The Poisonwood Bible is a story told by the wife and four daughters of Nathan Price, a fierce, evangelical Baptist who takes his family and mission to the Belgian Congo in 1959. They carry with them everything they believe they will need from home, but soon find that all of it – from garden seeds to Scripture – is calamitously transformed on African soil. What follows is a suspenseful epic of one family’s tragic undoing and remarkable reconstruction over the course of three decades in postcolonial Africa.
When the Price family arrives in the Congo on a mission from Georgia (USA), only Nathan is enthusiastic. He is fixated on spreading the word of God in Kilanga, a small village in the Congo. His daughters are more reticent and his wife, Orleanna, holds things together for the family.
The narrative alternates between Orleanna and each of the four girls. The oldest, Rachel, cannot wait to leave the Congo. Leah is loyal to her father and goes to great efforts to appease and impress him, with little success. Adah, Leah’s twin, is watchful, silent and self-critical. Ruth May, much younger than the others, adapts most easily, befriending and learning the language of the local children.
Nathan struggles to fulfil his mission. The people of Kilanga already have their own traditions and do not feel that they need a Christian God. They resist Nathan’s efforts to have the village children baptised in the river and, even when they reveal the reason for their resistance (which is non-religious and, in my view, entirely valid), this does not stop Nathan from persevering with his mission.
Meanwhile, political upheaval is happening around them. The organisers of the mission hear that the Congo is about to declare independence from Belgium (which it does on 30 June 1960) and encourage the Price family to leave the Congo. Nathan refuses because he has not fulfilled his mission. The family stays; their supplies are cut off and independence is declared, quickly followed by a coup, then a long period of unrest. The family becomes hungrier and more desperate by the day but this does not deter Nathan. However, one day, political and personal disaster strikes, which changes everything.
The main theme I took from this book was that of suffering. Each character suffers in their own way. Orleanna does her best for her girls but feels a constant guilt for the harm they experience. Leah suffers her father’s indifference towards her, and later suffers the judgment of those around her for the life choices she makes. Rachel strikes a curious balance between viewing herself as suffering the most but doing little to mitigate it. This suffering ties into the theme of religion throughout the book; Nathan in some ways views suffering as integral to his resolute religiousness, and sacrifices everything for his mission, including his family’s comfort and safety.
This is not a book about characters overcoming their suffering and living happily ever after. Instead, it illustrates that our suffering changes us permanently, for better or for worse. Processing those experiences will never make them go away but it is up to us what we choose to do with them as we move forwards.
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