especially colonization. Reverend Price's unwillingness to adapt his presentation of the gospel to his audience should make us question how we can adapt the gospel. How and how much we can change in order to effectively reach a different culture is something that we must think about critically as a Christian community.
I included this story because of my own experiences in Africa. When I read this book during the summer between my junior and senior years, I found that many small elements of the story rang true, such as Orleanna's statement that "heaven knows they won't have Betty Crocker in the Congo (Kingsolver)." From experience, I know that it is often some small luxuries that one misses most when overseas for an extended period of time. Despite these small similarities, I found the Africa of this book to be fundamentally different than the one I grew up in. It was as if I was seeing something from a dream, recognizing it while also seeing it for the first time. This added another level of meaning to the story for me, and is one of the reasons I chose it for my list.
Works Cited:
Kingsolver, Barbara. The Poisonwood Bible. New York City: HarperPerennial, 1998.
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