“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 1st or 2nd 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.”
No comments:
Post a Comment