The Poisonwood Bible Notes
Characters:
Nathan
Price: A Baptist minister married to Orleanna Price. He is also father of four
children named Rachel, Leah, Adah, and Ruth May. He views himself as a counter
after the events of WW2 when his whole battalion was killed except him. He
became rules by god’s teachings so that he would never be a coward again. He is
very fanatical about his religion and ruled by a simple moral code.
Orleanna
Price: Wife of Nathan price who deeply cares about the safety of her children.
Before she was married to Nathan she was a very carefree girl and loved nature.
Her husband shapes her whole personality with his religious views. Later when
Ruth May dies she gains the courage to run away with her 3 children from
Nathan.
Rachel
Price: Daughter of Nathan Price who cares less about religion and more about
how she looks. She doesn’t really enjoy her time in the Congo and just wants to
leave to go back to her home country America.
Leah
Price: Twin sister of Adah, Leah is very devoted to her father and helps him a
lot in their garden. She is basically a tomboy and full devoted to god. She
later in conflicted with her religion due to the many problems in Africa and
later on devotes her whole life to helping to improve the lives of the people
in the Congo.
Adah
Price: Twin sister of Leah, Adah was born with a defect called hemiplegia which
crippled her whole left side. She is a very quiet girl who hardly talks. She
enjoys reading everything backwards rather forward. Her whole life is changed
though when she figures out that she cares about her life when she has to
attempt to keep herself alive. As she matures she devotes her life to science
and eventually gets over her handicap.
Ruth May
Price: A young girl of the price family who befriends most of the children in
their village without speaking their language. She gets malaria later in the
story which drains her spirit and changes her completely and she is deathly
scared of green mamba snakes.
Eeben
Axelroot: Pilot who takes the family to the Congo who basically has no morals
and want do any of his basic jobs unless bribed to do so. Rachel also pretends
to be engage to him in order to avoid marrying the chief of the village.
Methuselah:
A parrot left to the family by Brother Fowles who is thrown from his cage by
Nathan after he starts to say damn in a female tone. He stays near the home in
search for handouts from the girls.
Brother
Fowles: Previous minister before Nathan Price arrived with his family who was
let go since he began dating a native and eventually marrying her.
Anatole
Ngemba: A young, intelligent man who translates for Nathans sermons to the
villagers and serves as a school teacher in the village as well.
Nelson:
An orphan and one of Anatole’s best students who teaches the girls his language
and their native customs. He also works for the Price family in exchange for a
place to sleep and goods to sell at the market.
Tata
Ndu: Chief of the village in the Congo that the Price family is staying in and
is cautious of the Nathan and his family. He is afraid that his villagers will
be upset if they follow Nathan’s teachings and will neglect their traditional
gods. He makes it known to Nathan that his family isn’t welcome.
Tata
Kuvundu: Religious tribesmen of the village who doesn’t like the Price family
and takes a direct route to murder them by planting poisonous mamba snakes in
their beds which one of them kills Ruth May.
The
Underdowns: They run the finances of the missionaries and run away when the
Congo is granted independence.
Mama
Tataba: Works as a servant to the missionary families but left when Nathan
Price disregarded her helpful advice and attempted to baptize the village.
Plot: The story takes place in 1959
when a devoted Baptist minister named Nathan Price drags his whole family to
the Congo on an undertaking to save the uninfluenced people of the Congo. Nathan’s
familily consists of his wife and his four daughters. The mother, Orleanna
Price submissively accepts everything that happens and basically lets her
husband push around. Rachel Price the oldest of the 4 daughters is upset by
their transition to the Congo since she has been taken from her regular life.
The youngest daughter Ruth May talks a lot about the trip and isn’t sure what
to make of it at first. The family also consists of the twins Leah and Adah.
Leah who is devoted to her father’s religious fervor can’t wait to get there.
Adah however since crippled at birth just observes the surroundings and reads
her books.
At first
they misjudge what they will need to bring and bring useless things such as
cake mixes which can’t be used to the air quality. Their moral starts to
decrease over time due to the realizations they make well in the Congo. Nathan
attempts to grow a garden to teach the natives with the help of Leah but although
the garden grows it never grows fruit due to the nonexistence of bees in the
area. The next thing that upsets them is when their house keeper Mama Tataba
leaves due to Nathan ignoring her advice and after he attempted to hold a
baptism in the river. No one would go in the river due to the abundance of
crocodiles that had just recently eaten a young girl.
Although
his family is upset by these events and gradually changing due to the culture
around them, Nathan focuses on his goals. Nathans still wants to baptize the
villagers and refuses to let anyone change his mind so when Anatole attempts to
tell him the Chief thinks Christianity will be bad for their village he throws
him out instead of learning from him in order to find a different approach to
get through to the villagers. The situation for the Price family worsens as the
Underdowns inform them that the Congo is about to become independent and they
should flee since they assume all westerners are going to be purged. Nathan resists which end with his family
staying in the village instead of evacuation with the rest of them when the
plane arrives. Orleanna stays in bed well her three oldest daughters find a way
to care for their family without the aid of supplies from the Underdowns. She
completely changes several weeks later and has the ability to speak her mind to
her husband and then begins to search for way to escape Africa with her
daughters. She even tries to hire a pilot named Eeben Axelroot but he refused
unless they pay him money up front for the trip.
Later
Leah begins to fall in love with the local school teacher Anatole and she also
starts to resent her father for his simple views of what is right and what is
wrong. Their situation worsens as the chief leader proposes to Rachel which
forces her to pretend to be engaged to the pilot Eeben Axelroot. Ruth May
eventually gets malaria causing her be a shadow of her former self after she
recovers. A dry spell hits Kilanga which causes the people to starve. The
village sets up a large hunt and there is controversy in the village about
whether or not Leah is allowed to hunt since she is an excellent shot. They
have a vote and it goes in her favor which outrages the leaders of the village
since they don’t believe women should hunt. The religious leader Tata Kuvundu
takes a direct route in order to punish the prices by planting poisonous mamba
snakes in their home. They try to scare the snake away from the house but on
its way out it bites Ruth May on her shoulder causing her to die then and
there.
Due to
the death of Ruth May, their mother leads the remaining 3 daughters out of the
village. Leah eventually gets malaria on their journey and is forced to stay so
she marries Anatole and stays in the Congo. Leah spends her life with Anatole
in order to work to gain true independence for African nations. Rachael flies
to Johannesburg, South Africa by Eeben Axelroot. She gets married 3 times and
lives out the rest of her life in a luxury hotel in the French Congo that was
given to her by her last husband. Adah gets over her handicap in order to
become an epidemiologist and takes science as her primary religion. Their
mother however lives the rest of her life feeling guilty for Ruth May’s death
and only wants her forgiveness.
Themes:
Guilt:
In the Poisonwood Bible it really shows guilt as a theme as show by the
daughters and their mother after the death of Ruth May. I feel like it relates
to the way the United States feels about the role we played in Africa’s
affairs. I think the book is trying to show us the many possible ways to deal
with this guilt as shown through the daughters. Racheal attempted to forget it
ever happened, well Leah attempted to be politically active through her life,
and Adah worked through science to make sense of it all and help others.
Arrogance:
The book also shows arrogance as one of its theme as shown through Nathan Price
who thinks he can just change a whole society just because he believes that his
teachings are better and he attempts to force his way of life onto them. It can
basically be seen throughout all of the Price family and even the Underdowns
since they all believed when they first arrived that they were going to bring
these natives a superior way of living.
Symbols:
The
Poisonwood Tree: Nathans encounter with the Poisonwood tree caused him server
pain since he was warned not to touch the plant and did it anyways due to his
stubbornness. He is stubborn due to his belief in his religion which causes him
to be thickheaded. He was so culturally arrogant that the way he was using Jesus
he was basically a poison that could cause immense pain and even death in some
cases.
