*The Scarlet Letter--Week Six.

As The Scarlet Letter comes to an ending, the characters are again brought back into the scene at the beginning of the novel- the scaffold. Contrary to before, this time at the scaffolding is a day of celebration, as Election Day begins with the “harmony of drum and clarion” and people celebrating all around. Hester is dressed in the same “clad garment of coarse gray and cloth” just as she has been “for seven years past.” Hester’s clothing “had the effect of making her fade personally out of sight and outline; while, again, the scarlet letter brought her back from this twilight indistinctness” and makes the reader wonder, yet again, why Hester wears clothing that makes the A look more apparent? Not until the end does the reader fully understand why Hester insists on wearing the scarlet letter and making it stand out. When Pearl leaves Hester and Hester is left to live by herself in the forest, she still continues to wear the letter, even though Dimmesdale has confessed and Hester could have taken the letter off long ago. Hester was the strongest character in the novel, as she portrayed self-confidence in not trying to be anything that she wasn’t. Hester was the only character in the story that lived up to who she truly was, therefore the A became a part of who she was. Without the A, Hester would be left with “bitterness wherewith she had been drugged, as with a cordial of intensest potency.” The metaphor used to compare “wine of life” with the scarlet letter shows how Hester would be left “bitter” without the letter, as the A is what has made Hester who she is.

The theme of night and day/ light and darkness is associated with Dimmesdale and Hester’s relationship. At nighttime, first on the scaffolding, and then later on in the forest, is the only time that Dimmesdale and Hester are truly happy with each other—when in a completely isolated area. During the daylight, Dimmesdale “seemed so remote from her own sphere, and utterly beyond her reach.” During the daylight, Hester missed the “dim forest, with its little dell of solitude, and love, and aguish, where sitting hand in hand, they had mingled their sad and passionate talk.” The darkness is the only time the two can truly be happy, because Hester and Dimmesdale are isolated from the view of the public, where they are concealed from the sin each committed. However, when in the daylight, the entire world is looking upon each one and not only the sin they committed, but the sin they are afraid to admit.

Dimmesdale’s appearance had “exhibited such energy he was seen in the gait and hair with which he kept his pace in the procession. There was no feebleness of step, as at other times; his frame was not bent; nor did his hand rest ominously upon his heart.” However, Dimmesdale’s change in appearance was “not of the body”, but was rather because of “spiritual” reasonings, foreshadowing the confession of Dimmesdale. After Dimmesale’s “best speech”, he stands upon the scaffolding with Hester and Pearl and finally confesses his sin. After the confession, Pearl finally gives Dimmesdale his long awaited kiss, symbolizing that Pearl is free of her “demonic” ways after the truth has finally been told.

Chillingworth continues to exhibit the personality of “The Black Man” as Dimmesdale tries to confess and Chillingworth attempts to convince Dimmesdale by guilting him with the threat that he will “bring infamy on [his] sacred profession.” Chillingworth isn’t stopping Dimmesdale from confessing for his own good, but because Chillingworth doesn’t want to be embarrassed. Also, without being able to aid Dimmesdale, Chillingworth is no longer classified as a “leech”; therefore, Chillingworth dies, as he no longer has the “blood” to suck out of anyone for his own well being.

*The Scarlet Letter--Week Five.

A major event now occurs within the scarlet letter as Dimmesdale and Hester are able to converse for the first time without others around. Through physical appearances and actions of both Dimmesdale and Hester, the reader learns that Dimmesdale has actually suffered more than Hester, which is ironic because everyone knows Hester’s sin which has tainted her reputation. However, Dimmesdale suffers more because he must “stand up in [his] pulpit and meet so many eyes turned upward to [his] face, as if the light of heaven were beaming from it!” therefore, Dimmesdale goes through life pretending to be somebody that he is not which makes the appearance of Dimmesdale to be ‘Godly.’ Ironically, Dimmesdale’s guilt comes from his saintly reputation, as he is forced to preach and symbolize a false appearance; one in which he pretends to preach holiness and good deeds which make people honor his words and respect him as a whole. If only the congregation would “look inward and discern the black reality of what they idolize” then Dimmesdale would not be clouded with guilt from his hypocrisy.

The only time Dimmesdale feels that although he is “false to God and man”, only with Hester is Dimmesdale “for one moment, true.” Also, the only time Hester does not feel the scarlet letter “burn the bosom of the fallen woman” is when she is with Dimmesdale. The sense of goodness that both feel with each other shows that they are the only two that really understand each other, and ironically, are the two people that are most open minded and non judgmental in the community, but are the two that are punished, which shows that not everything is as it seems. This reason is what led up to Hester suggesting the two leave and feel to Europe.

Hester provides reassurance and hope for Dimmesdale, suggesting they go to Europe and start a new life. Although one would think Hester would need comfort from Dimmesdale, Dimmesdale is the one who needs guidance in life, therefore showing people are not what they appear to be on the outside. Dimmesdale is appeared as a saint-like man whom others look up to, as Hester, on the other hand, is looked down upon and punished repeatedly for her wrong doings. However Hester’s punishment has made her stronger whereas Dimmesdale has become weaker from the act he must portray each day.

Hawthorne again uses physiognomy to portray the effect the scarlet letter has on Hester. Once Hester removes the letter, a “burden of shame and anguish departed from her spirit” and “around her mouth” was a “radiant tender smile” as Hester’s “sex, her youth, and the whole richness of her beauty came back.” Not only did Hester’s appearance become more beautiful, but also her surroundings as “forth burst the sunshine” in the forest, “gladdening each green leaf, transmuting the yellow fallen ones to gold, and gleaming adown the gray trunks of the solemn trees.” All of the items that once “made a shadow hitherto” now “embodied brightness”, livening the entire forest into a “mystery of joy.” The imagery and metaphors describing beauty in Hester and the forest after the removal of the scarlet letter shows how much better and happier life is without the letter. However, the happiness that Hester experiences is short lived, as Pearl forces her mother to put the letter back on, because Pearl does not recognize her mother without it. Not only that, but since Pearl is the “living version of the scarlet letter,” Hester removing the letter is like removing Pearl from her life, and saying that Hester does not need Pearl anymore now that she has Dimmesdale. The A also symbolizes not only the sin that Hester committed, but also the sin that Dimmesdale committed. Not only does the A punish her, but also him, and by removing it the two would be relieved of their sin. However, because Dimmesdale refuses to confess in front of everyone what he truly did, Hester cannot be relieved of her sin until Dimmesdale is. Because of the physical and emotional toll the letter and sin take on Dimmesdale and Hester, the reader begins to wonder if Dimmesdale will ever confess and if the couple will ever live in peace?

*The Scarlet Letter--Week Four.

Is Chillingworth truly the Devil? This is the question that has risen throughout the course of The Scarlet Letter, and is continuing to hold true. The physiognomy of Roger Chillingworth epitomizes an eerie and devilish appearance that was not related to just “growing older.” The old personality Hester Prynne has remembered of Chillingworth being “an intellectual and studious man, calm and quiet” has vanished, as a “glare of red light” now appears in Chillingworth’s eyes, “as if the old man were on fire.” The devilish appearance attributes to the fact that Chillingworth is not attempting to know Dimmesdale’s secret to help Dimmesdale, but because Chillingworth wants revenge on the man that tempted his wife. Roger Chillingworth had practiced doing the Devil’s work so much, that he had begun “transforming himself into the Devil.”

Although Chillingworth’s appearance and characteristics make him appear more demonic, on the contrary, the town starts perceiving Hester with a “general regard that had ultimately grown up in reference to Hester Prynne” as there were “none so ready as she to give of her little substance to every demand of poverty” and soon many people “refused to interpret the scarlet letter A by its original signification” but rather the town viewed the A in that it meant “Able; so strong was Hester Prynne, with a woman’s strength” as the A was now looked upon as “a token, not of that one sin, for which she had borne so long and dreary a penance, but of her many good deeds since.” The metaphor of “the scarlet letter had the effect of the cross on a nun’s bosom” proves just how saintly and righteous Hester now appears after she has continued on her life, and tried to rectify her life.

Ironically, although the town began viewing Hester in a better light, Hester herself continued to feel the pain associated with the A, as “on the mind of Hester Prynne herself, was powerful and peculiar” as “all the light and graceful foliage of her character had been withered up by this red-hot brand, and had long ago fallen away, leaving a bare and harsh outline” is metaphor used to describe the weak appearance of Hester. Hester’s “attractiveness had undergone a change” from “rich and luxuriant hair” to all of her hair “hidden by a cap, that not a shining lock of it ever once gushed into the sunshine.” Although the town believes that the A has helped reform Hester into a better person, in reality the A has taken not only a physical toll on Hester, but now has “the same dark question” pondering Hester’s mind “was the existence worth accepting, even to the happiest among [women]?” Would it be better to “send Pearl at once to heaven, and go herself to such futurity as Eternal Justice should provide?” Although the town views Hester as a better and happier women, Hester herself begins to question whether life on earth is really worth all the pain that comes with it.

Although the reader does not yet know the man that Hester Prynne had an affair with, clues are hinted at throughout the story foreshadowing who the man is. Pearl is the main character who hints at these clues, and makes them known to the reader. When Pearl keeps persistently asking what “the scarlet letter means”, Hester replies by saying she “got it from the Black Man.” Pearl then questions “why does the minister keep his hand over his heart? Did he get something from the Black Man too?” which foreshadows that Dimmesdale is the adulterer.

In the end of this week’s reading, the reader is left with Pearl and Hester in the forest, which was “black and dense” and appeared to disclose “such imperfect glimpses of the sky above” which symbolizes the “moral wilderness in which” Hester has “so long been wandering.” The “flickering sunlight” was only seen every now and then, as Pearl noted that “the sunshine does not love [Hester], but runs away and hides itself, because it is afraid of something on [her] bosom.” As Pearl followed the sunlight, it remained shining upon her, but when Hester tried to walk into the light the “sunshine vanished.” The sunlight amidst the darkened forest symbolizes a bit of happiness in all of Hester’s “dark” life. The significance of Pearl being able to stand in the light depicts how Pearl is the good aspect in Hester’s life. Along with happiness attributed to the sunlight, the sunlight also portrays truth, as the darkness of the forest portrays sin. The only way Hester can every enter sunlight is if she frees herself of her sin and tells the truth about who her adulterer is. Otherwise, Hester will continue living an isolated life, dark and alone.

*The Scarlet Letter--Week Three.

Proceeding on in the reading of Scarlet Letter, the reader delves into the guilt of Reverend Arthur Dimmesdale and the relationship that forms between himself and Roger Chillingworth.

The new found relationship between Dimmesdale and Chillingworth is nonetheless ironic in that both men have a relationship with Hester Prynne, yet neither of the men knows it. The two became friends because the “mysterious old Roger Chillingworth became the medical advisor of the Reverend Mr. Dimmesdale” because Chillingworth “was strongly moved to look into the character and qualities of the patient.” Then two men “spent much time together”, and Dimmesdale, “a true priest, a true religionist” soon became interested and enjoyed “the occasional relief of looking at the universe through the medium of another kind of intellect”, in other words, a scientific view on life that Chillingworth provided. Although the two differ in beliefs on the wide aspect of the world, what the two have in common is the relationship each men share with Hester. It’s a bit ironic that Chillingworth is attempting to release a lie and sin out of Dimmesdale, when Chillingworth himself is keeping a secret. Is Dimmesdale and Chillingworth’s relationship going to provide clues that Chillingworth needs to uncover the truth about Pearl being Dimmesdale’s daughter? And what will happen to the two’s relationship if either of them uncover who each man really is?

The home that Chillingworth and Dimmesdale reside in has ironic characteristics. The walls of Dimmesdale’s room “were hung round with tapestry said to be from the Gobelin looms” which represented “the Scriptural story of David and Bathsheba.” David was a biblical character who committed adultery with Bathsheba. Also, on the wall, was “Nathan the Prophet”, who accused David of his actions. Irony in the biblical story upon Dimmesdale’s wall is that he is in fact David, Hester is Bathsheba, and Chillingworth is Nathan.

Chillingworth has various ways in achieving the task for Dimmesdale to tell the sin he committed. While collecting medicinal herbs one day, Chillingworth found a “dark, flabby leaf.” When asked by Dimmesdale where Chillingworth found such a drab looking weed, Chillingworth says he found them “growing on a grave” and the weeds “have taken upon themselves to keep him in remembrance”, for the man had no tombstone upon his gravesite. Perhaps the weeds “grew out of his heart, and typify, it may be, some hideous secret that was buried with him, and which he had done better to confess during his lifetime” Chillingworth retorts to Dimmesdale, hoping to uncover the secret from him.

When pressured again about the symptoms Dimmesdale is feeling and as to what is making him sick, Chillingworth continues to question Dimmesdale. Angered by the persistent questioning, Dimmesdale still refuses to tell. Chillingworth responds with saying that “nothing is lost” and that the two will “shall be friends again anon. But see, now, how passion takes hold upon this man, and hurrieth him out of himself! As with one passion, so with another! He hath done a wild thing ere now, this pious Master Dimmesdale, in the hot passion of his heart!” The statements and actions Chillingworth has towards Dimmesdale makes the reader wonder if Chillingworth knows what Dimmesdale did?

Pearl continues to show a “demonic” and “elfish” side to her personality throughout the story. While walking with Hester one day, Pearl gathered “prickly burrs from a tall burdock, and arranged them along the lines of the scarlet letter” upon Hester’s breast, which “Hester did not puck off.” Pearl then looked up at Reverend Mr. Dimmesdale in the window, and “threw one of the prickly burrs” at him. The burrs symbolize sin, and the importance of not only putting a burr on the scarlet “A” upon Hester, but also throwing one at Dimmesdale correlates the two together, therefore foreshadowing that Dimmesdale is Hester’s adulterer. Also, the burrs are “prickly” and stick to a person right away, symbolizing how the sin each committed sticks and pokes each one, therefore unable to forget about it.

The guilt that Dimmesdale feels overpowers his ability to act in a rational manner. Chapter 12, “The Minister’s Vigil” is titled so because Dimmesdale wakes in the middle of the night, and “reached the spot, where, now so long since, Hester Prynne had lived through her first hour of public ignominy.” While standing on the scaffolding, Dimmesdale, “without any effort of his will”, screamed aloud, “an outcry that went pealing through the night…as if a company of devils detecting so much misery and terror in it, had made a plaything of the sound, and were bandying it to and fro.” After the relentless cry that Dimmesdale let out, he was sure that the town would all hear, and that everyone would know of his sin. However, no one heard, and if anyone in the town did, they just thought that it was “the witches” in the town. Shortly after, Hester and Pearl saw Dimmesdale standing upon the scaffolding, and stood with him, joining hands. The very moment that Dimmesdale touched Pearl’s hand, “there came what seemed a tumultuous rush of new life, other life than his own, pouring like a torrent into his heart…as if the mother and child were communicating their vital warmth into his half-torpid system.” Being together and joined in an “electric chain” with Pearl and Hester created “warmth” throughout Dimmesdale’s body, as if all the emotional pain and guilt he had been feeling earlier was suddenly healed. When asked by Pearl if Dimmesdale will hold Pearl’s and Hester’s hand when the two must stand up there again, Dimmesdale said “another time.” A flash of light then clouded up the sky and Dimmesdale saw an “appearance of an immense letter,-the letter A,-marked out in lines of dull red light.” The ‘A’ that Dimmesdale sees up in the sky symbolizes the guilt that Dimmesdale has, not only in being the adulterer, but also not being able to confess it to his congregation, and most importantly himself.

While standing on the scaffolding, “Mr. Dimmesdale was overcome with a great horror of mind, as if the universe were gazing at a scarlet token on his naked breast, right over his heart.” Could the mark on Dimmesdale’s chest that Chillingworth saw be an A? Is that why Dimmesdale always has his hand on his chest, because of the pain and guilt that he feels?

*The Scarlet Letter--Week Two.

In the continuation of Scarlet Letter, the scarlet A continues to inflict a burden upon Hester Prynne. As Hester is released from the prison, imagery depicts Hester’s mood as she is released through the prison doors. Being free from prison, however, does not mean that Hester is free from the guilt inflicted upon her, as “she came forth into the sunshine, which, falling on all alike, seemed, to her sick and morbid heart, as if meant for no other purpose than to reveal the scarlet letter on her breast.” Hester embarks on her journey to rid herself of the mockery she faced previously from the town, but the “burning of the A upon [her] bosom” grew fierier each day. Throughout all of the people that looked upon the ‘A’, the spot “never grew callous; it seemed, on the contrary, to grow more sensitive with daily torture” as Hester never got used to the letter branded into her. The metaphor in the “law which condemned” her was a “giant of stern features, but with vigor to support, as well as to annihilate” means that the law which once held Hester up through the standing on the scaffold, could now obliterate her as she walks out of the prison completely alone.

When Hester and Pearl arrive at the Governor’s house, Pearl sees a reflection of Hester in a mirror and in an old headpiece. In the reflection in the “convex mirror, the scarlet letter was represented in exaggerated and gigantic proportions, so as to be greatly the most prominent feature of her appearance.” No matter how much Hester tries to appear larger than the sin she committed, the burning remnants of scarlet letter will continue to make Hester feel as if she is “hidden behind it.”

A biblical allusion is used to compare Hester to Cain, who was the first murderer branded by God to warn others of him, similarly like the brand administered upon Hester to warn others of her adultery.

When Hester gets out of prison, she resides in an isolated “thatched cottage” on the “outskirts of town” where she spends much of her time sewing clothing items for people of the town. Hester sewed for many people and many occasions, but the one occasion Hester was not allowed to sew anything for was a “white veil to cover the pure blushes of a bride” for “society frowned upon her sin” and did not think that a wedding between two pure people should be cursed by the needlework of an adulterer. Since Hester sewed her own “A” upon her clothing to symbolize her sin, the sewn clothing worn by other people in the town makes the reader wonder if the sewn articles of clothing symbolize how each person in the community is sinful, and should be marked as well.

In chapter 6, the reader is introduced to Hester’s daughter, Pearl. The name Pearl was “not expressive of her aspect, which had nothing of the calm, white, unimpassioned luster that would be indicated by the comparison” but rather because Pearl came about because of a “great price” her mother had to pay and is also “her mother’s only treasure.”

Although Pearl is known as a beautiful girl, when Hester looks Pearl in the eyes, she sees “an evil spirit possessed the child” while looking into the “abyss of her black eyes”. Pearl then questions as to where she came from, Hester replies by saying Pearl came from “Thy Heavenly Father”, but Pearl disagreed, and said that she “has no Heavenly Father”. Hester then thought back on when the “neighboring townspeople” said that “poor little Pearl was a demon offspring, such as, ever since old Catholic times, had occasionally been seen on earth, through the agency of their mother’s sin, and to promote some foul and wicked purpose.” Could Pearl possibly be the work of witchcraft to punish Hester even more of her sins?

Although Pearl has demonic eyes, she has the beauty of Hester, along with a peculiar personality. No matter how pure Pearl’s moral life had originally been, her life had now “taken the deep stains of crimson and gold, the fiery lustre, the black shadow, and the untempered light, of the intervening substance.” Hester could detect her own “wild, desperate, defiant mood, the flightiness of her temper, and even some of the very cloud-shapes of gloom and despondency that had brooded in her heart” within the personality of Pearl. Hester dresses Pearl in a “crimson velvet tunic, abundantly embroidered with fantasies and flourishes of gold thread”, to make her appear exactly like the ‘A’ that is embroidered upon Hester’s breast. Each clue of Pearl embodying traits of Hester’s sinful and lustful personality along with Hester’s beauty and resembling the appearance of the scarlet letter, the reader undoubtedly realizes that Pearl is “the scarlet letter endowed with life!” Why did Hester make her child resemble the most guilt ridden symbol embedded within Hester’s mind? Was it because “the red ignominy [was] so deeply scorched into her brain, that all her conceptions assumed its form”?

When asked where Pearl came from, she replies by saying that she was “picked off the rosebush by the prison door.” The significance of equating the origin of Pearl to the rosebush not only depicts the physical connotation of the rose, being that Pearl is beautiful on the outside just like the rose, yet has a “thorny” personality, but also from when, in the first chapter, the reader is first brought upon the rosebush. The reader learns that the rosebush could possibly be growing by the prison from Anne Hutchinson, who committed a sin in some people’s eyes, as she broke free of the Puritan rule and believed in individual freedom. The rosebush is a symbol of sin, yet also a symbol of hope and individuality, much like the personality of Pearl.

In the very end of chapter 8, Pearl’s personality alters when Mr. Dimmesdale defends Hester’s right to keep her daughter. Morphing from Pearl’s usual wild and non sentimental self, Pearl goes up to Dimmesdale and “taking his hand in the grasp of both her own, laid her cheek against it; a caress so tender, and withal so unobtrusive” that Hester wondered “Is that my Pearl?” Could the affection Pearl has towards Dimmesdale foreshadow that he could in fact be her father?

*The Scarlet Letter--Week One.

The Scarlet Letter takes place in Boston, Massachusetts among a group of people known as Puritans. The Puritan beliefs already provide symbolism within the book, as the Puritans believed in the devil and that Satan was loose in Massachusetts which is ironically where the story takes place. Along with Satan, the Puritans also believed in witchcraft, and many people blamed witches for their wrong doings, leading the reader to wonder if Hester Prynne or people among the community will blame Hester’s adultery upon the work of witches.

Right away, the reader is introduced to a scene of “bearded men, in sad-colored garments and gray, steeple-crowned hats” that are “assembled in front of a wooden edifice, the door of which was heavily timbered with oak and studded with iron spikes.” The first buildings in Boston were of “practical necessities” as the people appointed one “portion of the virgin lot as a cemetery, and another portion as the site of a prison.” The Puritan people believed strongly in sin, as Eve led Adam to sin, therefore all of mankind are contaminated with sin. The Puritans believe that “Dancing was acceptable, but sexual dancing was not. Drinking alcohol was acceptable, but becoming drunk was not. They believed strongly in marriage and were opposed to illicit sexual activities. Adultery was punishable by death.” The sin that the Puritans believed existed among every person led them to build cemeteries and jails right away in towns, because the Puritans also believed in punishing all wrongdoings.

Among all the “dark” “gloomy” and weeded” appearance of the prison, lies a “wild rosebush, covered, in this month of June, with its delicate gems.” The rosebush has been part of the land for quite some time, and no one is sure what is keeping the rosebush alive; whether its “merely survived out of the stern old wilderness” or whether “it had sprung up under the footsteps of the sainted Ann Hutchinson, as she entered the prison door.” Anne Hutchinson is a woman who organized religious groups of the Puritans, but spoke beliefs without being sanctioned to do so, and was therefore thrown into jail. The rosebush is hoped to “symbolize some sweet moral blossom that may be found along the track, or relieve the darkening close of a tale of human frailty and sorrow” much like what Ann Hutchinson was attempting to accomplish.

Hester Prynne is the main character in the story, who has committed adultery after her husband left. Not only is Hester Prynne’s personality and sin different from the rest of the towns, but the reader also sees a physical appearance that differs. Along with the scarlet “A” that Hester so neatly and glamorously sewed upon her breast, the physical appearance of Hester was of a “beautiful women, so picturesque in her attire and mien.” In all of Hester’s beauty, lies a scarlet colored “A” with golden stitching upon her breast, which seems ironic that for committing adultery, one would be forced to put something on her bosom that draws more attention in an area that one should be ashamed of. The color scarlet symbolizes sin, which is why the ‘A’ that Hester sews upon herself is of that color.

Hester Prynne is forced to stand upon a “scaffold” in front of the community for her punishment, where she set eyes on a stranger with “so fixed a gaze that, at moments of intense absorption, all objects in the visible world seemed to vanish.” The reader wonders if maybe the stranger that has arrived is Hester’s adulterer?

Not only does one pose questions about the stranger, but also about Reverend Mr. Dimmesdale. While Reverend Mr. Wilson, Mr. Dimmesdale, and the Governor are supposed to convince Hester to “speak out the name of thy fellow-sinner”, Mr. Dimmesdale only asks the question once, and then asks no more. Perhaps because Mr. Dimmesdale could also be Hester’s adulterer?

*The Poisonwood Bible--Week Six.

“Nzolo-it means dearly beloved; or a white grub used for fish bait, or a special fetish against dysentery; or little potatoes. Nzolo is the double-sized pagne that wraps around two people at once. Finally I see how these things are related. In a marriage ceremony, husband and wife stand tightly bound by their nzole and hold one another to be the most precious: nzolani. As precious as the first potatoes of the season, small and sweet like Georgia peanuts. Precious as the fattest grubs turned up from the soil, which catch the largest fish. And the fetish most treasured by mothers, against dysentery, contains a particle of all the things invoked by the word nzolo: you must dig and dry the grub and potatoes, bind them with a thread from your wedding cloth, and have them blessed in a fire by the nganga doctor.”

As a reader, the most exciting aspect of The Poisonwood Bible is to be able to read about how each girl has changed throughout the course of the story, as the reader grows and matures along with each girl as they become women. The preceding paragraph exemplifies the maturing of Leah, and how she has gained insight on the Congolese vernacular. The time span and the multiple narration that Barbara Kingsolver wrote in the book aids the reader in depicting the lifestyle of each girl, and also allows the reader to develop along with the characters.

As each girl continues to grow and develop emotionally after departing the Congo, each one also rebels against Nathan. Adah went to college and enjoyed learning about science more than religion, Leah married Anatole, which would have been a sin for the mere reason that Anatole was a different race, and Rachel became a “Jezebel” as people mistake Rachel for the “madam of a whorehouse.”

Even though Leah, in a way, rebels from her father, Leah still names one of her children after him. Just as in the last reading section, each of Leah’s children was named after someone of importance to Leah. The final child that Leah had was named Natanial, after Leah’s father Nathan. When Leah gave birth to Nataniel, he “took extra care to stay alive.” Leah was “terrified to put him down at all…for fear that he’d slip away.” Nataniel was “hard to convince” to try to keep breathing, and stay alive. Finally, Nataniel began to eat and “seems happy with his decision to stay with [them].” Nataniel, much like Nathan, is stubborn and a pretentious in his ways.

Not only is Nataniel like one of Leah’s family members, but Martin Lothair “reminds [Leah] of his Aunt Adah” in the way that Martin is “turning out to be the darkest” of Leah’s sons, for at the age of “twelve, he broods and writes poetry in a journal.” Fitting for his name, Pascal reminds Leah exactly of her “namesake, old friend, with similar wide-set eyes.”

Not only are Leah’s children like members of the Price family, but Leah also exhibits traits of Orleanna, while Leah sat “on the floor rocking, sleepless, deranged by exhaustion, cradling the innocent wreck of a baby.” Leah, in this section, again reminds the reader of Orleanna when Orleanna speaks of when she was doing whatever it took to try to keep Adah and her other children alive, which was not a simple task. Leah begged the fire to “keep this little boy I already love so much from going cold” and to the kettle of “boiled, sterile water and tiny dropper” to keep the baby hydrated. While reading this, the reader gets taken back to when Orleanna speaks about struggling to keep Adah alive. However Leah “suddenly had a fully formed memory of [her] mother kneeling and talking-praying” to keep Ruth May alive. The different insight the reader gains from what the character gains, is all played throughout the point of view. Since Kingsolver had each of the girls and Orleanna be a narrator, the reader is able to grasp onto clues that the girls did not know, and also clues that Orleanna did not know. Such as at the very last chapter, the reader is taken back to the opening of the story- where Orleanna saw the okapi; only this time, the reader understands that the okapi running off from being frightened by the girls was not a bad thing, but rather a blessing. If the girls had not scared off the okapi, “he would have remained until the second month of the dry season, and then a hunter would have killed him.” In reality, the Price women saved the okapi’s life. Because of the altering points of view, what the reader reads is not biased, and at the same time the reader gains insight on each woman’s perspective, therefore broadening the details of each person’s life.

When the girls lived with Nathan, every time something appalling happened, each girl believed that God was punishing them for a sin committed. However, as Leah begins to grow and understand more about life, she learns that the “sun rises and sets at six exactly. A caterpillar becomes a butterfly, a bird raises its brood in the forest, and a greenheart tree will only grow from a greenheart seed. He brings drought sometimes, followed by torrential rains, and if these things aren’t always what I had in mind, they aren’t my punishment either. They’re rewards, let’s say.” Leah discovers that God does not cause certain events in nature to happen as punishment, but that’s just how life is-there has to be good and bad. For without bad in the world, one would not know what good is.

Though Leah has learned from her experience in the Congo, Rachel has still failed to adapt and morph into a girl that understands and accepts others. The reader again sees the failed acceptance as Rachel continues to delineate a self-conceded character. Rachel worries about her own self worth, as Rachel “lets others do the pushing and shoving, as you just ride along.” Rachel doesn’t mind that she may sound “un-Christian” for letting other people do the dirty work for her, to survive all you have to do is “stick out your elbows and hold yourself up.”

Rachel makes an ironic statement directed towards Eeben Axelroot, as she speaks of acquiring “female problems” because of an “infection [she] contracted from Eeben Axelroot.” Because of the infection, Rachel became infertile. The ironic comment from Rachel is when she says “like I said, I paid my price with him.” The last name of Rachel being Price makes the statement ironic and also a pun. By saying that Rachel has “paid her price”, Rachel is emphasizing how she basically gave up herself and her happiness for Axelroot.

The point is made quite pellucid that Rachel wishes to go back and reside in America, and the reader begins wondering why Rachel doesn’t. Rachel admits to missing the “parties, the cars, the music- the whole carefree American way of life.” However, later on, Rachel admits that she “had her bags packed more than once” but didn’t go for fear of not being “able to fit back in.” Rachel was only nineteen at the time, and didn’t think that she would fit in with her “stained hair and one dead sister and a whole darn marriage behind her already, not to mention hell and high water. Not to mention the Congo.” Even through all of the tragedy within Rachel’s life, she is most concerned with not being able to fit in. The question then leads back into why didn’t Orleanna leave? With all of the similarity that Kingsolver portrays between the girls and their mother, the reader wonders if perhaps Orleanna stayed in the Congo for fear it was too late to leave and she wouldn’t fit back into her old lifestyle anymore.

“I am still Adah, but you would hardly know me now, without my slant.” A few chapters back, Adah explains how Emily Dickenson said to “tell all the truth but tell it in slant.” However, now that Adah has lost her “crookedness” and her “ability to read in the old way.” Adah misses her old self so much, that sometimes at night she “secretly limps purposely around [her] apartment.” Now that Adah is “like everybody else”, she begins missing the old peculiar self. In the “Western Civilization” one must expect “perfection” because it has been decided “that dark skin or lameness may not be entirely one’s fault, but one still ought to show the good manners to act ashamed.” However, Adah doesn’t wish to become like every other “normal” person. Adah discovered in the Congo that it is alright being peculiar; therefore, Adah symbolizes the minority of people who are okay with being different even though the culture does not commend it.

When Adah becomes a doctor, she must “swear to uphold the Hippocratic Oath” which basically states that a doctor will do whatever he or she can to save a patient. However, Adah’s “small hairs on the back of [her] neck stood up” as she agreed to take the oath. For who was she, “vowing calmly among all these neck tied young men to steal life out of nature’s jaws?” Even though Adah is a doctor, which verifies her to save people’s lives, it is ironic that Adah still believes in having nature take its course, and whatever is meant to be will just happen without the aid of medicine.

Kingsolver’s overall theme in the story is depicting how America tries to control other countries and change the way of life, because Americans believe that their way is the best. Not only that, but America takes for granted material items, whereas in the Congo, “you know what a seed is for, or you starve.” Not only does Kingsolver depict how America takes items for granted, but also portrays how America’s believe that their ways are best. In the Congo, “the soil falls apart, the earth melts into red gashes like the mouths of whales. Fungi and vines throw a blanket over the face of the dead land. And when you clear off part of the plate, the whole slides into ruin.” The personification exemplifies how when America attempts to make Africa better by building roads “the whole slides into ruins” but, “stop clearing, and the balance slowly returns. Maybe in the long run, people will persist happily here only if they return to the ways of the ancient Kongo, traveling by foot, growing their food near at hand, using their own tools and cloth near the site of production.”

In the very last chapter of the story, Ruth May concludes the story by taking the reader back to a scene in the very beginning of the book--back to the okapi. Although Orleanna thought that she scared off the okapi, and upset it- in reality, because the girls scared off the okapi, they actually saved the okapis life, showing that “every life is different because you passed this way and touched history.” Ultimately showing how Africa and each country is different because of the people that have passed through it, and expelled their culture upon it. The okapi running away from Orleanna symbolized how she has lost her solitude, and then at the end of the story when Orleanna is given an okapi by the lady in the market, symbolizes how she has gained back her solitude when Ruth May forgives Orleanna and tells Orleanna to forgive herself, also.

The last symbol of closure is when the women come into town, and ask how to get to Kilanga so they can see Ruth’s grave. However, everyone that the women ask say that “Kilanga is not reachable” because the road is closed off and one cannot travel down it, ultimately symbolizing the closure of each women’s life in the Congo and all of the guilt that each had.

*The Poisonwood Bible--Week Five.

“Africa has a thousand ways to get under your skin” is a quote that portrays much of Exodus. As the girls and Orleanna separate and begin to live each one’s own life, the reader can see the transformation of Leah and Adah and the personality that remains with Rachel.

Leah has evolved the most out of the three girls within the story, as she continues to use Congolese techniques in everyday life. Now that Leah has married Anatole, an African man, Leah has decided to stay behind from her family and live in Africa with Anatole. Leah’s learned tricks from African women, such as balancing items on top of her head rather than carrying items in her hands. The entire time Leah had been in the Congo, she had been “awestruck by what the ladies could carry on their heads, but had never once tried it [herself].” Not only that, but Leah also learned when the “river was receding from its rainy season flood by its peculiar rank smell and all the driftwood…” Leah thinks back on when her mother told the girls that if a boat ever begins to turn over, “grab onto the side and hold on for dear life” but Leah learned Congolese boats are “made out of dense wood so if they capsize they sink like a rock.” Leah has been the most prevalent character at showing positivity from the Congo, and put to good use the culture of Congo.

Now that Nathan is out of Leah’s life, Leah is finally able to love who she wants- an African boy, Anatole. Leah learns “love changes everything” or, “requited love” does, for Leah has “loved [her] father fiercely [her] whole life, and it changed nothing.” However, when Leah is with Anatole, he makes “the colors of the aurora borealis rise off [her] skin” and sends “needles of ice tinkling blue through [her] brain when he looks in [her] eyes.” For Leah, Anatole has “banished the honey-colored ache of malaria and guilt from [her] blood” and because Leah’s father is no longer a part of her life, Leah is able to have feelings for someone without the fear of sinning. Not only does the imagery depict Leah’s strong feelings toward Anatole, but describes how “by way of Anatole, [Leah] is delivered not out of life, but through it.”

Even though Leah has begun accepting the African culture, and almost believes in their ways more than her father’s, Leah is still treated differently because she is white. Now as Leah lives in Africa, she is discovering what it is like to be treated differently, as Leah “damn’s [President Eisenhower, King Leopold, and Nathan] for throwing [her] into a war in which white skin comes down on the wrong side.”

The names within Leah’s life pose symbolism towards the story. Starting with Leah’s own name, Anatole explains how “Lingala” is sweet and maternal”, which is Leah’s African name. However, Leah’s English name is sarcastic, depicting how Leah used to act towards the Africans when her life was based on English beliefs. The difference between the African name and the English name symbolizes how Kingsolver is depicting the personalities of each country. By having Leah’s African name mean “sweet and maternal” and Leah’s English name mean “sarcastic”, Kingsolver exemplifies how Africans are caring for each person within the country and always looking out for one another; whereas in America, the population is overly sarcastic and arrogant.

Not only does Leah’s name show symbolism, but also Leah’s children’s names. Leah’s first two sons were named after Patrice and Pascal, Patrice being a leader of the Congo who was killed, and Pascal being an old childhood friend from the Congo. By naming the children after people in the Congo, Leah shows how Africans did have an impact on her, and that Leah respected their beliefs and friendship. Martin Lothair was Leah’s third child’s name, which sounds like Martin Luther, who was known for altering Christianity by saying that “salvation is not earned by good deeds but received only as a free gift of God’s grace through faith in Jesus Christ” (Wikipedia.com)

Later on, when the reader finds out that Leah becomes an English teacher to American children, Leah realizes how ungrateful the children are as each begins complaining missing “their dire-sounding TV shows, things with Vice and Cop and Jeopardy in their titles.” Leah explains what the children are ignorant to is that “they’d been utterly surrounded by vice, cops, and the pure snake-infested jeopardy of a jungle.” The cleverness of relating the Television shows to actual occurrences in the Congo exemplifies how mature and knowledgeable Leah has become. When the children mock Leah’s dress style and call her “Mrs. Gumbo”, Leah “pitied them, despised them, and silently willed them back home.” What Leah doesn’t realize, is that is how the Price family treated the Congolese when they first moved to Africa.

As the girls separate from each other, the reader can identify personality that each girl portrays from Orleanna. Leah and Anatole’s relationship has certain characteristics that relate to Orleanna and Nathan’s relationship. Anatole “worked with the Lumbumbists” and was only expected to be gone for “no more than six or eight weeks.” However, Anatole was gone much longer, and Leah sat home and waited for a letter from Anatole. Anatole being away from Leah compares to when Nathan went into the war, and Orleanna waited and waited for his letter. Will Anatole change as much from the war as Nathan did, and will Leah be in the same position that Orleanna was in?

Much like Orleanna with Nathan, Leah begins to experience loneliness when Anatole is gone. As Leah reminisces back on memories of Anatole while he is gone, Leah tries to “decide which [chicken] to kill for supper” but in the end, Leah “can never take any of them, on account of the companionship [she] would lose.” Because of Orleanna’s loneliness, guilt, and regret, she explains that’s why she writes in this book. Just like Orleanna, Leah begins writing to Adah and Anatole. Even though “neither of them will ever see [her] letters”, Leah writes because she “needs the pouring out” of words and feelings, and the companionship of someone else, even if it’s fictitious.

While Leah’s life is beginning to appear like Orleanna’s, Rachel’s life has aspects of Nathan in it as Rachel’s personality remains greedy. Nathan came to the Congo, not for the benefit of the people and to help the community become better, but was rather for his own personal gain to appear as a savior over the people. Rachel’s matrimony with men isn’t for love, but rather for her personal gain. Rachel poses a false engagement with Eeben Axelroot so that she can depart from Congo. Then Rachel tries to have a relationship with Daniel, a married man, basically just to see if she can steal Daniel away from his wife and so Rachel can become rich and have items such as a “dior gown.” Finally, Rachel marries “Diplomat Remy Fairley” who at least had the “decency to die and leave [her] the Equatorial.” Rachel wanted a building just like “Shah’s temple” referring to Shah Jahan who built the Taj Mahal for his wife, Mumtaz Mahal, after she died. Rachel did not marry these men for love, but rather for the material items that they provided to her. Each chapter title pertaining to Rachel has different last names, showing how many times Rachel has been married, ultimately showing how Rachel flutters from one guy to the next, waiting more material goods. Rachel tricked each one of the men as they “never knew what hit [them].”

Rachel is the one sister that fails to conform to the African culture. Rachel concerns herself with affluence and fashion trends. Rather than being concerned about her family, Rachel frets about how because the Ladies’ Home Journal arrives so late, that the women “are one or two months out of style” as they “probably started painting [their] nails Immoral Coral after everybody sensible had already gone on to pink.”

Rachel notices, while riding the train out to the beach, that “you have to look the other way” because the people’s homes are made “out of a piece of rusted tin or the side of a crate.” Rachel explains how “you just have to try and understand they don’t have the same ethics as us. That is one part of living here. Being understanding of the differences.” This line depicts irony, for Rachel is the sister who is not understanding of differences.

Rachel’s goal in her new life to forget about what happened in the Congo, and simply block those details out of her life. Very rarely, Rachel takes out a “gold locket” that she wore in the Congo. Inside of the locket was a picture of “teeny little sad faces” of Rachel and her sisters. The picture is “so small, [Rachel] has to hold it practically at the end of [her] nose to make out who it is” symbolizing Rachel’s feelings toward her family during and after life in the Congo- small, minute, and almost nonexistent.

Not only does Rachel forget about her family, but has no recollection of the people in Congo. While hanging out with Adah and Leah, Leah tells about how Pascal has died, and Rachel first thought Leah was talking about her son, and then finally remembered Pascal as “the little boy with the holes in his pants.” Rachel had no memory of anyone in the Congo, showing how the people had no affect on her, ultimately symbolizing the obsessive and high standard personality Rachel has for herself.

Not only do the girls change emotionally, but Adah changes physically and she gets help from a doctor and is no longer crippled. Now that Nathan is out of Adah’s life, she is able to go to college and become a doctor. While everyone believed that Adah was the sister destined to fail, ironically Adah is the one making the most out of her life and is the happiest out of all the sisters. Leah and Rachel exhibit traits that makes the reader question if they may end up like Orleanna and Nathan in the end, whereas Adah is living her own life, and going on to school to become a doctor and finally doing something for herself.

After Orleanna leaves Nathan, herself and Adah move into a new home, Orleanna begins gardening, something she never did when Nathan was around. During the girls’ childhood, they “never had one flower in [their] yard” and now Orleanna’s entire yard is “surrounded by a blaze of pinks, blues, and oranges.” The flowers in the garden symbolize many things, one being beauty. The flowers symbolize beauty in Orleanna’s life that wasn’t there when Nathan was around. The garden also symbolizes the nurturing of life. The garden wouldn’t grow when Nathan was around, symbolizing how the girls and Orleanna weren’t able to grow and flourish when Nathan was around, because he was holding the women back from living their own lives. Now that Nathan is gone, the garden is blossoming, just like the girls are developing and choosing their own paths in life.

Now that Nathan has died, the title of the entire book begins to make sense. Nathan mistakenly calls Jesus “Poisonwood” by saying “Bängala” the wrong way. Poisonwood is a type of tree in the Congo that if the sap gets on a person, he or she will break out into contagious blisters that can eventually turn into 1^st or 2^nd degree burns if not treated. Metaphorically, the poisonwood in the story is the preaching of Jesus. Nathan didn’t give up preaching to the people about Jesus when they didn’t want to hear it, and ultimately Nathan ended up “getting burned.”

*The Poisonwood Bible--Week Four.

As The Poisonwood Bible progresses, the girls continue to grow and transform. Rachel has gone from snobbery materialism, and morphed into a girl who smokes. As Rachel continues to pretend to be engaged to Axelroot, Rachel has now undergone a change and begins to smoke, which is a sin and would be shunned if Nathan ever found out. While smoking, Axelroot takes the cigarette out of Rachel’s mouth and sticks both cigarettes in his own, “lights them together,” and then “ever so gently, puts the lit cigarette back” into Rachel’s mouth. “It seemed almost like [they] had kissed, and chills ran down [her] back.” The lighting of the two cigarettes at once and the anxiety Rachel felt over exchanging cigarettes from Axelroot’s mouth into her own foreshadows the kiss that the two exchange later on. The anxiety that Rachel feels not only contributes to Rachel’s naivety and adolescence, but also shows how drastically Rachel is growing into a women.

Not only do the cigarettes foreshadow the kiss, but imagery also contributes to it. Right before, the two were in the “cool forest” where it was “very quiet.” The only noise was “bird sounds with silence in between, and those sounds put together seemed even quieter than no sound at all.” The quietness contributes to the fact that the two were completely alone in the forest, showing how the kiss was something that Axelroot wanted to do, and wasn’t just for show to make the town see that the two were genuine about being engaged. The forest was “shadowy and dark, even though it was the middle of the day.” The darkness portrays the sin that Rachel committed by not only kissing Axelroot, but enjoying it.

Just when the reader thinks that Rachel may be adapting to the Congolese culture, clues surface that make the reader wonder if Rachel ever truly will adapt. After the fire circle that the village has, the people are entirely covered in ash. Rather than going with the village into the town square to celebrate the food they’d acquired, Rachel instead went home and “tore off [her] filthy clothes and threw them into the stove.” As Rachel sat in the “galvanized tub” and took a bath, she stared up at “mother’s picture of President Eisenhower” and wished that “he was [her] father instead of [her] own parents” because if Eisenhower was Rachel’s father, she would “live under the safe protection of somebody who wore decent clothes, bought meat from the grocery store like the Good Lord intended, and cared about others” which is a bit ironic, considering Rachel doesn’t always go out of her own way to care for others. Rachel also thought that after her family left Congo, she would go back to Georgia “and be exactly the same Rachel as before” and she would “grow up to be a carefree American wife, with nice things and a sensible way of life and three grown sisters to share [her] ideals and talk to on the phone from time and time.” Rachel and the rest of the family did not have any idea that the Congo would change them so drastically, and were by no means prepared for what the family went through. The family’s inability to cope with the Congolese culture ultimately symbolizes how America is not able to not only adapt to other cultures, but does not try or want to adapt to other cultures.

Even though Rachel wasn’t able to adapt, Leah is learning and growing as the story progresses. When the ants take over the village, rather than worrying about saving Adah, Leah is more concerned about Mama Mwanza. Although Leah had forgotten, once again, about Adah, Leah has learned to care about the Congolese people, and now thinks of them as Leah’s own family.

The ants that took over the village each took over a different area of the girl’s bodies. The ants were most abundant on Rachel “in [her] hair.” On Adah, the ants covered her “earlobes, tongue, and eyelids” and on Leah the ants were most abundant on her feet. Each area where the ants were at on the girls body symbolize the personality of each of the girls. The importance of the ants covering Rachel’s hair symbolize what Rachel concentrates most on in the Congo—her appearance and vanity. The ants covering Adah’s earlobes and eyelids symbolize that Adah hears and sees events in the Congo that no other person in the family does. However, the ants covering Adah’s mouth symbolizes how Adah refuses to speak. Finally, the ants on Leah’s feet symbolize how Leah has learned to “stand” her ground, with not only the people in the Congo, but most importantly Leah’s father.

When Ruth May dies, all Nathan was concerned about was that Ruth “hadn’t been baptized” yet, rather than the fact that Ruth had just died. As the story proceeds, Leah begins seeing the Congolese as “beautiful” and “pretty” and begins seeing her own father as “a simple, ugly man.” The selfishness that Nathan has with wanting to baptize and rectify the Congolese people, causes Nathan to overlook his own daughter’s death, and becomes concerned solely with the fact that Ruth May had not yet been baptized.

After Ruth May’s death, rather than going to heaven as her father wished, Ruth goes where she wishes to be, in the tree with the green mamba snakes. Before Ruth dies, she ponders the thought of where she would want to go after death. As Ruth thinks about green mamba snakes and how “it’s so quiet up there” in a tree, Ruth knows “that’s exactly what [she] wants to go and be, when [she] has to disappear.” Being up in the tree, Ruth “can look down and see the whole world, Mama and everybody.” Because Ruth was bitten by a green mamba and died, that also symbolizes where Ruth May went after death. The scream that the girls and Nelson heard when Ruth died, sounded almost as if “the sound came from the tree.” While Ruth May’s body lie on the table during the funeral, covered in “misty layers of mosquito netting”, Ruth’s body resembled a “billowy cloud that could rise right up through the trees” again symbolizing where Ruth went after death.

For a long period of time, the Congo suffered a severe drought. The children’s “favorite swimming hole” was “nothing but dry cradles of white stones.” The manioc fields were “flat: dead.” People of the village so desperately begged for rain, that “nearly every girl in the village had danced with a chicken held to their head, to bring down the rain.” The drought and dry spell that Congo experiences foreshadows the death of Ruth May. However, after Ruth’s death, “the sky groaned and cracked” and “shrill, cold needles of rain pierced” at the Congolese’s “hands and backs of [their] necks.” The rain that appeared on the day of Ruth’s funeral, poses hope for not only the Congolese now that they have rain, but also the Price family—hope that maybe after the death of one of Nathan and Orleanna’s children, and that Nathan was able to baptize the children with the rain water, that the family will be able to leave the Congo and return home.

Within the entire length of the story thus far, Orleanna lent hints of a child dying, and the guilt Orleanna felt for it. The reader finally understands the guilt and the reason for Orleanna’s pleads that the reader find her “innocent.” The entire stay at the Congo, Orleanna senses that one of her children is going to die, but refuses to take action. Orleanna finally is able to work and motivate after the death of Ruth. Not only does this demonstrate how one should always follow one’s conscience, but also illustrates how even though one may know someone or something is in danger, he or she will wait to take action until the damage is already done.

Kingsolver continues to point out America’s faults and attitudes towards other countries, as Kingsolver depicts hypocriticalness and snobbery. While Nathan is preaching, the people of the Congo agree to take a vote as to whether they believe in Jesus or not. Even though Americans were the ones that introduced voting to the Congolese, Nathan refuses to accept this method just because the vote doesn’t go his way. The refusal of voting exemplifies how Americans want everything to go the way we want, or else it’s not acceptable.

The Congolese people create a fire ring to entrap animals for themselves to eat. The fire “ungrew” smaller and smaller, “with all the former life of a broad grassy plain trapped inside. The trapped animals inside of the fire ring symbolize all the people of the Congo, whereas the fire itself represents the Americans. Americans push and force new customs upon different countries, until it ultimately “kills” the Congolese culture. Kingsolver exemplifies, through the fire ring, how Americans believe that their ways are the best, and that other countries should learn to live like Americans do.

The importance of having the five women in the story narrate the entire book, shows how Nathan speaks for the girls in real life, so the five women never have any say in real life. However, as the story progresses, each of the girls are beginning to have more say for themselves and stand up to Nathan, which makes the reader wonder if ultimately Nathan will start narrating in the end of the story as the women begin to speak over him.

*The Poisonwood Bible--Week Three.

In the beginning of Book three, the reader is again taken back into the thoughts of Orleanna. This time, the reader gains insight on why Nathan Price acts the way he does towards the Price family. When Orleanna first married Nathan, the two spend a honeymoon “picking cotton for the war effort.” Neither Orleanna nor Nathan needed material items to make their honeymoon and marriage special, but enjoyed each other’s company by helping out for war efforts. However, soon after, Nathan was drafted into World War II. Nathan was at war a short three months when he was “struck in the head with a shell fragment” and suffered “a head concussion.” Nathan knew he was saved by the “grace of God” and was grateful, however, Orleanna knew that “was the last [she] would ever hear from the man [she’d] married.” The night Nathan was hit by a shell fragment and hid in a pig shed, little did Nathan know that his fellow soldiers endured an excruciating test of survival in the Bataan Death March. The Bataan Death March was a sixty mile march consisting of physical abuse and murder forced upon 75,000 Americans from the Japanese Army. The result was a high number of fatalities by many American soldiers. Every one of Nathan’s “company died, to the man, on the Death March from Bataan.” From then on, everything Orleanna knew about Nathan changed. If ever Orleanna tried to speak or kiss Nathan, he would pull away responding that “the Lord is watching us.” The reader now knows why Nathan is the way he is with the persistent control of forcing every person upon faith and belief in the Lord. Even though the war instilled profound religious beliefs upon the Lord, the war also forced abuse and hatred toward anyone that had doubts in the lord. Nathan pushed faith so strongly upon Orleanna, she began fearing the Lord, afraid that if she “let one of [her] father’s curse words slip” or if “He watched [her] take a bath, daring to enjoy the warm water” that she would be punished. Nathan watched Orleanna just as closely, causing Orleanna to live her life in fear of doing anything that could be perceived as sinful.

As the lives of Nathan and Orleanna Price began to alter, Orleanna became pregnant with her first baby, and so she thought, only one more the second time. Because Orleanna and Nathan did not have much money, Orleanna was deprived of food during her pregnancy. Orleanna had such desperate cravings for food, she would “go out at night on [her] hands a knees and secretly eat dirt from the garden.” After Orleanna had twins, she felt an overwhelming feeling of guilt for her poor nutrition and lack of food to support her babies. Adah is the way she is because of the lack of food that Orleanna could provide for her.

Orleanna speaks of the great life she lived when she was younger. Even though Orleanna’s mother died, Orleanna was still happy living with just her father in poverty, because Orleanna’s father didn’t force her to be something she is not. From then on after Orleanna married Nathan, all of the stories Orleanna recites are rife with guilt and depression.

As the chapter goes on and the point of view is now back upon the four girls, the reader learns of the metamorphosis that each girl is taking on with Leah undergoing the most dramatic change. As Leah arrives back from Leopoldville back to Congo, the arrival is nothing like the first time the family came. There was not a “single soul standing at the edge of the field to greet” them, no “drums or stewing up a goat for us.” Leah begins realizing how much the Congolese people gave the Price family, and each of the Price’s took the “feast” for granted. As Leah “feels a throb a dread” she “pledged to the Lord that [she] would express true gratitude for such a feast” if one would ever happen again. The guilt of failed appreciation is felt by all three girls when Orleanna and Ruth May become sick, and each girl has a duty to help around the house. Making a meal proves to be difficult for each girl, and each of them gain a new appreciation for the work of Orleanna.

At first when the girls arrived in Congo, all the girls noticed was the peculiar dress and abnormalities of the Congolese. Now that Leah begins looking again at Mama Mwanza, rather than noticing her missing legs, Leah now sees Mama Mwanza with an “extraordinarily pretty face.” Leah also cannot help but notice the extreme physical attraction she feels towards Anatole, as her feelings for him become stronger. Leah begins teaching schooling to younger Congolese children, and also learns to shoot a bow and arrow-- something Leah would have previously thought as boyish and a sin. Congolese people even begin calling Leah Bakala, which means either “a hot pepper, a bumpy sort of potato, or the male sex organ.” However, Leah does not care; Leah is pleased with spending her time with Anatole and getting away from her overbearing father.

Not only is Anatole a fresh relief from Nathan, but also Brother Fowles, the previous minister in Congo, who was asked to leave for “becoming too close to the Congolese.” Brother Fowles exemplifies everything that Nathan is not, which causes Orleanna and the four girls to wish to leave with Brother Fowles. Calling Brother Fowles Santa Claus is not only ironic because of his appearance, but also because of his personality. Brother Fowles brings the Price family many gifts, and is kind and understanding towards the family. Brother Fowles is a foil character to Nathan, as he is everything positive that Nathan is not.

Barbara Kingsolver continues to portray America as a greedy country, unwilling to help less fortunate countries, and ungrateful of the items we have. In Kilanga, people knew “nothing of things such as a Frigidaire, or a washer-dryer combination.” It also “didn’t occur to the people to feel sorry for themselves” for not having material items, for the only time the Congolese felt sorry for themselves was when “children died.” Kingsolver shows how in Congo, people are of more importance than material items and having wealth, whereas in America, being wealthy is at utmost importance. When Leah is speaking to Anatole about having numerous automobiles per home, and having a great big store for food, Anatole does not believe Leah. Even though the Congo is less fortunate in technological ways, Kingsolver makes the reader wonder if the Congo is better off, as the people are more appreciative for the things that they do have. As one continues to read, the reader is able to grow along with the Price family in cultural values.

*The Poisonwood Bible--Week Two.

“I took a breath and told myself that a woman anywhere on earth could understand another woman on market day. Yet in my eye could not decipher those vendors: they wrapped their heads in bright-colored cloths as cheerful as a party, but faced the world with permanent frowns. However I might pretend I was their neighbor, they knew better. I was pale and wide-eyed as a fish. A fish in the dust of the marketplace, trying to swim, while all the other women calmly breathed in that atmosphere of overripe fruit, dried sweat, and spices, infusing their lives with powers I fear.“ The beginning of Revelations begins with Orleanna reminiscing on memories from Africa. As Orleanna thinks back on market day, she remembers how peculiar she appeared throughout the woman of Africa. Not only did the “bright-colored clothes” differ between Orleanna and the Congolese women, but also the personalities and feelings. Just as Orleanna was feeling like the family may have a chance at fitting in, Leah trips “mid-straddle over the oranges” and the oranges go everywhere. After the incidence happens, Orleanna realizes how much the family does not fit in with the Africans, as Orleanna discovers that she is only “[her] husband’s wife” and “nothing more” as Nathan has a control on everything the Price family does.

As one reads the story, thoughts of what Orleanna’s life would be like if she hadn’t had married Nathan begins to arise not only for the reader, but soon for Orleanna herself. When Orleanna wakes up each morning in the Congo, she remembers how the mornings were the worst, as Orleanna had to face another day with her husband and children, and the “litany of efforts it took to push a husband and children alive and feed through each day.” Coffee was of far more importance than “the physical presence of [her] husband.” The river symbolized a way out for Orleanna. Each day she “dream[ed] of how it might have carried [her] body down through all the glittering sandbars to the sea” away from responsibility and, more distinctively, the family which bears a burden and a husband that Orleanna doesn’t wish to be with. The “magazine pictures” that Orleanna has hanging up in the kitchen also symbolize the dismay she feels towards the children and Nathan, as each picture poses a scene that “father would disapprove” of as the pictures gleam faces of “housewives, children, and handsome men from cigarette ads” which “are company for her” in the dreams Orleanna has of living a different life.

Each girl masquerades a different view on not only the Congolese, but religion itself. Mama Tataba refers to the girls as “fufu nsala” which means “forest-dwelling, red-headed rat that runs from light.” The comparison Mama Tataba instills upon the girls is ideally correct, as each girl secludes herself in the forest, unwilling to understand the Congolese culture and find the “light” to guide each girl to happiness in the Congo. “Adah chose her own exile; Rachel was dying for the normal life of slumber parties and record albums she was missing. And poor Leah. Leah followed [her father] like an underpaid waitress hoping for the tip.”

Rachel, the eldest of the girls, is stuck on material items and vanity. Watching women work in the community has no effect upon Rachel. Mama Tataba could accomplish many tasks in the Congo with ease, as she could “reach her fingers deep in a moldy bag, and draw out a miraculous ounce of white flour. She rendered goat fat into something like butter, and pulverized antelope mean into hamburgers. She used a flat rock and the force of her will to smash groundnuts into passable peanut butter.” All the while Mama Tataba was laboring over food for the Prices, Rachel sat “at the foot of the table” ungrateful as she “tossed her hair from shoulders, announcing that all she wished for in this world was ‘Jiffy, smooth. Not crunchy.’”

Later on when Rachel sees Antatole’s “wrinkled brown knuckles and pinkish palms” Rachel begins imagining “hands like those digging diamonds out of the Congo dirt” and wondering if “Marilyn Monroe even [knew] where they came from.” Rachel pictured Marilyn in “her satin gown and a Congolese diamond digger in the same universe” which gave her “the weebie jeebies.” Even though Rachel has lived in the Congo for quite some time, she still cannot fathom “normal” people and the Congolese people residing in the same area and also belonging together. Rachel is stuck on herself, and the spoiled girl she was back home. Will Rachel ever be able to step out of herself and come at peace with the Congo culture?

Leah is the opposite of Rachel, as Leah is concentrated more upon obtaining her father’s approval and love than anything else. Leah discovers that that Tata Boanda “has two wives”, therefore making him a “sinner.” Leah is taken aback at the fact that Tata Boanda comes into the church with his two wives, but what Leah oversees is the culture of the Congolese. Leah is concentrated on her own religion because it’s all she’s ever been taught by her father, that Leah fails to comprehend what the Congolese believe, and ultimately classifies them as sinners.

After Nathan hits Leah, Leah is afraid that she won’t be her father’s favorite anymore. So with all Leah does from then on, she tries “twice as hard to win him back over.” Is Leah as religious as she appears to be, or does she just pretend to live in the Lord’s ways to win over her father’s love?

Leah’s twin sister, Adah, is supposedly the sister that doesn’t comprehend anything. Ironically, Adah is book smart, and the only sister that attempts to understand the Congolese people. There are certain areas in the Congo river that is divided up into three different sections for bathing, washing clothes, and obtaining drinking water. Adah is the only one out of the Price family that realizes the Price family is doing it the wrong way, therefore they have “defended the oldest divinities” and Adah soon wonders “what new, disgusting sins [they] commit each day, holding [their] heads high in sacred ignorance while the neighbors gasp, hand to mouth.” Whereas the rest of the family focuses on themselves, Adah observes every bit of nature and culture surrounding her.

Ruth May, the youngest of all the girls, facades a naïve girl. Because of the inexperience that Ruth has and carefree spirit she portrays, Ruth is the first of the girls to befriend the other children. The other girls were “flabbergasted” to see their “own little sister in the center of [their] yard, the focal point of a gleaming black arc of children strung from here to there…” Ruth didn’t see a problem with the Congolese people, and in all her boredom and isolation from the rest of the community, decided that there would be nothing wrong with playing “Mother May I” and teaching the children a new game. Although Ruth is the youngest, she is able to be the most civilized one out of the family when it came to being kind to the Congolese and non judgmental.

Even though Nathan Price disrespects the Congolese beliefs and Tata Kuvudundu by calling him a “witch doctor” because he’s trying to get the Congolese to believe in different ideas than Nathan agrees with, one has to give the Price family credit for being stubborn in their religious ways even though many people in the African community were against the family’s religion.

While the family believes that the way the Congolese dress, act, and believe are strange, the family fails to see how peculiar they look to the Africans when the Price’s do simple tasks such as “walk around in [their] house, speak, wear pants, and boil water.” The game that Ruth taught the Congo kids was different than the games that the Congolese kids normally play. “Mother May I and Hide and Seek” were a “wide world of difference” than “Find Food, Recognize Poisonwood, and Build a House.” The girls’ games are all about fun, whereas the Congolese children’s games are about chores. Not only are games different, but religious beliefs differ. When the Price family disagrees with what someone in the community has to say, the family banishes them from the family’s house—once again secluding themselves into a house “without any outside distractions.” When the Price family discovers that someone may not be as religious as them, rather than accepting the beliefs of that person, they isolate themselves in a house as they wither away with the family’s own beliefs.

Towards the end of Revelations, the Price family discovers that the Congo is now going to be a free country, and the Price’s are supposed to pack up their belongings and leave. Even though Orleanna, Rachel, Leah, Adah, and Ruth all wish to leave, Nathan refuses the family to go. Methuselah, the bird that the family attempted to set free but kept on coming back, dies at the end of the chapter when the family finds out about Congo becoming free. Methuselah symbolizes the people of Congo. When Nathan freed Methuselah from his cage, Methuselah kept on returning to the family for food, because the bird couldn’t survive on his own. Methuselah is found dead at the end of the chapter, and all that was found was “feathers without the ball of Hope inside” symbolizing how the Congolese people cannot survive on their own. Will the fate of the Congolese end up like Methuselah, or will the Price family step up and help the people of Congo?