The Poisonwood Bible

Orleanna and Adah, as well as other characters, repeatedly personify the Congo. Orleanna frequently draws parallels between herself and the Congo, on the basis of their respective histories of abuse and loss. By personifying the Congo, Orleanna makes her understanding of its state clear. She considers it to be the “barefoot bride,” taken in by false promises, robbed by her husband, and left with boot marks on her back. Similarly, Adah’s personification of the Congo highlights the reinvention its conceptualization has undergone through revisionism. The chained, female Congo becomes the young man Zaire, seemingly free from the history of exploitation after his transformation.

Owls are a symbol of death as the villagers believe they eat souls. This becomes apparent when Leah attempts to adopt an owlet, she is met with anger by her neighbors because the owl is believed to eat souls. The baby owl is then expected to eat the souls of children. Later, the symbolism reoccurs as Adah declares that her family is haunted by Congo, who came to them “on the wings of an owl” (323). She also refers to the owls crying out in her dreams due to her survivor’s guilt associated with the children who died in Kilanga.

When Orleanna recounts taking her daughters to the riverbank for a picnic, she describes feeling “inhumanly alone” until she makes eye contact with the okapi. This moment is profound for Orleanna. Later, when she returns to Africa in the hopes of finding and marking her daughter’s grave, she is given a carved wooden okapi as a gift. This moment coincides with Ruth May’s forgiveness and her promise that Orleanna will not forget her if she forgives herself. In this way, she will not be alone. The wooden okapi therefore represents the reparation of Orleanna’s relationship with Africa and Ruth May in that she is no longer alone.

On the Congo’s Independence Day, Adah finds a pretty red feather. She is pleased by this and considers it a hopeful omen. However, she is soon disillusioned as she discovers that the feathers have come from the dead body of the parrot, Methuselah. Later, Anatole gives Leah a bow and several arrows. The arrows are fletched with red feathers. Just like Adah, Leah is initially hopeful about her new hobby, but her intention of joining the village’s hunt leads to strife. The celebration turns into a contentious argument where each person tries to take what they want rather than abiding by the traditional methods of divvying up the spoils. Red feathers then come to portend calamity and symbolize false hope.

Considering that the book’s setting is a Christian evangelical mission in the Congo, it is reasonable that the concept of religion makes several appearances. First and most prominent is the Baptist denomination of Christianity, which Reverend Price ostensibly practices. The God which Reverend Price believes in is a harsh judge, demanding righteousness and rewarding it in kind. On the other hand, Brother Fowles’ interpretation of God is a more benevolent spirit who moves others to kindness on his behalf. The contrast between these two versions of Christianity is referenced succinctly by Brother Fowles: “there are Christians and there are Christians” (435).

Separate from these systems is that of the local population in the Congo: ancestor worship. The Kilanga natives offer sacrifices to their gods to avoid calamity. Some aspects of their religion have logical benefits. For example, the gods demand that parts of the river are used for specific activities: drinking water should be taken from upstream, whereas bathing and washing should occur downstream. This practice, though codified through religion, justifies hygienic practices of water management. The voodoo religion is described by Adah and Ruth May as involving a deep respect for everything that exists, has existed, or will exist. At the end of life, these things may become muntu, demonstrating the spiritual connection between all things, as explained by Ruth May’s spirit.

In addition to these more organized forms of religion, Adah discusses the concept of religion differently. She claims that Orleanna has found religion in her civil rights activism and that Leah has found it in suffering. On the other hand, she suggests that Rachel worships herself. This conceptualization of religion provides further insight into the characters’ development and motivations.

Multiple characters draw comparisons between abusive relationships and colonialism. Orleanna regularly refers to herself as the conquest of her husband, describing her own will as having been “swallowed up” by the agenda of the man who took control of her. Like a conquering army, Nathan’s beliefs infiltrate Orleanna’s mind, causing her to subscribe to his revisionist account of events. This mirrors the behavior of colonialism, wherein a powerful nation sends its army to proliferate through a country, capture it, and present the narrative that the conquest was justified and benefits of the conquered. The comparison has weight considering that revisionism is a form of gas-lighting, a strategy shared by these situations.

Repeatedly, movement becomes an important coping mechanism for trauma and grief. Orleanna declares that she kept moving after Ruth May’s death because if she sat still, the grief would overpower her. This is also true of Leah when her husband is imprisoned. She becomes dedicated to her work at the mission, her family, organizing family reunion, and doing what little she can to fight injustice in order to avoid slipping into despair: “One way of surviving heartache is to stay busy. Making something right in at least one tiny corner in the vast house of wrongs—I learned this from Anatole, or maybe from myself, the odd combination of my two parents” (473).

In addition to preventing paralysis, movement is a metaphor for the unstoppable tide of change. Orleanna posits that the reason conquerors fail to maintain control of their conquests indefinitely is because they consider the task over once the conquest is successful. They then fail to change, whereas their conquests shift and change over time along with the rest of the world. Kingsolver emphasizes the theme of change repeatedly through the unexpected experiences of the Price family and the political upheavals the Congo undergoes. The Belgian Congo converts into the Republic of Congo and then into Zaire. These changes not only serve as catalysts for the plot, but also emphasize the relentlessness of change: “Everything was like that: the ground shifted while we slept, and we woke up each day to terrible new surprises” (418).