Poisonwood Bible

In class at the moment, I am reading The Poisonwood Bible by Barbara Kingsolver. It follows the Price family (mother, father, and four daughters) as they move from Georgia to the Congo to convert the natives there to Christianity. But, as in any quality novel, the family faces their fair share of challenges, and many of the issues the Price family faces in terms of their mission could have been minimized had they been willing to communicate with the native people.

Reverend Nathan Price, the father, is the guiltiest on this count. His thoughts are clouded by his faith, and his ego. He refuses to work at all with the local figures and judges them without giving them a chance to defend themselves. For example, Mr. Price often sees the local religious leader drinking, and not acting “proper” in terms of his beliefs, but never once has he held a conversation with the man. Mr. Price might also be more successful if he could grasp his mind around the idea that not every native will want to convert. He assumes that because he is “bringing the word of God” to them that they will willingly change their belief system. He is arrogant to think that he can come into another culture as a foreigner and change everything that he believes is wrong.

Mr. Price is not the only person responsible for the lack of communication. The natives are equally responsible as well. For example, Mr. Price wanted to have a baptism in the river nearby, but many locals weren’t comfortable with that plan, and based upon the portion of the novel that I’ve read, the baptism has yet to happen, but Mr. Price did discover why people were uncomfortable with the location of the baptism, a child had been eaten by a crocodile in that same river recently and people were afraid of it. This information was relayed to him months after he initially voiced his plans. The natives are probably doing this because they had finally ousted the Dutch colonial presence, and were cautious of any person who had white skin because Dutch brutalized the population.

Both Mr. Price, and the natives are guilty of the same crimes: failing to communicate to others and failing to allow others to communicate to them. Communication is a two-way street. You must first be willing to communicate in order to receive anything in return, but at the moment, neither Mr. Price nor the natives is willing to take the first step because neither is interested in learning from each other. And until one does, they will remain in a tension-ridden environment that will displease both parties involved.