*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.