ESSAY #1

Edward Said wrote, “Exile is strangely compelling to think about, but terrible to experience. It is the 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.” He then continues, clarifying exile can be “potent, even enriching,” as well. The Poisonwood Bible by Barbara Kingsolver serves as a perfect example by identifying characters who struggle with understanding new African cultural and ideology. Although the struggle is real and hardships go as far as death for some, the growth in developing this global vision and open mind to society is also powerfully meritorious and beneficial.

                While Nathan Price’s secular tunnel vision of the Congolese’s cultural beliefs results in alienation, such stubborn behavior serves as an enriching, beneficial model to his daughters of what not to be; narrow-minded or “globally blind.” World War Two wounded Nathan Price’s left eye resulting in this symbolic characterization of having a limited vision of the diversity of cultures in the world, specifically Congo, Africa where the Price family served as missionaries. Nathan Price’s alienation began immediately in the Demonstration Garden as Mr. Price denied Mama Tataba’s advice concerning the appropriate way to plant the Poisonwood seeds. Such dismissal to the traditional African farming techniques retaliated Price with a painful rash. While such torment was diseased upon Nathan Price, his daughters learned to admire Mama Tataba and admire the natives’ ways to help adapt to their new environment in the Congo. Nathan’s characterization evoked the major theme of global vision and the acceptance and understanding to new cultures such as that of the Congolese.

                Nathan Price is also alienated in his attempt to justify the world through missionary work in hopes of enlightening the Congolese on the basis of religion. Price’s persistent and obtrusive radicalism toward “saving their souls” creates a rift in the relationship between Nathan and the natives. Mr. Price’s persistence of baptism is a perfect example of such attempt to justify the Congolese which consequentially lead to his very own death and the death of several children killed by crocodiles during this baptism ceremony. Such justification to the world has taught his daughters the impossibility of absolute and unambiguous justice on a global scale. Adah reflects her understanding of this concept of justification in her revert from Christianity to Scientology; believing in life’s natural balance without intentional human interception. Although Nathan Price suffered such a terrible experience, it served potent to his daughters, such as Adah, who learned of the unrealistic idea of creating justice globally.

                While exile may be remote and result in unfortunate experiences, it can also serve to be “potent, even enriching” as Edward Said suggests. Barbara Kingsolver uses characterization in The Poisonwood Bible to portray the themes of global vision and the impossibility of absolute and unambiguous justice on a global scale. Readers observe this initial alienation characters experience as they journey internationally to Congo, Africa, then, finally connecting Kingsolver’s ironic eloquence in making an alienation replicate and evolve, through influence, to dominant potency.