Grief In The Poisonwood Bible

Grief, defined as a multifaceted response to loss can impact not only emotional helath but physical, behavioaral, and social aspects of a persons life as well. Grief is a response so strong if can change the way people view the world and the way people behave. This is the most prominent theme towards the second half of the book, The Poisonwood Bible (By Barabara Kingsolver), after the death of the youngest daughter Ruth May. We see memebers of the Price family approach this death in the many different ways and grieve the loss of their beloved sister/daughter differently. Ruth May’s father, Nathan Price, a southern baptist preacher from Georgia views his daughters death as a soul he has failed to bring to Christ and baptize. He was putting off Ruth May’s baptism until he could convinve the Congolese people to allow him to also baptize their children in the river, he would then baptize his daughter at the same time to show how much trust he put into God. He
This may be beacuse during her time in the Congo she felt as if she would lose one of her precios daughters at any minute, especially after her husband NAthan refused to let them flee the Congo. We learn more about her grieveing later in the book while she lives in Sanderling Island, Georgia many years later. She describes her grief as “a swimmer’s long hair in water,” as long as she moved it wouldnt bother her, but as soon as she stopped the “slick dark stuff of it would come floating around her face, catching her arms and throat until she began to drown.” She understood grief was not imaginary, but that it was a palpable thing, “as real as rope, or the absence of air.” Many years after death Orleanna tries to busy herself to keep the grief from pulling her under, she is unable to forgive herself for letting her beloved baby girl be taken by the