1. Describe and discuss some of the important cultural, social, religious, and other cultural differences between the Price family and the people they encounter in central Africa. To what degree do Orleanna and her daughters come to an understanding of those differences?
The Price family differs from the people in Kilanga in almost every way possible. First, the Prices are Christian, while the people of the Congo are nature based animists who worship spirits, ancestors and energies. The practices of the Congolese people are considered blasphemous witchcraft according to Nathan Price, and he does not understand how the villagers see it any other way.
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"Poisonwood Bible Optional Assignment: A Look at Ethnocentrism".
The Price family and the Kilangans differ socially, too. American culture is based on the immediate family unit. In the Congo, the extended family unit is practiced, as well as kinship even between wives of the same husband. Another aspect that divides the two groups is the relationship to food and the natural world. The villagers are used to preparing and cultivating nearly every thing they consume. In contrast, Orleanna had her daughters carry dozens of items from home, like boxed cake mixes, to have food from home in the Congo. This was a misguided endeavor as the flour based cake mixes turned to stone and some of the other items were useless.
Another difference socially is the element of racial prejudice revealed in Ruth May’s first book entry. As children often do, she relays what she hears without filters and social norms. Ruth May talks about the maintenance of racial segregation in public schools and racist ideology that she hears at church. At her tender age, she has already internalized the racist idea that blacks are inferior because they come from the biblical Tribes of Ham (p. 23). The idea of superiority is reflected in Rachel’s comment that “We were supposed to be calling the shots here” (p. 25) but in fact were in charge of nothing once they stepped foot in the Congo. This is foreshadowing for what is to come because the Prices cannot seem to control anything, not their garden, congregation or children.
Culturally speaking, the idea of charity and self-pity are completely different. For example, Mama Tatanga, their next door neighbor has no legs, but this does not stop her from gathering fire wood, cooking and caring for her children.
Although there were many cultural differences, Orleanna, Leah and Ada were able to adapt to living in central Africa. For example, Orleanna had to adapt to cooking and cleaning and caring for her children with the resources she was given. Likewise, Ada and Leah had to adapt to playing and going to school in Kilanga. Leah was able to make friends and adapt to a certain degree, and her relationship with Anatole was instrumental in her understanding of cultural differences and beginning to see that her father was not perfect or correct about many things. In contrast, Rachel never adapted, and Nathan Price became more and more religiously fanatic and intolerant.
In the novel, Leah becomes the most transformed character. At the novel’s beginning, she is portrayed as the copycat daughter who tries to please her father by emulating him. Leah believes that her father is perfect and nearly god-like. She blindly believes what he does is correct until she begins to open her eyes and see the situation for herself. Her relationship with Anatole is essential to her awakening. In the end, she makes the Congo her home and has four children with Anatole.
2. A key theme that weaves its way through the novel is that of cross-cultural misunderstanding and ethnocentrism. Describe and discuss some specific examples of cross-cultural misunderstanding and ethnocentrism between the Price family and the residents of Kilanga, particularly (but not exclusively) as exemplified by Reverend Price.
Ethnocentrism is a natural and common psychosocial phenomenon where other groups’ behaviors are measured against your own, which is considered superior. Social norms and expectations are conditioned according to the group a person belongs to, and so are subjective. Despite the subjectivity, ethnocentrism leads one to believe that their groups is the best, the smartest, and does things correctly. In an extreme form, ethnocentrism leads to prejudice, racism, dominance, oppression, and justification for beliefs of superiority based on race, religion or class.
Nathan’s behavior in the novel, largely based on intolerance and ethnocentrism, prevented him from creating a relationship with the villagers built upon cooperation, mutual respect and exchange. They never accept him and in fact think he is crazy and foolish. In the book, Nathan is the epitome of ethnocentrism, which is portrayed by his outlook of superiority. He attributes anything good with the Bible, and anything unassociated with Christianity is either sinful or ignorant and must be reformed. For this reason, he misses out on learning vital information and practices that could help him survive and adapt in the deep Congo. Instead, Nathan feels that he is a special custodian of Christianity and truth, and that it is his duty and mission to convert the African continent and teach its peoples the way of Christ.
The subject of baptism in the village constitutes a huge cultural misunderstanding. Nathan insists on baptizing the villagers in the river because it seems epic and in the likeness of St. John the Baptists. Yet, the villagers do not go because they lost a little girl to a crocodile recently in that same river. The “demonstration garden” is another excellent example of cultural misunderstanding. Nathan believes he can simply supplant the same crops that thrive in Georgia in Kilanga, but does not consider the lack of pollinators and so his crops miserably fail. Every time the Prices want to show their superiority and way of life, it turns out to be a failure. They especially look helpless because they are so out of their element they do not understand life in the Congo and keep trying to apply their ethnocentric values in a foreign country and worldview. Another case of cross-cultural misunderstanding is how the chief Tata Ndu came to court Rachel. In order to honor the Congolese culture, the Prices should have graciously dealt with the proposal because it was correct and merciful from the point of view of the chief. In his eyes, and the eyes of the village, he was extending the greatest form of help he could to them. However, in their eyes his offer was ludicrous because the Prices did not grasp the dire circumstances they were living under, one step away from starvation.
Human beings are social and cultural beings who learn right and wrong, preferences, and worldview from their culture and placement in social structure of their upbringing. Concepts such as preferences, attitudes, morals, ideas of right and wrong and even prejudices and biases are all learned. Throughout the story, Nathan Price stubbornly refused to be changed by the Congo. His character viewed it as some sort of weakness and admission of inferiority. His drew his importance from his social position and imagined power and could not relinquish either and save his manhood. In the larger scope of the novel’s content, Nathan Price continued to preach and put his family in harm’s way even as civil war broke out. This selfish commitment to an empty and meaningless mission revealed the extent of his ethnocentric delusions of self-aggrandizement and importance.
3. Choose an aspect or passage of the novel that you found particularly striking, noteworthy, or fascinating and write a brief (1-page) essay about it, including a discussion of why you feel you were particularly struck by that particular aspect/passage.
The Poisonwood Bible is filled with poignant quotes to analyze, but for some reason the passage about childhood from Leah stuck with me:
“I could see that this whole idea and business of Childhood was nothing
guaranteed. It seemed to me, in fact, like something more or less invented by white people and stuck onto the front end of grown-up life like a frill on a dress. (p. 141)
Before this specific quote, Leah compares herself to her friend Pascal whose day-to-day reality is very different from her own and completely alien to the average American childhood. Leah is filled with a type of rage toward a lie that she had been fed and was inadvertently living. Although it was not her fault (as she says), she did not invent the lie, she could not help but feel shame for her ignorance. This ignorance is revealed in the types of games her sisters and she play, namely Hide and Seek and Mother May I?. Leah contrasts the games that Pascal plays in an average day, and they are based upon survival, even though he is a young boy of 9. For example, he knows how to kill snakes, identify poison plants (like poisonwood), start a fire and tend it, climb trees and forage for food, and steer clear of other dangers. The utility of his knowledge is contrasted with the bookish information and games that Leah knows. She immediately feels her inferiority and the absurdity of her life back in Georgia, and this is why she her “embarrassment ran scarlet” (141).
This quote is situated in a scene that is particularly interesting for Leah’s character because it is the first stirring of self awareness and her white privileged background that is rather useless in the Congo. In this scene, she becomes acutely aware that the things she knows how to do will not help her survive in the Congo. She thinks “For the first time ever, I felt a stirring of anger against my father for making me a white preacher’s child from Georgia.” Her background and upbringing, sheltered from hardship, is likened to the useless but pretty frill of a dress. Frill is something that serves absolutely no purpose and now Leah is beginning to see the falseness of sheltering children from the world under the social concept of “childhood.” Leah’s quote is personally important because it deals with a worldview about what children should and should not know or do and what they are capable of handling.
