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Introduction of colonialism
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In the novel, The Poisonwood Bible, the author, Barbara Kingsolver, conveys that not everyone tries to colonize for the right reasons. Nathan is one of these people because he only wants to “help” the people of the Congo for the guilt he feels about something else. Just as the Duke of Norway tries to colonize them for profit and no one really stopped him from doing so. Like, the girls are unable to persuade Nathan to stay home and not go to the Congo. In the beginning, Nathan was a good idea to take his family to Africa to “help” the people of the Congo adopt the ways of Christianity. The girls don’t want to go, but Orleanna and Nathan make them go. The Duke did the same when he realized that no one was going to say he couldn’t go to Africa
The change in narrators in The Poisonwood Bible by Barbara Kingsolver conveys the theme of western arrogance through naiveté, malapropisms, and the change in mentality found in the various narrations of the characters.
The Poisonwood Bible took place in the Congo during the 1960’s, which was a time of political unrest for the Congolese. The Congo gained their independence from the Belgians in 1960, and elected their first Prime Minister, Patrice Lumumba. Lumumba wanted complete control of the country back, including it’s natural resources of which the United States had “gained strategic stake in” (Nzongola-Ntalaja) because it included uranium mines. At this time, America was in the midst of the Cold War with the USSR, so the control of these mines for America was critical, especially because they believed Lumumba was siding with the Soviets. Alas, in 1961 Patrice Lumumba was assassinated by a US- sponsored plot 7 months after independence, and replaced him with a “puppet dictator named Mobutu” (Kingsolver). In her book, Barbara Kingsolver surfaces a forgotten part of our nation’s history in the exploitation of the Congo through her main characters, the Price family who are missionaries that are sent to the Kilanga village. Through characters’ narratives that “double ...
Surroundings have a major affect on humans. It can change who they are right down to the core. If a person puts themselves in a positive environment, they are more likely to be positive, while the opposite happens when placed in a negative environment. While the changes in the person might not be immediate over time the person will adjust to their surroundings. This was accurate in the case of The Poisonwood Bible. While not all of the characters experienced significant change, all of the main characters changed as the story progressed. The longer that she remained in that situation, Leah Price gradually became more and more different than she was in her previous surrounding.
In “The Poisonwood Bible,” Barbara Kingsolver illuminates on how a rift from one’s homeland and family can simultaneously bring agonizing isolation and an eye opening perspective on life through Leah Price’s character development. As a child exiled away to a foreign country, Leah faces the dysfunction and selfishness of her family that not only separates them from the Congolese, but from each other while she also learns to objectify against tyrants and embrace a new culture.
The Poisonwood Bible is the story of an evangelical Baptist preacher named Nathan Price who uproots his wife and four daughters from the modern culture of America and moves them to the Kilanga Village in the Belgian Congo as missionaries. He is bullheaded and obstinate in all his ways. His approach is inflexible, unsympathetic, and unaccepting of the culture and customs of the people of Kilanga. Nathan Price exemplifies the words of Romans 2:4 that says, “Or do you despise the riches of His goodness, forbearance, and longsuffering, not knowing the goodness of God leads you to repentance?” He did not share the goodness of God, but sought to spread his uncompromising pious agenda. Instead of leading people to God he turned them away.
The Poisonwood Bible by Barbara Kingsolver is a work of historical fiction. The novel is based the Congo in 1959, while it was still under Belgian control. Nathan Price is a southern Baptist preacher from Bethlehem, Georgia who uproots his family, consisting of wife and three daughters, and takes them on a mission trip to Kilanga. Orleanna Price, Nathan’s wife, narrates the beginning of each book within the novel. Rachel, Leah, Adah, and Ruth May rotate the narration throughout each book. Rachel is the oldest Price child, and high materialistic. She refuses to accept the ways of the Congo, believing that she is better than everyone simply because of where she had her start in life. Leah is the next oldest, and she is a self-proclaimed tomboy. She likes to climb trees and practically worships at the feet of her father. Adah is the handicapped one, with a physical deformity. However, this deformity does not limit her, instead making her the smartest of the Price girls. Ruth May is the baby of the family, and has not yet lost the childhood innocence that she views the world with. Barbara Kingsolver uses a very interesting narrative style in the novel, switching between four narrators between the ages of five and fifteen, who are all female. Kingsolver's use of multiple narrative perspectives serve to amplify life in the Congo during the early 1960s through characterization, religion, and politics.
The novel Makes Me Wanna Holler discuss the problems of the black Americans from an insider prospective. When I say black Americans, I mean from the cultural issues, fatherhood, family, and how blacks working class families are anything, but lazy. Nathan recalls his troubled childhood, rehabilitation while in prison, and his success with the Washington Post. The novel helped me understand the mindset of black males and why some choose to be affiliated with gangs. Additionally, I learned that bouncing back from a hardship time help you regain strength because Nathan went threw a lot. However, I did not relate to the novel, but I understood the concept of it. The title of this book speaks out loud about the inner struggle that he dealt. I did relate to the racial incidents and wanting to work early to have the best appearance. I actually did enjoy the
Stubborness. Determination. These are the very reasons Nathan decided to stay at the blacksmith shop. Throughout reading the passage Nathan’s stubbornness is not tortuosly hidden. A prime example of his iron rod stubbornness and unbreakable determination comes in paragraph 27, as the author writes,”Uncle Orrin's words stuck to Nathan like a thistle bur. He was no slacker and he'd prove it. He flew to his tasks. He raced each time Uncle Orrin shouted for him to pump the bellows, turn the grindstone, or dip a bucket of water. Nathan found that meeting his uncle's needs cut the insults short. He continued the frantic pace.” See, Nathan refuses to let Uncle Orrin’s offensive words be proven true, so stubbornly Natham works to disprove his uncle.
The first narrator and Marlow supply contradicting beliefs on the colonization of Africa. The first narrator believed that it was England's duty to save Africa from their own savage ways, like the Romans did to England many year before. When the Romans first went to England it was a vast and wilderness to them, as Africa was to England. He thought that colonialism would assist the African people to find a purpose and aid the country to prosper, as England
The diaries Conrad kept during his journey through the Congo gives detailed descriptions of the monotonous African landscape. Conrad wrote that the landscape of the African coast looked the same every single day.[1] This is reflected in Marlow’s narration of the jungle where shapes and forms cannot be made out clearly. The monotonous landscape differed from what Conrad had expected of this exotic location. When he was still a young kid, he had once boasted that he would someday journey to the heart of Africa. However, the actual journey was not at all what he expected it to be. Conrad was shocked at the men in the African colony. He was repulsed by the European colonizers because of the horrible treatment of the natives as well as the unlawful aggressive pursuit of loot. Conrad witnessed atrocities committed by the European colonizers, which helped to form his opinions on the colonization of Africa. In the novel, Conrad uses sarcasm to display his displeasure towards the European colonizers’ treatment of the natives. The Europeans in the book are called pilgrims and the natives are called cannibals, however the pilgrims are the ones who are much more willing to use force to resolve their problems.
In the novel, The Poisonwood Bible, Barbara Kingsolver expresses the theme of cultural arrogance many times throughout the book. Cultural arrogance is when you think your cultural background is better than others, and that everyone should follow your ways. You think that your lifestyle is the correct way to live and that you are better and superior than others. So, you don't feel the need to listen or do anything they say. In The Poisonwood Bible, the theme, cultural arrogance makes you controlling and self-absorbed. This is displayed when Nathan, the Reverend, scolds the Congolese that nakedness is the wrong way to go out in public, and then when Nathan doesn't listen to Mama Tataba when she was trying to teach him the right way to plant the Poisonwood tree, and
Nathan and the white colonists before him have given the indigenous people of Kalanga a negative connotation of the white skin. Leah realizes this and her objective for justice is fueled by this. She seeks her own personal vendetta to right this implication. Instead of believing the native of Africa create their own injustice she instead follows a mission to right the injustice her homeland implemented on the people. One way or another Leah has always focused on the justice of changing the Congolese mindset to one that she determines is righteous.. Through the changes in her sense justice the reader is able to analyse the dynamic point of views of the character and the ever changing political turmoil of the Congo. From the the book and Leah’s mission the notion of the shifting fates of the Congo is acquired and the reader is really able to realize what the local residents actually experience day to
England sent missionaries to help civilize the natives of Africa. To Marlow, this is the purpose of colonization. During his journey he comes to see how the Africans are exploited for their labor and the natural resources of the land. "They were dying slowly . . . nothing but black shadows of disease and starvation. . . brought from all the recesses of the coast in all the legality of time contracts, lost in uncongenial surroundings, fed on unfamiliar food, they sickened, became inefficient, and were then allowed to crawl away and rest." (p.83). As the quote implies, after the natives served their purpose they were just ignored. What started out to be a good cause became distorted by the greed for ivory and other riches. The natives were weak and no competition for the civilized economically motivated Englishmen. There was no resistance. "They were conquerors, and for that you want only brute force - nothing to boast of, when you have it, since your strength is just an accident arising from the weakness of others. They grabbed what they could get for the sake of what was to be got." (p.70). Instead of being colonizers, the circumstances allowed the British to become conquerors.
Probably the biggest example of the pointless of colonization is when Marlow is walking around and he sees big holes just around, a train and tools rusting to pieces, and when he hears blasts that seem to do nothing. What this shows is that the English presence in Africa does no good but create a empty hole in it (the big hole), that the English are just was wasting their time and money on a needless project (the rusting objects), and that the English seem to do nothing in Africa (the pointless blasting). One the final examples that he gives is the manager. This manager is all dressed up in "proper" clothes, must have everything in a perfect order, and complains about the sick man in the corner of the room. This symbolizes how uncaring the English are in their pursuit for ivory.
As Marlow passes through the waters of the Congo, it is easily visible the trouble of the natives. “Black shapes crouched, lay, sat between the trees, leaning against the trunks, clinging to the earth half coming out, half effaced with the dim light, in all the attitudes of pain, abandonment, and despair.” (20) Show that the holding of these colonies has started. The soldiers have come in and taken the inhabitants and are destroying them and taking from them the one thing they deserve over everything, life. The imperialists seem to not care about the Africans and are just there for their land.