1

The Poisonwood Bible: “The Revelation”

1. p 87­89: What has Orleanna learned?

2. a) p 96­ 97: What do we learn of Nathan’s character?

b) Re­read I tried pouring...feel like it (bttm 95­96). Why do you think this precedes the above section?

3. Which narrator tells us the most about the political situation. Why do you think that is?

4. How is Leah changing? Evidence?

5. What does Nathan symbolize in the novel? Draw some parallels.

6. Which daughter is most like Nathan? (Gonna have to ponder this from different angles, folks)

7. Why is this section entitled “Revelation”?

Quotes:We would all have to escape ...you?

There is something else I must confess...complicated.

It struck me...my clothes.

“What’s he really saying?...own?”

“Frank, this is not...such things.” 168

We are going to show...roaring. 184 bttm

Adah–185­186

Hubris: excessive pride, arrogance

Jeune Mou­Pro: Congolese revolutionaries

89

102­103

114­115

166

A

2

Orleanna:

3

Nathan:

4

Leah

• Loving Africa: Garden of Eden, I shall tell all the world the lessons I learned in Africa, loves their language, loves to be outdoors­­fascinated by it.

• Fascinated by Anatole too­­finds his scarred face "amazing" whereas Rachel is repulsed by it.

5

6

Nathan = Western Arrogance

Women = CongoleseSexism = Racism

-- p130--p134 --look at tone--p143--p161

Nathan = Rachelneither can see anything past their own needs/ego; vanity

7

Nathan

• This section focuses on his inability to see the Congo as it really is because of his narrow minded view of the world. He views the Congolese as sub human in need of his saving:

I am a messenger of God's great good news for all mankind and He has bestowed on me a greater strength than the brute ox or the most stalwart among the heathen, 130: Hubris

The Church will mean joy for those who choose Christi­an­ity over ignorance and darkness! 128 ­­ Kingsolver's motif of light and dark...Nathan thinks those who don't see the world his way are in darkness.

• he is emotionally and physically abusive­­does not see that that runs counter to Christian teachings­­there is no forgiveness in him.

• he sees women as subhuman, with no right to voice thier opinion or to be educated­­they are to bow to him: he is a dictator and a tyrant.

• He is a direct parallel to the American/Belgian influence in the congo­­they are racist­­he is racist and sexist. He rules his home like they rule the Congo.

8

Revelation?

Many things are revealed in this section:

­­Nathan's congregation are the "shamed", only there because they are outcasts who have tried everything else. (128)

­­They were advised not to come­­Orleanna never knew...161

­­what the Americans/Belgians are really up to­­diamond mines, rubber plantations­­exploitation of the Congo/slaves

­­Nathan's hubris

And I stood upon the sand of the sea,and saw a beast rise up...If any man have an ear, let him hear.

Who/what is the beast?

9

We would all have to escape Africa by a different route. Some of us are in the ground now and some are above it, but we're all women made of the same scarred earth. I study my grown daughters, for signs they are resting in some kind of peace. How did they manage? When I remain hounded by judgment?

1. foreshadowing: why escape? different route? again reference to one who died

2. Interesting imagery­­why scarred earth? earth is soil, an essential element, something all humans share/need. Scarred indicates that there was an injury, a trauma...

3. More evidence of Orleanna's guilt.

10

There is something else I must confess about Tata Boanda: he's a sinner...he has two wives. Father says we're to pray for all three of them, but when you get down to the particulars, it's hard to know exactly what outcome to pray for. He should drop one wife, I guess, but for sure he'd drop the older one, and she already looks sad enough as it is.. the younger one has all the kids and you can't just pray for a daddy to flat­out dump his babies can you? I always believed any sin was easily rectified if you only let Jesus Christ into your heart, but here it gets complicated.

­­­shows Leah's faith in God and her father, but also shows the crack in her faith ­­ are there gray areas???

11

It struck me what a wide world of difference there was between our sort of games­­"mother may I", "hide and seek"­­ and his:"Find food", "recognize poisonwood", "build a house"...I could see that the whole business of Childhood was nothing guaranteed...For the first time ever I felt a stirring of anger agains my father for making me a white preacher's child from Georgia. This wasn't my fault. I bit my lip and laboured on my own small house...but beside the perfect talents of Pascal, my own hands lumbered like pale flippers on a walrus out of its element. My embarrassment ran scarlet and deep, hidden under my clothes.

­ again, anger with the man she once worshiped

­­beginning to see the huge gap between the worlds out of its element

­­ why scarlet and deep? Why hidden?

12

"What's he really saying?" she asked Mrs. Underdown." That there's going to be no transition at all? No interim period for­­I don't know­­a provisional gov't­in­training? just wham, the Belgians are gone and the Congolese have to run everything on their own?

­­think back to something, a symbol perhaps...

13

"Frank, this is not a nation, it is the Tower of Babel and it cannot hold an election. If these people are to be united at all, they will come together as God's lambs in their simple love of Christ. Nothing else will move them forward. Not politics, not a desire for freedom­­they don't have the temperament or the intellect for such things. I know you're trying to tell us what you've heard, but believe me Frank, I know what I see." 168

• Can Nathan see? Or is his vision not quite right?

• The problem is that Nathan cannot really see the Congolese and what they need, because his vision is so clouded and one­dimensional. To say they do not have the intellect for such things shows clearly his prejudice toward the people of his village.

• He represents the bigoted whites who treat the Congolese with contempt and as subhumans who need to be controlled.

14

"The nganga Kuvudundu dressed in white with no bone in his hair is standing on the edge of our yard. He of eleven toes. He repeats the end of his own name over and over: the word dundu. Dundu is a kind of antelope. Or it is a small plan of the genus Veronia. Or a hill. O a price you have to pay. So much depends on the tone of voice. One of these things is what our family has coming to us. Our Baptist ears from Georgia will never understand the difference." 175

­­Adah

­­refers to the cartoon that depicted the Congolese as cannibals with bones in their hair.

­­Kuvudundo is the "doctor poet" of the village; he left chicken bones in a bowl outside their door.

­­has no bone in his hair­­of course not!­­reference to the language and how one word has many meanings: So much depends on the tone of voice­­allusion to WCW's poem about the red wheelbarrow...One thing that Nathan has misunderstood is the workings of the language and he has been arrogantly misusing it since he arrived.

­­their Georgian ears will never get the difference­­they cannot truly understand the Congolese...

­­a price you have to pay...has this not been what Orleanna has been saying­­that they have a price to pay? Is the fact that their name is Price accidental?

15

"We are gonig to show the world what the homme noir can do when he works for freedom. We are going to make the Congo for all of Africa, the heart of light.

I thought I would go deaf from the roaring." 184

­­Leah witnessing Patrice Lumumba and his inspirational speech

­­the Africans want the world to see them as they really are­­Africa is not filled with darkness ­­as Nathan and other whites believe­­but with light

­­reference to Kingsolvers motif of dark v light ­­ light exposes things as they really are...

16

So much depends on what??

“Williams sought to invent an entirely fresh—and singularly American—poetic, whose subject matter was centered on the everyday circumstances of life and the lives of common people.” http://www.poets.org/poet.php/prmPID/119

• poem is rich with imagery/colour of the simple things around us

• wheelbarrow, rain water, chickens evoke images of things important to sustain us–farming, rainwater, food...

• p 170–she explains the background–WCW was a doc, watching a child die composes poem: one child dying in Kilanga is not an occasion for a poem...too frequent!

• p 175–so much depends on tone of voice

• 185–so much depends on a single red feather –it’s Meth’s, he’s been killed cause he can’t protect himself against predators; he’s a symbol of the Congolese, Independence has just been declared–what is she predicting about the fate of the Congo?

on 137 For all the time since the arrival of Christ, he had lived on seventeen inches of a yardstick. Now he has a world. What can he possibly do with it? He has no muscle tone in his wings.

• So why does she reference this poem???

17

"Hope" is the thing with feathers —That perches in the soul —And sings the tune without the words —And never stops — at all —

And sweetest — in the Gale — is heard —And sore must be the storm —That could abash the little BirdThat kept so many warm —

I've heard it in the chillest land —And on the strangest Sea —Yet, never, in Extremity,It asked a crumb — of Me.

Quick and dirty explanation:–hope insulates us from the harsher realities of life–metaphor: hope = bird– hope “perches” in the soul–hope’s presence under the most trying circumstances–hope is a gift that asks no favour in return

After a lifetime caged from flight and truth, comes freedom

This is what he leaves the world: gray and scarlet feathers..NOne of what he was taught in the house of his master. Only feathers, without the ball of Hope inside.

­­The congolese/Meth had hope when they were caged, even when their lives were horrible­­set free, what do they have? And what will they have if they don't succeed on their own? Only feathers... the hope will die.­­note that Hope is cap­­personified, given prominance, importance for it is something humans can't live without...

18

Use hubris, mysogyny and misogynistic in a sentence.

19