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Essential Question

At the novel’s end, the carved-animal woman in the African market is sure that “There has never been any village on the road past Bulungu,” that “There is no such village” as Kilanga. What do you make of this? How do we reconcile an ambiguous ending?

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Imagine a ruin so strange it must never have happened.

Orleanna Price, 5

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Scene Analysis

First, picture the forest. I want you to be its conscience, the eyes in the trees. The trees are columns of slick, brindled bark like muscular animals overgrown beyond all reason. Every space is filled with life: delicate, poisonous frogs war-painted like skeletons, clutched in copulation, secreting their precious eggs onto dripping leaves. Vines strangling their own kin in the everlasting wrestle for sunlight. The breathing of monkeys. A glide of snake belly on branch. A single-file army of ants biting a mammoth tree into uniform grains and hauling it down to the dark for their ravenous queen. And, in reply, a choir of seedlings arching their necks out of rotted tree stumps, sucking life out of death. This forest eats itself and lives forever (Kingsolver 5).

Many of the creatures Orleanna describes in this opening scene play a role in later parts of the novel -- something, of course, that can only be realized upon completion of the book itself. The ‘eyes in the trees’ Orleanna depicts as the forest’s conscience also occupy the title of the seventh and final book of this fictitious bible. The ‘army of ants’ foreshadow an invasion (and its arrival terrifies Leah: “Every surface was covered and boiling, and the path like black flowing lava in the moonlight” (Kingsolver 299)); the ‘glide of snake belly’ signifies the separation that would befall the Price family. Even the forest itself Orleanna describes as alive -- life makes this story possible.

Kingsolver makes a bold move in beginning this way. The imagery, while primarily visual, consumes the reader whole regardless and transforms them into the forest. But they are not the forest; they know that. A single question follows: To whom do the eyes truly belong? One answer would reveal itself in the end.

This novel works backwards, in some ways. Adah most explicitly presents to us this theme of reversal; she is captivated by the fullness of palindromes and “their perfect, satisfying taste” (Kingsolver 57). This small fascination contributes to a greater theme of direction. Furthermore, Adah’s brilliance shows the careful intention with which Kingsolver shapes her characters, from their names to their mannerisms and their hardships. Research of the author may lead the reader to realize the autobiographical aspects that lie in Kingsolver’s works; in her biography, Kingsolver recounts, “I lost my accent … I gave it up slowly and became something else.” The similarity between Kingsolver and her accent and Adah and her limp is striking; from this standpoint, one could inquire Kingsolver’s relationship with her own family and her struggle (the human struggle) to find faith.

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... and Africa would look just like America with more palm trees. Instead, most of it still looks exactly how it did a zillion years ago.

Rachel Price, 515

Just as Orleanna said 510 pages before: “The forest eats itself and lives forever.” Africa is alive, and continuously renewed.

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The second half of August also brought us a special five-day Kilanga week, beginning and ending on market day, which did not contain a Sunday but left Sundays standing on either side of it like parentheses. That particular combination stands as one chance in seven, by the way. It should occur on average seven times per year, separated by intervals just slightly longer than that endured by Noah on his putative ark.

Adah Price, 259

Seven is symbolic of the creation of the universe, according to Biblical lore. The seventh day of creation -- the Sabbath -- is one of worship and rest. The root of this tradition, this reality, lies in the Book of Genesis. Also in that same first book, man’s mortality is made clear.

For dust thou art, and unto dust shalt thou return. Genesis 3:19 KJVA

The subject of this passage is Creation. We do not live forever; in the end, we return to earth. This is undeniably true: it was true for Ruth May, and it was true for Kilanga. Africa, as the beginning and the end, is the origin of life.

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Text-to-Text Connection

There are numerous biblical references in the Poisonwood Bible (as the title of Kingsolver’s 1998 composition infers). However, the connection between these texts lies not particularly in the words they share but in the life they depict. Man is made from and returns to dust -- earth. The village that was once Kilanga was made from and returned to the jungle. This ending, this cycle, should be addressed objectively rather than subjectively. This is not about the disappearance of a village belonging to a people -- this is the return of creation to Creation.

Brother Fowles, during his visit to the Prices, gives the reader a glimpse into this connection between religious faith and the natural world. To Leah, he says, “When I want to take God at His word exactly, I take a peep out the window at His Creation. Because that, darling, He makes fresh for us every day, without a lot of dubious middle managers” (Kingsolver 248). From here, one may think: Perhaps this lesson is the reason, after fleeing the scene of Ruth May’s death, Orleanna turned to gardening. Back in Sanderling Island, Adah described her mother: “She stays outdoors a lot, I think to escape it. When I go to visit I always find her out in her walled garden with her hands sunk into the mulch, kneading the roots of her camellias” (Kingsolver 492). In gardening, Orleanna learns to see God; maybe then, in creating a forest of her own, she can find forgiveness. This we see foreshadowed from the very beginning, in Orleanna’s mysterious introduction. But in order to understand this, we must reach the end -- Ruth May forgives her, and guides her.

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In the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost I baptize you, my son. Walk forward into the light.

Nathan Price, 374

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Walk forward into the light.

Ruth May Price, 543

At the moment of Ruth May’s death, time freezes. After, there is only motion. At Sanderling Island, Orleanna expresses, “As long as I kept moving, my grief streamed out behind me like a swimmer’s long hair in water” (Kingsolver 381). But where did she head? The serpent had separated man once again (“And the Lord God said unto the serpent, Because thou hast done this, thou art cursed” Genesis 3:14). The Prices’ grieved the only way they knew how -- by running away. They ran in no particular direction; all that mattered was that they escape the shame they felt from death -- Ruth May’s death. That is what makes this quote so important. Ruth May speaks, and she guides them in the right direction. Away from the darkness.

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Text-to-Self Connection

It is said that rereading a book is so rewarding because there is something new to discover each time. This is especially true in The Poisonwood Bible; experience has helped the beginning of the novel make sense the second time around. There was purpose in doing so; it’s as if Kingsolver wants the reader to repeat the novel -- only then will they have understood the meaning of this story. An ambiguous ending is reconciled in returning to the beginning, genesis.

In The Poisonwood Bible, Africa is the beginning and the end. Could Ruth May personify this? The eyes in the trees are hers, after all.

And to answer this question: How do I relate personally to my Essential Question? There aren’t many ‘endings’ that I have experienced so far. But there are endings, and one is approaching. In such hectic times, I view it as rather ambiguous. In connection -- social, physical, emotional, and spiritual -- I find reconciliation.

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... the long waiting. Now she will wait the rest of the time. It will be exactly as long as the time that passed before she was born.

Adah Price, 365

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Final Reflection

I had approached this assignment with confidence. Internally, I chose this question with the delusion that it would be perfectly manageable; I expected myself to understand what I was writing along the way (as I usually go about my business, admittedly). This novel, however, stumped me. For six days, I stumbled (procrastinated, one might say), suffering a combination of writer’s block and overconfidence. Only after reading a certain Digital Learning letter did I overcome the seemingly threatening hill of angst and begin to dive into this project. 

My interest in The Poisonwood Bible grew once my view of it altered. Once I stopped perceiving it as an assignment, I opened my mind to Kingsolver’s writing, and began to understand the characters for who they were; I began to understand the author. I made connections regarding perspective, and inquired the lack of Nathan’s voice. I realized that while they appear fictitious, the Price women embody something (or rather, someone) very real. Kingsolver resonates with her characters. 

The ambiguity of The Poisonwood Bible’s ending arises from Kingsolver’s hope for the future. As previously mentioned, returning to the beginning often helps in understanding the end, or, at the very least, progress made along the way. Kingsolver’s effort to even write this novel -- to write at all -- shows her desire to understand her path, and to share it with others.

As for my process in creating this project -- design-wise, it went smoothly. I am new to the Tumblr community, if only for school; that being said, I played the layout game safe and stuck with a free template I found while browsing. All of the images I accredit to Unsplash.

I categorize all of my writing projects by emotion. Many of the school writing projects I recall are laced with a feeling of hurriedness and anxiety. But also at moments like these, I leave room for captivation and excitement -- like the insight I gain is presently unknown to me yet flows unlocked through my fingertips. This project felt a bit like that. At first, though I thought I knew how to answer the Essential Question I chose, the final product and all of its layers have little to do with what I first made out to be the right answer. My understanding of this Essential Question also has much to do with my own background. I learn to understand my beginning, and I learn to walk forward into the light.