#practical literary critcism

[media-musings]

A Reading of The Poisonwood Bible

For my Practical Literary Criticism course last fall, we analyzed the hell out of Barbara Kingsolver’s The Poisonwood Bible. I really enjoyed the novel and wrote about it for my final paper for the class. 

I decided to write about Nathan Price, a character largely ignored outside of his role as an antagonist. Don’t get me wrong, Nathan is awful and incredibly irredeemable. He is not someone who changes for the better by the end of the novel. However, I think his importance as a character is neglected. 

Because I was writing this for the criticism class, I had to utilize a theory we had studied. I chose to use a blend of Marxist literary theory and Michel Foucault’s idea of the Panopticon to explain Nathan's true importance to the story. 

The full essay is under the cut. :)

*Note: I have learned so much about critical writing since taking this class. I’m reading through it again, and I can see so many things I can change now. It’s amazing how much one class can teach you about writing. 

The Multidimensional Nathan Price

The Poisonwood Bible deals with the theme of guilt among Orleanna and her daughters, but why does Nathan seem to be left out of the conversation? Many critics believe Kingsolver’s intention with Nathan’s main role in the story is to represent imperialism and American ignorance and authority. While the argument for this idea is considerably strong, Nathan is not simply an agent of colonialism, but rather an alternative depiction of how guilt can influence an individual’s actions, powered by emerging panopticism through being interpellated by his ideology. Nathan Price’s personal sense of guilt should not be overlooked as it provides the means for readers to appreciate how trauma impacts everyone differently and the consequences of being unable to recover from that trauma.  

An ideology, a concept established by Louis Althusser, through ideological state apparatuses, like religion in Nathan’s case, unconsciously blind individuals to what is real by creating an imaginary world that they are interpellated into believing they exist within. A parishioner of the church may find themselves closely obeying God and the church’s beliefs due to suggestions of surveillance by the omniscient God, an idea referred to as panopticism by philosopher Michel Foucault. Connecting Foucault and Althusser in this way helps readers recognize that Nathan Price’s actions in the novel are influenced by the fear of punishment from God for abandoning his fellow soldiers during the Bataan Death March and surviving as a result, so he works intensely to prove himself a devout and great missionary.

Most critics agree that Kingsolver shows Nathan as a representation of imperialism and “exceptionalism.” However, they largely ignore Nathan’s personal struggles that shape his drives to preach in the Congo. Elaine Ognibene argues that Nathan is portrayed by Kingsolver as a metaphor for the imperialism the Congolese people face in the novel. Similarly, Susan Strehle argues that Nathan represents the “negative portrait” of what she refers to as “American Exceptionalism: arrogant, inflexible, and passionately committed” (Strehle 426, 415). Christopher Douglas concedes that others critics, like Ognibene and Strehle, have compelling arguments about Nathan being a symbol of colonialism. However, he recognizes that this make Nathan “one-dimensional” (Douglas 136). Douglas also believes that this view makes Nathan a “caricature of the twentieth-century missionary” and portrays him as such “unfairly” (137). Although Douglas delves a bit deeper into Nathan’s character, he still fails to acknowledge the importance of Nathan’s story and how it shapes his identity.

Nathan has a traumatic history that has shaped his motives, however readers are oblivious to his prior military service until later in the novel during one of Orleanna’s passages. He returns home a different man, once thought to have been saved “by the grace of God” now feeling shameful due to “his own cowardice from which he would never recover” (Kingsolver 223, 224). He accepts the missionary job in the Congo as recompense for abandoning his fellow soldiers, convincing Orleanna that he “meant to personally save more souls than had perished on the road to Bataan, I think, and all other paths ever walked by the blight of mankind” (226).

Upon his return home, Orleanna recalls Nathan’s now transformed character; “His first words to me were to speak of how fiercely he felt the eye of God upon him” (224). As Foucault suggests, Nathan feels as if he is being watched and judged. In his mind, God watched him selfishly abandon his fellow soldiers in order to avoid a terrible death along the road to Bataan. Upon finding his discharge documents Adah concludes that “[f]ate sentenced Our Father to pay for those lives with the remainder of his, and he has spent it posturing desperately beneath the eyes of a God who will not forgive a debt” (468). He won’t run again after his experience in Bataan, with God’s all-seeing eyes watching him. His attempts to concede to the Kilanga traditions in order to convert the villagers to Christianity are construed as his resolve beginning to wane. For Nathan, the resistance from Tata Ndu and the villagers is a direct punishment from God, who has observed him submit to their command and is displeased with him. He is called by his ideology to interpret his failure as punishment from God.

Most critics argue that Kingsolver intended his character to represent only colonialism and exceptionalism, yet the author attempts to guide readers into understanding Nathan’s motivations through Orleanna’s memories. Through this approach, Nathan can be further analyzed as another instance of guilt that the Price family encounters. Nathan is hailed by his religious beliefs to punish himself for his past offences, along with the awareness of his panoptic god watching every choice he makes, which guide his missionary goals. Unfortunately, it also leads him to ignore the well-being of his family and the villagers, and he is unable to fully recover from his trauma.

 Works Cited

Douglas, Christopher. The Poisonwood Bible's Multicultural Graft: American Literature during the Contemporary Christian Resurgence, American Literary History, Volume 26, Issue 1, 1 January 2014, Pages 132–153, https://doi.org/10.1093/alh/ajt069

Kingsolver, Barbara. The Poisonwood Bible. Faber and Faber, 1998.

Ognibene, Elaine R. "The Missionary Position: Barbara Kingsolver's The Poisonwood Bible." College Literature, vol. 30 no. 3, 2003, pp. 19-36. Project MUSE, doi:10.1353/lit.2003.0047

Parker, Robert Dale. Critical Theory: A Reader for Literary and Cultural Studies. Oxford University Press, 2012.

Strehle, Susan. “Chosen People: American Exceptionalism in Kingsolver’s The Poisonwood Bible.” Critique: Studies in Contemporary Fiction, vol. 49, no. 4, 2008, pp. 413–429., doi:10.3200/crit.49.4.413-429.

[thomcantsleep]

How You Learn How to Write

They say that you can’t teach writing and they’re probably right. What I believe is that there are definitely ways to get better and improve your craft. Certain things are absolutely necessary to progress and improve as a writer - no matter what the skill level is.

I’ve got a few things here and there that aren’t trade secrets but more good advice for moving forward with your writing.

1. Put Pen to Paper.

You don’t know what you’re like at writing if you don’t try at least once. The important thing about giving it a go is that if you won’t know where to start if you don’t start at all. You may think that you’re terrible at writing or that you’re God’s gift to the medium but you have to produce something - and I mean anything - to get started. Think of it as taking a preliminary test for a college to get a handle on your skill level. See my blog about writing exercises if you need any help. :)

2. Get Help (and Allow Yourself to Be Helped).

It seems incredibly obvious considering what the subject of this article is but what is fundamental to learning the art of writing is that you have to know how to get help, where to get help from and how to apply it to your work. What I should point out at this juncture is that you should never hand out money to people who are offering to read your work. Most literary agents would happily read your work for free.

But it doesn’t have to be a literary agent. Just get someone who you trust to tell you the truth and be honest. Preferably, get a reader to critique your work like they would for a book from a bookshop. The more important aspect is psychological. You have to learn how to take criticism on the chin and not take it personally. Understand that whoever is giving you constructive critcism has your best interests in mind. What is constructive criticism? Simple. The want for your work to be more effective and when that want is asked for. Not unprompted put-downs in preference of what the critic wants.

Be prepared to take the advice and make the changes to your work. You may see it as a damage to your work and you may even not end up with that in your final edit but cycling through the chunks of info will help you find your way - what is good and what isn’t.

3. Read.

I’ll keep putting it in writing articles until I’m blue in the face but you have to read. If not read, take in any media - painted art, television, cinema, music - and think about it creatively; how was it put together and how it works as a piece of media. Take in the story, the composition, the structure, the dialogue and the syntax. What you learned in English Literature at school is useful in these scenarios because of the problem-solving skills it teaches you. When you understand what makes something quintessentially good. What, exactly, absorbs you in the product?

When you know the answer, it will make you a better writer. Think about art like a philosopher thinks about life or how a psychologist thinks about the mind.

4. Make Use of Your Notebook (or memo app on your phone).

Plan. Write down story ideas (they won’t stay in your head forever). Keep tabs on your progress and if someone tells you helpful advice or if you read a pertinent quote online, write it down. Be economical and try not to fill your notebook with random circled words out of context or underlined dates for no reason. It isn’t enough to just cosplay as a writer because you actually have to be one if you want to be good at it. This piece of advice is only small but it’s practical and a good notebook can put in the hard yards to make you work-hours more efficient in the long run.

5. Engage Your Imagination.

The word learning might sound tedious to you because it probably reminds you of a time in your life where you were depressed, bored, lost or just generally having a bad time of it. The truth is though that the best writers at the top of their game with nothing left to prove are still learning. You have to think about the process of writing without an academic mindset so you get the best out of yourself.

I did go to university and it must be said that it didn’t necessarily teach me how to write but taught me how to be better. I didn’t take a fancy to writing in school because they don’t really teach it and the subject of “creative writing” isn’t defined by 2+2. It’s closer to crafting a sum with two numbers you’ve invented yourself. I may be rambling but my point is this: engaging your imagination is learning how to write.

6. Read Your Own Work Aloud to Yourself.

This is very hard. It’s difficult but very, very necessary. You have to read what you’ve written out loud to yourself so you can see how it sounds.  See if you’re out of breath at the end of sentences and if full-stops (periods) and commas are in the places that they should be. You have to believe me when I say that reading in your head is a completely different sensation.

You’ll even discover certain adjectives and nouns don’t roll of the tongue the way you think they do in your head. There is a certain beat and rhythm to writing that you won’t discover without properly dictating it out loud. As a little bonus, you could unearth grammar and spelling mistakes dotted around here and there. That brings me on to my next and final point.

7. Master The Basics.

Okay, this is the only hard-nosed point that I have to make so I left it at the end.

This isn’t even something that you need a degree for. You just have to know how to use Google and utilize it for incredibly accessible knowledge about language and how it is constructed. Grammar, punctuation, sentence structure - all that really boring stuff that you learned really early on. If you didn’t pursue the subject of English Language (or the respective national language class in your country) in further education because of whatever reason, you will lose that basic knowledge.

If you use a word and you ask yourself what it means and your brain doesn’t have a proper answer, look it up. Always double-check that a word means exactly what you think it means. You can’t just guess or go from memory unless you are positively sure. Don’t allow yourself to be caught out and, by using Google more and more, it will stick in your head. For example, I used the word quintessentially in this article earlier. I looked up both what it means and how to spell it. I was 95% sure but that isn’t enough. If you don’t know where the apostrophe goes in a sentence, I am begging you to look it up. There is no shame in not knowing and using a search engine takes ten seconds max.

If you master the basics, even your writing isn’t all that much to write home about, it will look professionally put together. You’d be surprised how many mistakes you read online and you don’t even know it is a mistake. I have made mistakes that have been easily avoidable had I just looked it up.

[coronam]

Hi! My name is Ana. I’m the anon who sent you two questions about your novel –wait.wait are you writing a novel? Amazing AND can you tell us something about the plot?-. I know that it sounds really weird but I would like to know -I was wondering- if I could ask you about your creative process. I’m a literature student and I have read a lot of books and the diaries of many writers and I’m really interested in knowing how a novel is born. That’s all. Sorry for my bad English (not my mother tongue)

Hi, Ana! Not a weird question at all! Thank you for the lovely asks :)

I’m happy to talk about my process. Of course, all writers are different, so what works well for me won’t be the same for others. Also, let me preface this by saying I am in no way a professional, and all the methods listed here have been picked up from classes and my own practice. I definitely struggle with writing, and sometimes it doesn’t feel as glamorous as we all make it seem.

One of the first things I learned in college is that thinking about writing is an important step in the actual writing. The more I think about a piece before even opening a new document, the easier the words come to me. Planning something out in my head has helped me get through writer’s block countless times. Outlines/notes can also be useful before embarking on a creative journey.

It’s taken me a while to recognize my own patterns when it comes to writing. There have been a lot of nights where I didn’t try to write because I convinced myself I wasn’t “in the mood.” But sometimes I have to sit down and force some words out before the creative gates actually open, and sentences start coming to me faster than I can type. Other times, a block is a block, and I have to focus on something else. You never know until you sit down and try.

I’ve never written a novel before, so I’m going about it pretty much blind. Literary devices are helpful when I feel stuck or I don’t know where to take a story. I have to remind myself that the beginning, middle, and end should all accomplish something, that there should be a climax, falling action, and resolution (see: plot pyramid), etc.

This novel in particular started off as a short story. I was aiming for a certain aesthetic and shock factor, but when I gave it to my beta group, they convinced me to flesh out the story and take it much farther than I thought I could. Essentially, short stories are my main genre, and this novel-writing escapade is totally new for me. But as I’ve said, I’m having so much fun with it!

Speaking of betas, I cannot stress enough how much I’ve been relying on my friends to help bounce ideas off of, vent writing frustrations to, and hear feedback from. If you can, find yourself a group of other writers and set time aside to read each other’s work and give constructive critcism. I say writers because while having regular friends and family read your work and tell you it’s great makes you feel good, it’s untimately nonconducive to growth. Other writers will know what to look for, and they’ll have the correct mindset and tools to offer useful advice.

Some other things that help when I get writer’s block: breaking from one piece to focus on another for a while, breaking from writing completely until I’m in a better headspace to continue, reading, reading, and more reading.

As for publishing, I haven’t the slightest clue how that happens (being my first book and all). But we’ll cross that bridge when we come to it!

I hope this little tangent answered your question! Let me know if you’d like me to talk about it more, or if you have any other questions!