...about morality cannot be changed, even when the secular world is accepting of gay marriage (Campbell, 2010). This paper does not seek to change the decision of the church, but to analyze the reaction and in a way use the text of the bible to make an inference about the way in which the church should react. When the church first approached this topic they spoke about moral progression. This means that as times change, the church will morally evolve but it does not mean that it will desert their beliefs about issues that they believe to be morally wrong. When the Orthodox Church first confronted this topic after the Supreme Court ruling, many priests gave sermons to their congregation explaining that we must love the sinner, not the sin. This...
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...The Poisonwood Bible is a political allegory. Political allegories are stories, poems, or pictures that can be interpreted to reveal a hidden meaning, typically a moral or political one. This particular type of writing is supposed to make readers question the political norms to shine light on the morality of decisions made by today’s leaders. When America was first starting up, African slaves were brought over to work. This began with triangular trade, which is the America sending sugar, tobacco, and cotton to Europe. In exchange for these things, Europe would send rum, textiles, and manufactured goods to Africa, and in return, Africa was in charge of sending slaves to the Americas. In the early days of the United States, triangular trade...
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...The Impact of Childhood The Poisonwood Bible ,by Barbara Kingswood, is a remarkable tale that expresses the several political transitions in the Congo through the eyes of a Baptist family. Nathan Price , a cruel and ironically a fiercely religious man, is the head of this family followed by his once effervescent wife, Orleanna, and his four daughters; Rachel the eldest and vainest, Leah, a tomboy who strives for her father's attention, Adah, Leah's disabled and genius twin, and Ruth May the youngest of the family. In the midst of several familial struggles, the conflict between Adah and Nathan Price is one that greatly contributes to the interpretation of this piece. At their birth, Adah and Leah appear to be a healthy set of twins. However, as time passes it is discovered that the left side of Adah's body is paralyzed because of a lack of nutrients in the womb. Due to her condition, she spends her detached from the world and maintains a cynical perspective at a young age which can be seen in her words concerning her twin," But I am a lame gallimaufry and she remains perfect" ( Kingsolver 34). Over the course of her early life, she maintains her position as an observer in the life of others and absorbs much information. Clearly, Adah's disability greatly affects her outlook on life....
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...The Poisonwood Bible Journal Responses The reason that Orleanna describes the forest scene so detailed is because we, the viewers, can almost perfectly picture said scene. It shows us how beautiful the nature is, and what Orleanna sees through her eyes. It shows us an inside to a little bit of her personality, and how she views the world. Focus on the positive and disregard the negative. She talks in past tense because she hasn't grasped on the whole concept of the thing yet I think. While the girls have taken their experience and learned from it, so they speak of it in the present to represent the importance. I believe the names are significant because they're not brand new. They're names from the “olden times” so it adds...
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...Character Analysis Summer Reading In my novels, such as, The Poisonwood Bible, by Barbara Kingsolver, each character goes through a series of changes, that helps the characters develop mentally, and physically within their environments. The Poisonwood Bible takes place in the 1950’s all the way to the late 1970’s, and is about a preacher’s family moving to the Congo to help spread the word of God to the Congolese people. After the Price family (the preacher’s family), moves to the Congo from the American southwest, they are shocked by how developed the country and village is. Soon enough, the family quickly learns that they can live an ecstatic life without electricity, plumbing, and so much more that people in America and other first world...
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...five Price women enter the Congo with certain things: a stainless-steel thimble, materialistic tendencies, Betty Crocker cake mixes, white privilege, ivory hand mirrors, and stereotypical American ignorance, to name a few. However, the things they leave with are significantly different. They took away a sense of enlightenment, worldly balance, guilt, and shame from Africa, and, most importantly, the loss of Ruth May. Throughout The Posionwood Bible, the Congo molded the Price women, it shaped their souls. Orleanna, Rachel, Leah, Adah, and Ruth May were all affected by their time in the Congo, varying greatly in their final philosophical perceptions— they lie on a spectrum of apathy to deliberating guilt, with cynicism, realism, and balance speckled throughout the...
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...Throughout the novel The Poisonwood Bible by Barbara Kingsolver Leah Price, a key character and narrative voice, evolved and progressed through her tone, which changed from optimistic to sadness to anger, and also through her diction, which shifted from using admirable things to describe her father to using words of hatred and resentment towards him, and lastly through her point of view on religion, which changed from being a faithful Christian to truly questioning her belief in God. Leah Price grows all through the novel and the readers get to witness her transformation from a child at fourteen to an adult woman. She changes her country, then her religion, and then her respect and admiration for her father. Leah lost everything all the while gaining...
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...In The Posionwood Bible, Barbara Kingsolver examines the interactions between differing mindsets of the Price Family. Nathan, the abusive patriarch of the Price family, purposely sacrifices his family for his own salvation. Nathan Price beleaguered and demeaned his family especially his wife, Orleanna, because of his own guilt over his failures during WW2. Nathan feels like in God’s eyes he is despised and labels himself as a coward, to counteract his faults by devoting his life to missionary work. As his first act of sacrificing his family, Nathan forces his family to move to the dangerous jungles of the Congo for his own mission to save the souls of the Congolese and rid himself of his own cowardice. However his devotion to God is not to save others but to feed his own ego and...
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...The significance of a title is often hidden within the pages of a novel. The true meaning of the title: The Poisonwood Bible, is not revealed until further inspection into the novel. The reader learns that the translation of the word “bangala”, often used by Nathan Price to describe Jesus, can be used to mean “precious,” but also translates to the name for a dangerous plant in the Congo, poisonwood. The author reveals this truth throughout the novel by using contrast and point of view. The author utilizes contrast to present differences between the beliefs of Nathan Price and the locals of the Congo quite often. Nathan Price enters the Congo with a drive to present Christianity to the locals as a need rather than a want. With stubborn and demanding behavior, Reverend Price attempts to manipulate the Congolese into...
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...Could any two interpretations of a Bible passage effect more drastically different changes than those different interpretations of Matthew 10:34-36 and Luke 14:26? Consider Matthew 10:34-36: “Do not think that I came to bring peace on the earth; I did not come to bring peace, but a sword. For I came to set a man against his father, and a daughter against her mother, and a daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law; and a man’s enemies will be the members of his household.” What a statement made by the One who gives and commends peace! If that is not confusing enough, note Luke 14:26: “If anyone comes to Me, and does not hate his own father and mother and wife and children and brothers and sisters, yes, and even his own life, he cannot be My disciple.” Taken literally, these verses can be disastrous...
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...In the Bible many of the stories contain examples of how jealousy can affect a relationship. Jealousy never builds up or adds any positives, it only tears things down and destroys anything good in its path. The only thing that can heal what jealousy wreaks is God’s love and forgiveness. Jacob was jealous of Esau’s birthright and blessing, so he stole both. Rachel was jealous of Leah’s ability to bear children, so she became bitter and resentful to her own sister. Joseph’s brothers were jealous that he was their father’s favorite, so they plotted to kill him. Jealousy can tear families apart as early as relationships. Jacob was his mother’s favorite and the second born. While Esau was his father’s favorite and the firstborn. In Biblical time the firstborn received the birthright and blessing from the father, Jacob would have received less than his brother. Jacob was jealous of what Esau would receive, so he decided to trick him into giving up his birthright. But jealousy is not that easy to get rid of, Jacob was not satisfied with just his brother’s birthright he wanted more. This caused him to deceive his father and steal his brother’s blessing. After stealing both Esau’s birthright and blessing, he ran away. Even after all that was done to him, Esau displayed forgiveness and love that only comes from God. He...
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...paragraph of the page. I chose the article because it was a foreshadow to the sisters, described the rest of the book, mainly on the Congo, and by the anxiousness of Leah to really experience what she was just told about the Congo. The Underdown family was basically in charge of the mission, and told the Prices, what to expect in the Congo, Leah’s feelings seemed to add up intensely when the Underdown family was mentioning every good and bad thing in the Congo. It was almost surreal to me that what the Underdown family had said the Congo would be like, it was, it was definitely full of jungle flowers, and wild beasts. Adah, Leah’s twin even encountered a wild beast, almost. As I just mentioned what was foreshadowed in the novel, The Poisonwood Bible, was a description, almost of the Congo mission in a general summary, it consisted of pretty flowers, wild beasts, even doctors coming once a week, but that was because of the every five day market rule. Anyways, going into a slump was definitely foreshadowed right, I think when the family fell into a dump, it was when father missed the opportunity to go back home, when the Underdown family did. The anxiousness of Leah was showed when Leah said “My heart pounded…” I definitely felt Leah at this point because I could only imagine myself being having to live in the Congos and being told about all of the good and all of the bad she will encounter. As I found similes everywhere in the book, in the one passage I choose to write about, there are...
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...The Poisonwood Bible highlights the contrast between a family of Baptist missionaries from the southern United States and the people of the Kilanga village in the Congo beginning in the 1950s. As I am interested in joining the Peace Corps after college as a teacher and have taken both World History courses in addition to courses on the cultures of French-speaking Africa, I was horrified yet intrigued by the insistence of the patriarch of the missionary family, Nathan, to impose his beliefs on the traditional people of Kilanga. No matter how noble Nathan may have thought his efforts were, the religious practices that he wanted to enforce were not logical or helpful to the Congolese society. Nathan wanted to change the beliefs of the Congolese...
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...In the book The Poisonwood Bible by Barbara Kingsolver certain events that happen in the Congo reveal true morals behind actions and relationships. In times of distress, people’s true self’s come out, and often it is another side that may not have been visible before. During the key event of Ruth Mays death, Kingsolver shows how the family members react and change in the event of a loss. The loss that is shown in book four is Ruth Mays death who dies of a green Mamba snake, but when going to check on the ashes her sisters and Nelson put around to protect him from the evil. The death of a child can reveal the characteristics of someone through how they react. The death of Ruth May was an event that changed the lives of the Price family but...
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...Looking at literature that’s based off post-colonialism, it’s hard to find a point of view that is unbiased and lacking western Orientalism that taints writings about less civilized cultures. Two books paint both sides of the equation: Chinua Achebe’s Things Fall Apart and Barbara Kingsolver’s The Poisonwood Bible. In both novels, the author depicts a character going through both an internal and external struggle dealing with exile. The authors conclude in different variations that it’s after the alienation, or exile, of a character that lets black African Orientalism to cause change, not in the character’s enlightenment, but to change them into a sacrificial character for others’ enrichment. In these novels, it reveals how Africa faces...
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