Analysis Of The Poisonwood Bible By Barbara Kingsolver

When a little girl is growing up she is influenced by everything around her, by the people most of all. As she grows she begins to take on the beliefs and ideas of her society. When the four Price girls head to Africa in The Poisonwood Bible by Barbara Kingsolver they are at four different point of accepting the beliefs of their society. Rachel, being the oldest, has taken on most of the common beliefs. She loves her material belongings and just want to be a normal girl, and she holds the common racial prejudice of the 1960’s. Even though she is a preacher's daughter she obsesses with being modern. Leah and Adah are at very different points, even though they are twins. Leah begins the book in her father’s footsteps, devoted to God and to the
Sometimes Ruth May does something, or something happens to her that reflect something she thought would make her happy. When she first meets Nelson, the little boy who is helping them survive in Kilanga, he gives her a charm to keep her safe from death. To use it you just need to think if a safe happy place and when you die you will go there instead and be safe. Ruth May trusted her friend and when she believes she is dying because of the ants she thinks of where she would be happy and safe. “I know what it is: it’s a green mamba snake up in the trees. You don’t have to be afraid of them anymore because you are one. They lie so still on the tree branch; they are the same everything as the tree. You could be right next to one and not even know. It’s so quiet there. That’s just exactly what I want to go and be, when I have to disappear.” (Kingsolver 304) Ruth May see’s the green mamba as a sign of happiness. She thinks it’s something that means safety and happiness. When they find one in the chicken house, she doesn’t see it as particularly dangerous, but upon its exit the mamba proves that it is. “I could only stare at Ruth May’s bare left shoulder, where two red puncture wounds stood out like red beads on her flesh. Two dots an inch apart, as small and tidy as punctuation marks at the end of a sentence none of us could read.” (Kingsolver 364) The same thing that brought her happiness and that she didn’t see as a threat became her undoing. The same snake that was suppose to keep her safe killed her (AAAAHHHHH still mourning tbh). Ruth May act of happiness in believing that the snake would make her safe was what caused her to die instead of bringing people closer