Essay #1: Poisonwood Bible

Daniel Rucker

8-13-13

Period 3

AP English Lit

Separation

The human race is scared of separation from what is known.  Many people are scared of new places, new people and change in general.   We constantly search for similarity in the world around us.  This dislike of separation- of difference and diversity- has caused many problems in our world, from disrespecting foreign cultures, to belief wars like the Crusades.  Many of our stories, such as Star Wars, The Hobbit and Siddhartha, deal with the various reactions of people when they are separated from what is known to the main character.  A prime example of this topic of separation is seen by the character of Leah Price, from Barbara Kingsolver’s The Poisonwood Bible.  Leah is separated from her simple upbringing in Georgia when she goes to the Belgian Congo on a Mission trip.  The book partly explores Leah’s reaction to this change of culture, how it is both alienating and enriching to her, and how her experience in the Congo makes The Poisonwood Bible a meaningful story.

Leah’s experience in the Congo is completely foreign to her.  She was separated from her culture on all levels: things like birthdays, religion and family all changed just by leaving Georgia.  She, along with her other sisters, lost their American traditions, like birthday cakes and the respect given to them for being a religious family, causing Leah to be personally alienated from the new society, as she was shocked by these sudden changes, and thus not immediately open to the Congolese.  Besides loosing all of these aspects of her life, she also did not fit in completely with the Congolese society, which, upon arrival was completely alien to her and her sisters.  She, along with the rest of her family did not follow or understand the social rules that the congo already had in place.  They felt the women were indecent, as the Congolese women went around topless, but the Congolese felt the same about them, as the Price’s did not completely cover their legs.  Leah was also not able to completely follow the Congolese culture herself.  For instance, her and her family were used to eating three large meals a day, but they were looked upon as gluttonous, as the Congolese only ate one small but filling meal every day.  She was also going against their society when she went hunting, as the Congolese did not have female hunters.  These differences in society caused her to be alienated by the congolese, as she was viewed as a gluttonous, indecent, rogue.  

This trip to the Congo was also very enlightening to Leah.  In being fully immersed into a different culture, she could see what was right with both her original, American culture, and this new Congolese one.  The faults that she found with her own culture enlightened her, because she was able to discern what was right and wrong with her way of life.  She understood that her religion, or at least her father’s version of it, was very ignorant and narrow minded, and she could see that it only worked in the context of countries that are well off, and can still survive for one day to go without food, or who could survive of working inside and treating their body as a “temple.”   When she learned about the politics of both the Congo and America, she learned that her society was not right in trying to “modernize” the Congolese, as they have had their own society and culture for many thousands of years, and it suits them just as well as democracy and capitalism suit us.  She understood that the United States did not want democracy to reign, merely capitalism, as seen in their help in the overturn of Lumumba.  Seeing the faults in the Congolese society, such as the extremely rigid gender roles, allowed Leah to see that her society was also not completely wrong, which allowed her to pick the positives out of both societies, and become a better person.

This balance between cultures, in Leah’s perspective, shows that no culture is wholly great, and that all cultures, like people, have positives and negatives.  It also shows that we should not go and try to keep changing the people around us: their culture, politics, religion and way of life works for them, we should not go about changing them.  Just because a certain lifestyle, political system or religion works for a culture, does not mean that it will work for another, because all cultures have different values.  As a whole, Leah’s presence in the book tells us that we should always respect differences and embrace diversity, and always work towards self betterment through new discoveries.