The Poisonwood Bible Analysis

In Barbara Kingsolver’s novel, The Poisonwood Bible, Orleanna Price’s life is presented as a neverending struggle for freedom, whether it is freedom from her husband or freedom from her guilt over her youngest daughter’s death. Orleanna’s trials in the Congo show the extent of the love she has for her daughters as well as how she betrays them. Orleanna Price, after her marriage, loses her sense of self and falls into the same prison of guilt as her husband. Orleanna had a cheerful childhood despite growing up in the middle of the Great Depression. She spent her days running wild on the outskirts of town with her cousins and worshipping the “miracles of a passionate nature” (Kingsolver, 1998, p. 193). She thinks fondly of her childhood and

He made the selfish choice to stay in the Congo despite the dangerous exposure of life-threatening disease, anti-white extremist groups, and deadly wildlife to his wife and children. In a different way, Orleanna also betrayed her family. By not immediately taking her children and leaving the Congo with the Underdowns, she allowed what she feared most to happen: the death of one of her daughters. After their plane departs, she lies in bed and doesn’t leave for weeks knowing the full extent of what was bound to happen eventually. In a way, she betrays her daughters by passively allowing them to get hurt. She lies in her bed for so long because she was already mourning and trying to live with the guilt she knew would be coming. As Leah observed after Ruth May’s death, “She behaved as if someone else had already told her, before we got there” (Kingsolver, 1998, p. 368). Orleanna had also more directly betrayed Adah. During the vicious ant invasion in Kilanga, Orleanna realizes that she can only save one child and must choose between Adah and Ruth May. She betrays Adah by choosing “the sweet intact child with golden ringlets and perfectly paired strong legs” (Kingsolver, 1998, p. 412) over the “dark mute adolescent dragging a stubborn, disjunct half-body” (Kingsolver, 1998, p. 412). While Orleanna is redeemed for this betrayal by choosing to take Adah with

Orleanna thought of Ruth May as her “uncaptured favorite child” (Kingsolver, 1998, p. 7) and loved her more deeply than any of her sisters or even herself. By not leaving Nathan sooner, she felt as if she betrayed Ruth May as leaving would have prevented her needless death. “How can a mother live with only herself to blame?” (Kingsolver, 1998, p. 6) she asks as she spends the rest of her life calculating how old Ruth May would be were she alive, begging her for forgiveness. She remains a captive prisoner of this guilt until her last day on Earth. Ruth May, from the eyes in the trees, explains that she is a prisoner of her own creation as “if you feel a gnawing at your bones, that is only yourself, hungry” (Kingsolver, 1998, p. 537). Just before her death, however, she is absolved of her guilt by the dead Ruth May who tells her to “slide the weight from your shoulders and move forward” (Kingsolver, 1998, p.