The Poisonwood Bible 5

"This has been a whole terrible time, from teh beginning of the drought that left so many without food, and then the night of the ants, to now, the worst tragedy of all. Each bad thing causes something worse."This reminded me of the plagues God sent on the egyptians when they wouldn't let the Isrealites go. There was a terrible drought and all the harvests and cattle died along with people. There was also the infestation of toads and locus and illness.

When the "...congragation...interrupted the sermon to hold an election on whethere or not to accept Jesus Christ as teh personal Saviour of Kilanga" it was just like teh children playing Mother-May-I.They didn't understand the concept or "Rules" of having faith or believign in God, they just went to church because that's what they were told. They had no idea what they were being taught or saying, they were just speaking and singing empty words.

Leah is becoming a piece of the Congo: "She'd vamoosed into the tall grass, and off she was headed for the jungle, where it was plain to see [Nathan would] never fing her." Leah would, in a sense, blend in with the jungle and hse was no longer scared of it: "...we mad eNelson promise to hide out the night at Anatole's...Leah ran halfway there with him, because he was scared, and came back by herself." She hunted with the men so she could be seen as an animal herself. Also she is still loosing her faith in God and questioning him: "Jesus may have sounded like a helpful sort of God in teh beginning, but He was bot bearing out...I prayed to Jesus to help me, then to any other god who would listen."

Adah states: "In...America, I was a failed combination of too-weak body and overstrong will. But in teh Congo I am those things perfectly united: Adah." Adah isn't becoming a piece of the Congo like Leah could be, she is connected to it; she matches it, mirrors it, they reflect on another. What could that mean if Orleanna is finally able to get herself and her children back to American? Will she have to make a choice between daughters again or will Adah want to stay anyway?

The Poisonwood Bible 4

Rachel is going for a walk with Axelroot in the beginning of this reading and she promised "to walk with him around the village, and not a speck farther. [She] swore to Mother [She] would not set foor into the forest with him or anywhere out of sight." But next thing you know they were "outside [their] village." and continuing to walk toward the forest. "Axelroot just kepr walking, and suddenly i didn't care what happened next." After they reached the forest, Axelroot kissed her and this was foreshadowed when they first begin smoking. "...he took the cigarette out of my mouth and put it in his...struck the match...and lit the two of them together...Then, ever so gently, he put the lit cigarette back in mylips. It seemed almost like we had kissed."

Rachel is constantly having to remind herself that Axelroot is a creep. "Chills ran down my back, but I couldn't tell for sure if it was thrills chills or the creeps...you cant for one minute let yourselfforget he is a creep." But if you think about it, it seems like she is attracted to some kind of mysteriousness about the guy. Something like how her mother, Orleanna, was attracted not to Nathan but to the mystery of him. Hmmmm!!!

"how could I leave Adah behind again? Once in teh womb, once to the lion, and now like Simon Peter i had denied her for the third time." What is the significance of Leah reffering herself to Simon Peter? Peter was a man that was always willing to put himself "out there" and see what Jesus could really do, but he was foolish too. He didn't think before he did and sometiems that got him in a mess of trouble. Could this be foreshadowing for Leah or simply just making a comparison?

We see Adah speak for the first time in one of her chapters! "I spoke out loud, the only time:help me...I spoke again: Please." She never yelled or cried or pleaded these words, she just spoke them. It makes a person wonder if there was emotion of the terror she felt inside show through her voice or through her face. The image she portrays next makes me think of what hell might be like; "...though i felt it vaguely, already numb from the burning ants. I knew when i went down...i was being trampled. A crush of feet on my chest. I rolled over again and again, covering my head with my arms...Ants on my earlopes, my tongue, my eyelids. I heard myself cry out loud-such a strange noise, as if it came from my hear and fingernails...Left behind." That last part is what really put a connection to hell. It was as if the rapture had come and the person that didn't quite make it was thrown down and trampled on; being eaten alive by "burning ants" and she was left behind.

Leah confessed a deep feeling to Anatole; "I love you, Anatole."  His response was like a slap in the face. "Leah! Don't ever say that again." "I never will." Then Leah becomes even closer to the Congo because she envisions the dead skeliton chickens just the way they were when they returned days later. "I was surprised that their dislocated skeletons looked just the way I'd imagined them. This is what i must have learned, the night God turned his back on my; how to foretell the future in chicken bones." it seems all of the girls in the price family are slipping away from their faith! Rachel, when only having time to "...save one precious thing."  chose, "...not the Bible-it didn't seem worth saving at that time..." but "It had to by [her] mirror." Then also, adah said she didn't believe in God anymore a while back in the book...What is happening to the Price family?

The Poisonwood Bible 3

Previously  it was a wonder why Orleanna and Nathan got married or if they even truely loved eachother in the beginning of their marriage when they said I Do.When Nathan was supposedly courting Orleanna "[she] didnt' recognize that's what it was. [She] thought he was just bound and determined to save [her]." He read her passages from the bible and, to her, "The words were mysterious and beautiful, so [she] let him stay." So Orleanna didn't fall in love with Nathan but with the words and passages he spoke of; The words of the Lord are pure words: as silver tried in a furnace of earth, purified seven times; and He makes me lie down in green pastures. "[She] could taste [it]..." To Nathan, "...the idea of marriage suited him well enough...[Orleanna] hardly had time to think about [her] own answer-why, it was taken to be a foreigone conclusion." In a way Orleanna didn't have a say in her own marriage, as it seems. Picturing the situation, one might see her daydreaming or in her own world while her dominant world is controled and pushed around by other people in her life. After a while, she seemed to grow affections toward Nathan but when he went off to war and came back wounded the only sign of her "old husband" was the letters he had written. "That was the last I would hear from the man i'd married- on who could laugh...call me his "honey lamb," and trust in the miracle of good fortune.

I found it ironic when "[Nathan] brought his hand down agains [Orleanna] for the first time" when she tried to laugh about the similar situation of Mary and Joseph at the Inn and their family where they didn't have any more room for another child when Orleanna was "swollen." That night when Mary and Joseph were trying to find room in the Inn was the night God's son was "born" as a human. A miracle pretty much. Something amazing and in referrance to that Orleanna was hit? She began seeing marriage as a cage; "Like Methuselah i cowed beside my cage, and though my soul hankered after teh mountain, i found, like Methuselah, i had no wings...This is why...I'd lost my wings. Don't ask me how i gained them back- the story is too unbearable." She supposedly got her wings back, eventually, but i don't think the reason how is shown yet in these chapters. Curiosity has got me!

The Poisonwood Bible 2

The title of this book is called Revelation which is the last book in the Bible. Why do you think it starts with Genesis then skips all the was to Revelation?

Again here Orleanna talks about the scent of Africa "...ris[ing] up from inside [her] and [she knows] you're still [there], holding sway...It is the scent of accusation." What would it be accusing her of? Was it her fault one of her daughters died? Maybe she could have seen it coming so she blames herself. "I could have been a different mother, you'll say. Could have straightened up and seen what was coming, for it was thick in the air all around us." Because of the statement "I could have been a different mother, you'll say." I have the reason to believe it is Leah that dies. I dont think it'll be Ruth May because she is still a child, she wouldn't tell her mother would she could or should have seen. Leah is said in the previous book that she is the one that normally sasses to her mother. It also singles Leah out when the mother has lost sight of her children in the forest "...but could see only Leah." All she could see was Leah. Normally in her chapters Orleanna is randomly and constantly talking about her lost child and focusing on how much she misses her; so in a way the dead child could be described as who she could only see. Maybe this proves it also?

We also see more of the hidden side of Nathan. He is very abusive when he gets angry and that doesn't take much considering he's a red-head! "My steadfast husband tore his hair in private...Then i saw him reborn, with a stone in place of his heart." "(Ruth May) She was afraid to tell father because he might whip me, busted arm and all...he didn't whip me. Not yet. Maybe when i'm all fixed, he will." "While my husband's intentions crystallized as rock salt...teh Congo breathed behind the curtain of forest...(Orleanna) I was blinded from the constant looking back: Lot's wife. I only ever saw teh gathering clouds." This brings in a very important story from the bible! It is about a family that God spared their life, running from the destruction of their city. God told them not to turn back, no matter what happends to keep running forward. But sadly, Lot's (the husband) wife turned back for only a split second and was instantly turned into a pillar of salt. No one will know what she saw. Or did she ever get the chance? Maybe all she saw was the gathering clouds too. Orleanna says she was "...blinded from teh constant looking back..." This shows she had no faith what-so-ever. She would run on but the minute she'd had too much of being out of her comfort zone she'd have to turn around to try and see what was going on. This blinded her faith, her energy, possibly all her senses!

 Orleanna describes herself as "...his instrument, his animal. Nothing more." There is obviously no love between her and Nathan and i'm beginning to wonder if their ever was. Why would they even marry if they couldn't get through things together or even tolerate eachother! Later the fact is exposed that Orleanna hasn't always been a christain; "In those early months, why, half the time i would wake up startled and think i was right back in Pearl, Mississippi. Before marriage, before religion, before everything." Nothing is said about who she was before, just who she will become.

In the story the parrot represents the Congo; "Mama tataba and the accursed parrot, both released by Nathan." "(Leah) At first i wanted Methuselah to come back and live in the cage, until father explained to me that this whole arrangement was wrong. We let Methuselah go because his captivity was an embarrassment to us. It made teh parrot into a less noble creature than God intended. So i had to root for Methuselah to learn to be free." The parrot hung around the house or where it's cage was thrown in the bushes because it didn't know how to be free. Its muscles were weak and he wasn't able to fly when thinking of it so he was trapped on teh ground where all teh preditors live and eventually, on independance day, he was killed. His remains were spread out and his feathers blew away in the wind leaving a trail from his "home" (the latrine) to where his body lay.