The Mark of Africa

William J. Hiraldo

Mrs. C. Cannarella

English IV Hon.

21 February 2007

The Mark of Africa

Since the dawn of time, the strong always take advantage of the weak, and it is evident in today's contemporary society with the United States and the Middle East. The United States is forcing their ideologies of Western culture to a radical fundamentalist group of Muslims. In the Poisonwood Bible by Barbara Kingsolver, an evangelical Baptist minister named Nathan Price takes his family on a missionary in Belgian Congo in 1959. The book illustrates the hypocrisy of religious rhetoric and practice that sacrifices the many for the good of the few in power, and draws a clear parallel between a missionary's attitude and colonial imperialism. Nathan Price is a symbolic figure representing the way the U.S and Europe have approached Africa with cultural arrogance and misunderstanding at every aspect. Nathan Price demonstrates that religion and politics are not separate entities but a powerful combined forces used not only to "convert the savages" but to convert the masses to believe that what is done in the name of democratic, Christian principles is done for the greater good. (Ognibene, Elaine R) Nathan's evangelical, self-righteous, judgmental attitudes threaten the lives of his family, as well as the people in the remote Congolese village of Kilanga. A zealot, Nathan risks lives in pursuit of his obsessive vision. An abusive father, Nathan goes frenetic for the second time in his life, as he tries to convert the natives over a year and a half period of hunger, disease, drought, witchcraft, political wars, pestilential rains, Lumumba, Mobutu, Ike, and the CIA. The effects of Nathan's missionary position on his wife, Orleanna, his four daughters, and the Congolese become clear that Nathan's behaviors is similar to the imperialist actions in the Congo.

In "The Revelation," Orleanna explains her initial ignorance about bringing Betty Crocker cake mixes into the jungle and her slow learning about Congolese cultural practices. She wanted to be a part of Kilanga and be Nathan's wife, but she acknowledges her true position: "I was his instrument, his animal. Nothing more ... just one of those women who clamp their mouths shut and wave the flag as their nation rolls off to conquer another in war" (88). Orleanna looks back on her political mistakes as well as her cultural ones, recognizing similarities in the behaviors between Nathan and national leaders. Thinking about Eisenhower's need for control and retired diplomat George F. Kennan's belief that the U.S. should not have "'the faintest moral responsibility for Africa'"(96), she remembers Nathan's similar need for control, as well as not realizing the actions of his consequences. Plagued by unanswerable "if" questions, Orleanna closes her narrative in the "Exodus" chapter on a note that is sad, insightful, and redemptive. Free of Nathan's control, she chooses to speak and in voice comes redemption. She begins by defining the need to understand the deceptive nature of words, a recurring theme in the novel: "Independence is a complex word in a foreign tongue. To resist occupation, whether you're a nation or merely a woman, you must understand the language of your enemy. Conquest and liberation and democracy and divorce are words that mean squat ... when you have hungry children" (Kingsolver 383).

Adah begins her journey in a much different way than the other four women. From "Genesis" through "The Judges," Adah describes her father's ignorant errors as he attempts to convert the villagers to his point of view. Her palindrome for Nathan's sermons; his "high-horse show of force" is the "Amen enema" (Kingsolver 69). Adah is the more observant and intellectual narrator in the novel, as her father gives a sermon on one Sunday morning, she notices the congregation stiffen, and recalls the dead fish on the riverbank, one of her father's conversion mistakes. Nathan promised Kilanga's hungry people "the bounty of the Lord, more fish than they had ever seen in their lives," (Kingsolver 70) but he executes "a backward notion of the loaves and fishes," sending men out to pitch dynamite in the river. The villagers did feast all day, but there was no ice to save the thousands of fish that went bad along the bank. Nathan's destructive act won him no converts. Nathan's actions show similarities between the United States and the Middle East, especially that the U.S. demonstrates that their ideologies are superior to the ones in the Middle East. After the Congo achieves independence, after the family loses its stipend and all contacts with the larger world, the girls had to endure Nathan's "escalating rage" and physical abuse. Adah remembers the "bruises" and connects her father's abusive behavior with the secrets she learns about Ike and the planned assassination of Lumumba (Kingsolver 219). Adah's connection between her fathers behavior and the assassination plots are very symbolic on the Iraq War. The U.S. did not pay any attention to the genocide occurring in Iraq because it did not interfere with American interest. Nathan also did not pay any attention to his daughter's actions until it interfered with his own agenda, converting the town of Kilanga to Christianity.

The youngest and the oldest of the daughters, Ruth May and Rachel, lack the astute insight, sense of complicity for wrongs done in the past, and passionate commitment to make the world better for others than their twin sisters share. Both show the evil that results from their father's behavior, and illustrates the consequences of white supremacy. (Ognibene, Elaine R.) Nathan's physical abuse of both her sisters and herself, his assignment of "The Verse," his trying "to teach everybody to love Jesus" but breeding fear instead, all these acts are visible to Ruth May. So too are