Orleanna Price

During the 1960s and 70s it was a major shift for women and more specifically for
Orleanna Price. She can be used as a symbol for the change in women’s rights as she makes her bold change in the story. Edward Said has written that “Exile is strangely compelling to think about but terrible to experience. It is unhealable rift forced between a human being and a native place, between the self and its true home: its essential sadness can never be surmounted.” Within the story Orleanna Price becomes cut off from “home” but her experience with it is alienating but at the same time enriching. This experience illuminates the meaning of the work as a whole.
At the start of the story the Price family is faced with a tough decision to move from their loving home

We could see early on that all grown- ups aren’t equally immune to damage. My father wears his faith like the bronze breastplate of God’s foot soldiers, while our mother is more like a good cloth coat with a secondhand fit.” ( Book 1, Chapter 10)
Monica Mclleland- 6
Before the Price family came to the Congo Orleanna Price gave up her personality and unique abilities, for a man who could never love her more than he does his religious beliefs.
Once the Price family gets to the Congo Orleanna goes through a change and even the kids begin to notice because she threaten to beat them for the first time in their life. This little action of
Orleanna shows how this alienation from Georgia is enriching her as a character because she is starting to stand up and be bolder. In retrospect it gives a little insight into the story because if she is starting to change on the first day of the family’s stay in the Congo then imagine what will happen throughout the duration of their stay. As the family continues to stay in the Congo
Orleanna starts to become more and more alienated from Nathan and actually becomes closer with the Price children, this alienation leads to Orleanna to become more and more of