The Poisonwood Bible by Barbara Kingsolver opens in the late 1950s and progresses through the lifetimes of the Price family women. Orelanna Price is married and the mother of 4 daughters. Her husband, Nathan, is a minister and would-be missionary. Nathan has decided to take his family on a mission to the Belgian Congo.. The family dynamic is one that is heavy with Nathan Price’s ideals, fears, and prejudices about females. Orelanna is a woman who is overwhelmed by her husband, and she acquiesces to his wishes on almost every aspect of her family’s lives. His daughters range from 17 year old Rachel to 5 year old Ruth May, with 15 year old twins Leah and Adah between them.
The story is told, in chapters and books, by the women of Nathan Price. Orelanna begins by foreshadowing a dreadful event which will leave one of her daughters dead in the Congo and her family in tattered ruin.
With stifling heat and humidity, a disastrous attempt at gardening, army ants, Nathan’s lack of understanding and compassion for the villagers and his own family, to a middle of the night run to the river to avoid being eaten alive by army ants on the move and malaria, the women prove themselves to be stronger and more adaptable than Nathan Price himself. His self-loathing seeps through the story and destroys his family, although it takes decades for the myth of Nathan Price to finally die and leave his wife and daughters, not with peace, but with acceptance.
His surviving daughters final understanding of their father, his weaknesses, and their own troubles mirrors Africa’s ultimate fate. Africa and the Congo changed the Price family—breaking it apart, but ultimately leaving the pieces more resilient.
Each character comes alive as she shares her hopes and dreams, frustrations, and fear of Nathan—and each daughter’s view of her father, sisters, and Africa itself is a monument to Kingsolver’s descriptive gift. As in any tragedy, there are things that are amusing—some of Rachel and Ruth May’s descriptions are so defining of their personalities that it’s hard to not smile when reading them. Orelanna’s despair, Rachel’s selfishness, Leah’s compassion, Adah’s evaluation and Ruth May’s childhood are so clearly wrought on the pages that the reader is swept along in their memories of the Congo to the bitter end.
The story is told, in chapters and books, by the women of Nathan Price. Orelanna begins by foreshadowing a dreadful event which will leave one of her daughters dead in the Congo and her family in tattered ruin.
With stifling heat and humidity, a disastrous attempt at gardening, army ants, Nathan’s lack of understanding and compassion for the villagers and his own family, to a middle of the night run to the river to avoid being eaten alive by army ants on the move and malaria, the women prove themselves to be stronger and more adaptable than Nathan Price himself. His self-loathing seeps through the story and destroys his family, although it takes decades for the myth of Nathan Price to finally die and leave his wife and daughters, not with peace, but with acceptance.
His surviving daughters final understanding of their father, his weaknesses, and their own troubles mirrors Africa’s ultimate fate. Africa and the Congo changed the Price family—breaking it apart, but ultimately leaving the pieces more resilient.
Each character comes alive as she shares her hopes and dreams, frustrations, and fear of Nathan—and each daughter’s view of her father, sisters, and Africa itself is a monument to Kingsolver’s descriptive gift. As in any tragedy, there are things that are amusing—some of Rachel and Ruth May’s descriptions are so defining of their personalities that it’s hard to not smile when reading them. Orelanna’s despair, Rachel’s selfishness, Leah’s compassion, Adah’s evaluation and Ruth May’s childhood are so clearly wrought on the pages that the reader is swept along in their memories of the Congo to the bitter end.
The Poisonwood Bible
by
Barbara Kingsolver
HarperPerennial
A Division of Harper Collins Publisher
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