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.
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