Characters
Orleanna Price- The mother of the four girls in this novel who has
come to accept everything that her husband tells her until the death
of her youngest, Ruth May. She was unable to previously act on her
own because her husband could be quite aggressive and she truly
believed God was on his side. The two were in love before he went
off to war, but watching all of his friends die forever changed him
and their relationship. She was a carefree woman, but the Congo
changed her into a depressed mother incapable of truly protecting her
children. Once she returned to the states by herself, she never
married again.
Ruth May Price- She was very adventurous and friendly when she first
moved to the Congo and was still able to befriend nearly all the
children in the village without speaking their language, which made
her sisters quite jealous. She became quite ill with malaria due to
the fact that she hid her pills in her room due to their foul taste
and became virtually silent and low-spirited. She later on goes to
die in the novel by being bit by a huge green mamba snake.
Leah Price- She is the twin of Adah and wears a short, distinct
haircut as a badge of honor and uniqueness. She tries everything in
her power to be her father's favorite daughter as she idolizes him
so much. As the novel progresses, she becomes exposed to the daily
and harsh political realities of the Congo and ends up spending the
rest of her life trying to improve the lives of Congo inhabitants
alongside her revolutionist husband, Anatole, and their sons.
Adah Price- She was born with hemiplegia that did not allow her
mobility to the right side of her body, but she did not seek the
pity of others because of it. She rarely spoke and decided to rather
observe the world and make intelligent observations, especially with
the use of her own language in which she liked to write words in
opposite order. When she moved back to the states, a doctor did not
allow her to walk for six months stating that if she learned to walk
all over again, she could walk normally. This trick worked and
brought in many potential men, who she learned to despise
recognizing that they did not pay any sort of attention when she used
to limp. Although she remains single, she goes on to be a successful
epidemiologist.
Rachel Price- Rachel is known as the beauty queen of the family and
her hair is constantly yanked by their neighbors in the Congo
because it is so blonde that they do not believe it is hair. She is
a very materialistic girl and hardly changed her ways as we watched
her age. She goes through a variety of husbands until her last one
dies due to his old age. He leaves behind a luxury hotel in the
French Congo and is quite proud of it and the fact that she catches
the eye of nearly all the men who stay there.
Nathan Price- A strict Baptist minister hoping to convert them to
Christianity he feels like a coward in the eyes of God because he
was the only man of his army regimen to survive. This carries over
to his life in the Congo as he will do whatever it takes to prove to
God otherwise, even if it means the death of his youngest daughter
and the abandonment of his three other daughters as well as his
wife. As they all grow up, they hear stories about how he has
traveled throughout Africa trying to convert others to his faith and
that ultimately this leads to his death, which does not seem to
phase any of the Price family members.
Symbols
When Adah moved back to the states, her limp was fixed and
immediately following her first real steps, she couldn't have been
more ecstatic. As time went on and she began gaining the attention of
men, she began rejecting them because she knew that they had not
fancied her when she was Adah with the limp. This symbolizes her
relationship with the Congo, although she had moved away and it was
no longer with her, it was still a part of her. She hated the Congo,
as well as her limp, but then she realized that she would not be who
she is today without it and that they both taught her very valuable
things that she could not have learned anywhere else.
The poisonwood tree that Nathan tried to plant in the garden
ultimately symbolizes his arrogance and cause of their pain. Because
he mispronounced bangala as poisonwood tree and not dearly beloved,
he was preaching that Jesus was the native tree known to cause death
and injury. He was unable to fix this significant problem because of
his persistent and unwilling-to-learn-anything-new personality which
proved very unfortunate. In the context of the lives of the Prices,
Jesus did prove to cause them significant pain as well as the death
of their beloved Ruth May, which is ironic since he was supposed to
be perceived as the exact opposite.
Themes
There appears to be a reoccurring theme of greed throughout the
novel as Nathan Price preaches about God, although some people praise
him for his actions, he is doing for a selfish reason so that God
will no longer view him as a coward. Rachel is an obvious
self-centered individual who is constantly wishing to go back to the
states where there are Barbies and Campbell's soup, but never
attempts to learn the culture and ways of the Congo. This outlook of
hers doesn't appear to vary as she ages as she winds up owning a
luxury hotel which she is extremely proud of.
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