omniscient point of view

“Mother, you can still hold on but forgive, forgive and give for long as long as we both shall live I forgive you, mother. I shall turn the hearts of the fathers to the children, and the hearts of the children to their fathers. The teeth at your bones are your own, the hunger is yours, forgiveness is yours” (Page 543)

“Think of the vine that curls from the small square plot that was once my heart. That is the only marker you need. Move on. Walk forward into the light.” (Page 543)

Orleanna couldn’t forgive herself for the death of Ruth May, if she have had her own opinions and haven’t came to Congo, this wouldn’t have happen. She doesn’t really think of the bright side and traps herself inside this kind of guilt. This just made the best ending ever, hoping that her mother could move forward, could still keep Ruth in mind, but move forward. It’s interesting how the author had another speaker for a dead character, because usually when a character die, their roll in the story ends, and only their spirits or will may continue on, but in this case, Ruth’s voice was heard, it is sort of giving the reader a omniscient point of view.

The Protagonist

When finding the definition for Dynamic character, it says “often the protagonist undergoes significant change”. Then it occurred to me, who is the protagonist? The author wrote the points of views for the four daughters and the mother but not Nathan Price, who is kind of like the centre of everything. Is it because of his madness towards seeking forgiveness from God and his personality filled with flaws that lead the author not giving him a voice? Like, his actions have already given away his thoughts and clearly the readers wouldn’t really want to hear about his opinions after reading and understanding his values.

This is kind of a both opinion and questioning post, hope to hear from you guy’s comments belowwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww!

Dynamic Character

Dynamic character is a character in the novel that undergoes significant, lasting change usually in his or her outlook on life. After reading this book, I think the character that changed the most in personality and thoughts wise is Rachel Price. She’s always been the beauty queen in the family, doesn’t really share the same religious thoughts as her father, and mostly cares for her physical condition. The feeling that she gives to me as a reader, is that she puts herself way high up, superior than anyone else, stubborn and hard to accept other facts into her mind. She wanted to leave Congo as soon as she took first glimpse of the environment and people. She seems extremely racist and constantly compares everything she sees to her home town, America. Usually these kinds of characters often need to go though some kind of long term suffer or a sudden tragedy. In the close end of the story, Ruth May got bit by a snake and died, and she gone through three marriages, and ended up with a hotel.

“Did I ever think I would wind up here getting old? Not on your life. But here I am. I’ve walked off more marriages and close calls than you can shake a stick at, but never got out of the Dark Continent” (page 511)

“At least I can say that I’m a person who can look around and see what she’s accomplished in this world” (page 511)

“Then why not go back. Well, now it’s too late, of course. I have responsibilities. ” (page 512)

Her thoughts and actions in the end really showed the dramatic change in her character. Nothing in life is definite; you’ll never know that you will end up at certain places at a certain age. And she now knows her responsibilities in life, nothing else seem important anymore.

The twins

Leah and Adah Price are night and day considering their personalities at the beginning of the book.
Leah is very idealistic, optimistic, and likes to jump into things. Where as Adah is a major pessimist and likes to step back and analyze a situation. Also, Leah almost worshipped her father and took whatever he said to heart, Adah questioned some of their fathers beliefs and had a better understanding of self-identity. Leah is a tomboy and always full of energy, and Adah suffers with her handicap and instead places herself as an observer.

Adah:
Later on in the story she overcomes her handicap, and chooses to speak more often. The turning point for her was when she found that really wanted to live when her life was in danger that one night in the Congo. She decides to start living her life more thoroughly instead of being a by-stander, and finds something that she wants to believe in, science. She dedicates the rest of her life to her work with viruses. Although, we can clearly see that she hasn't changed completely, because she has a tendency to go back to her old ways and sometimes longs for the way she used to view the world.

Cliché scenario

One man, one woman, and four daughters dedicated to one of the most harsh and intense environment in the world to spread the belief of Christianity. The thing that makes the story more intriguing than it seems is the fact that these six people have totally distinct personalities and comments on their mission to Congo. It is like those movies where a group a people are stranded on an island, and with different personalities they have to learn to co-exist in a different environment and learn throughout the struggle. It is kind of cliché of the characteristics of each of the five girls, the mother accepts every event from her husband; Rachel the beauty queen, questioning why she couldn’t have a normal teen life; Ruth, a five year old that loves adventure; Leah, fourteen year old who is as religious as her father; Leah’s twin Adah, cripple and mute, but extremely intelligent, really observant; and lastly the Father, Nathan Price, who is like the leader of this group, aggressive and stubborn. Overall, I just find this fiction novel really cliché in how the writer sets up each character.

Congo's History

Okay, i LOVE history and learning about people and places. This book has really taught me a lot about Congo's past which is soo interesting. From this book I learned the country was occupied by Belgians (called Belgian Congo from 1908-1960) when the state fell to international pressure and they took over as a Belgian colony.
THEN, you guys all know Lumumba. 1960 was when he was elected Prime Minister, and Kasavubu became President.  June 30 1960 was the day the nation became independent. But a little while later they started clashing after the country was kind of split into two, " provinces of Katanga (led by Moise Tshombe) and South Kasai engaged in secessionist struggles against the new leadership" (thank you wikipedia!).

Okay, Mobutu comes into the picture when he was put in charge of the army by the president, and ended up with a lot of support from within it that he led a coup. THIS was supported by the US and western countries that opposed communism (remember this is a critical time in history with all the communist movements), so he was backed up and had help.

A year later Lumumba was executed. A provisional gov. took over.
(p.s the US and Belgium killed the PM cause they wanted diamonds and crap)

Fulfilled Foreshadowing

Here's just a little something to think about.

"[Nelson] opened up the peg and I blew in the little hole and quick he said my name Nommo Bandu Nommo Bandu Nommo Bandu! and shut up the hole with the little peg and Now you are safe. He said now if anything happens to me, if I start fixing to die or somethig, hold on to this tight and bambula! Ruth May will disappear.
How do you know? But Nelson knows everything about the dead people.....
I dont want to disappear, I said.
But he said, Only if you are going to die. He said this way I won't die, i will just disappear for a second and then I'll turn up someplace safe...
You have to think of your safe place every day." (pp.239)



"Its a very odd thing to recall, that we all looked up. Not one of us looked at Ruth May. I cant say that Ruth May was even there with us, in that instant. Just for the moment it was as if she disappeared and her voice was thrown into the trees. Then she returned to us, but all that was left was an aweful silence...
I could only stare at Ruth May's bare left shoulder, where two red puncture wounds stood out like red beads on her flesh." (pp.363-64)

Desperate times call for Desperate Measures

"Oh they cheered to see it. I have not seen so much cheering since a homecoming game. Everybody jumped for joy. Me too, at first, for I was thinking, Horray, a halfway decent meal at last. If I eat one more omlet i think i'll turn over easy and cluck. By the end of the day everybody was smeared with blood like creepy,, happy ghouls, and I couldnt bear to be one of them myself. Everything changed. The villagers transformed into brutish creatures before my very eyes, with their hungry mouths gaping wide." (pp. 350, said by Rachel)

It seems like necessities vary from continent to continent. One typical 'necessity' for Westerners is some kind of transport, like a car, to make it to work and school. The necessities of Africans come down to the nitty gritty- Food. In this chapter where the village used fire to surround jungle animals then shoot them because desperate times called for desperate measures, as Rachel says, it seemed as if everyone turned into savages. Even Leah, with her rebellious bow and error, shot and killed and skinned too.
The crazed actions of the people came from desperation, which made me think about my own life, what i myself have experienced, and what i have seen others go through.
Never have I been through this kind of need, but to compare to personal experience, if i DO need something, like a grade or something, I'll sacrifice sleep and a social life to get it. Not as crazy as risking their life and rounding up every person in their village to get what they need, but you get it.

Remember in a few chapters before this event? The lion ants (i think theyre called) all come out and destroy EVERYTHING. alone, a little ant cant do anything, but they got so depserate they worked together and created a catastrophe, injuring people, and destroying animals and crops and houses.

POINT BEING: desperate times can make people or things crazy enough to act out unlike they ever would. We can all relate, because we have social situations that provoke this at one time or another.

Bigger picture

Orleanna Price says something that is somewhat relate-able to myself.

(pp. 323)
"From the next five months.of Lumumba's imprisonment, escape and recapture, I recall- what?
The hardships of washing and cooking in a drought. A humiliating event in the church, and rising contentions in the village. Ruth May's illness, of course. And a shocking scrap with Leah, who wanted to go hunting with the men. I was occupied so much by each day, I felt detached from anything so large as a month o a year. history didn't cross my min. Now it does. Now I know, whatever your burdens, to hold yourself apart from the lot of more powerful men is an illusion."

This speaks to me in a way because sometimes it feels like I look back on a time of my life where things seemed to be falling apart, or situations felt so overwhelming and took over everything that was going on. It distracted me from the bigger picture in life. Usually this has to do with grades. I find that happened a lot during the duration of high school. Yes, grades are important, but from a Christian perspective, they're not anything close to what i should be living for.

I'd like other ppl's views on if this has ever felt familiar in your life, too. Being distracted from something huge by something small yet it seemed big.

The Crazy Man.

Nathan Price...to sum it up...he's a clinical sociopath.

Basically Nathan's beliefs started after his experience in WWII, after being the only survivor, he views himself as a coward and unworthy of God's forgiveness. He ultimately decides to never be a coward again and devotes his life to saving as many souls as he possibly can. But its rather obvious from the beginning of the book that Nathan is anything BUT brave and only looking to help himself and not others (though I believe he actually thinks otherwise). His beliefs take on a simplistic outlook of not just morals, but everyday life.

Nathan became a missionary only to save his own soul, not to selflessly help other people, he is also egotistic to the max. and unable to face the real world with all of it's flaws.
Here's the scary part, Nathan not only seems to lack compassion for his own family but also seems to despise them. He does not like the idea of female intelligence,thus the irony of having an entire female family. He spreads God's name only because he feels that "God is watching him" and disapproves of any other behaviour. Nathan also deals with sexual urges (similar to Frollo from the hunchback of Notre Dame...if I'm the only loser who remembers that movie) and that is a big reason to why he hates and resents his family. Basically Nathan Price is abusive, sexist, majorly corrupted, and flat out crazy!

Change in faith for Leah

"I felt the breath of God go cold on my skin"

Leah has been questioning her faith for quite some time now, but now that she is with Anatole, her love for him replaced her father's vision of God, as her faith, so really... love conquers all! (as lame as that sounds).

Leah also realizes that life isn't just about doing going deeds and then being rewarded for them. This does not necessarily mean that she's turned her back on God, only that she's moved away from the close-minded faith her father has been pushing on his family, for her entire life. She instead has the chance to set her own morals and beliefs. This is a huge turning point in the book, for all of the girls, showing their independence from their father.

Language!

Throughout the book I realized that each of the girls have their own connection to language. Rachel misuses words, and seems to enjoy doing so. Adah reads words backwards (maybe dyslexic?). Ruth May uses her imagination to create her own language. Finally Leah, spends time with Anatole through language lessons.

Then I thought that maybe these different language aspects represent the girls different personalities. Rachel is somewhat close-minded and doesn't see past her own little world. Adah is very observant, and notices things in just a glance, that others may not see. Ruth May is an adventurer, and loves to play around with her imagination. Leah uses love to view the world around her and also uses love to create connections with the people.

Symbolism

"to build up a big fire first with good, stout wood and then cook while the coals die slowly down. Rachel could never get the hang of that. She was trying to start the fire and cook all at once, which will never get you anywhere. You can't keep a new fire low; it must grow or die. Nelson taught me that." (pp.241)

This quote said by Leah has meaning deeper than the overlying message. Kind of like an extended message into the life of the Congo, relating to the Price family. One way it relates to this family is when you look at Nathan Price. He's trying to build his fire way too fast when it comes to spreading the Gospel. That will never get him anywhere.

"God will know the difference!...God despises a coward who runs while others stand and suffer." (pp.218)

Inter-reference

"I also learned from Nelson that we are hosting seven lepers every Sunday, plus two men who have done the thing that is permanently unforgiven by the local gods...We seem to be the chuch for the Lost of Cause, which is not so far afield from what Jesus himself was operating in his time." (pp.212)


¹¹ When the Pharisees saw this, they asked his disciples, “Why does your teacher eat with tax collectors and sinners?”
 ¹² On hearing this, Jesus said, “It is not the healthy who need a doctor, but the sick. ¹³ But go and learn what this means: ‘I desire mercy, not sacrifice.' For I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners.”
- Matthew 11:9-13 (Bible NIV)


It is also super disappointing to see that Mr. Price is a big hypocrite.  A man who knows the Bible inside and out and preaches it and knows that the second most important commandment is to love ones neighbor as thyself, he cant love Tata Ndu. would be considered 'sick' in the means of Christianity since he is not 'saved', yet Nathan holds bitterness and that stops him from acting like Jesus and helping the sick and loving him as himself. Makes me pretty mad.

 

Mistake

At some point or another, everyone seems to have a problem with Nathan. The husband and father roles have diminished out of sight due to his diligent focus on saving the Lord's lost sheep.
Orleanna has serious regrets of marrying him. She seems SO miserable, but cant break off her marriage because a)her children b)their religion c)he\s the provider and d)he's crazy

"What did I have? No money, that's for sure. No influence, no friends I could call upon in that place, no way to overrule the powers that governed our lives. This is not a new story: i was an inferior force." pp. 193.

Before i said how we see more of Orleannas perspective at the beginning of each chapter, and through her own words and the observations of her children, she hates being in the Congo and she hates being with Nathan, whom she has to love for obligatory reasons. Learning WHY she had married him and how he changed due to the army was finally a relief.

This relationship she has with her husband reminds me a loott of somone i know, whose name I won't disclose though, obviously. I just know that for a while she almost wanted to break things off with him because he was soo not involved in the family-with her or the kids- but rather lived like a hobbit, reading his Bible all the time, working all the time, etc. etc. She couldnt leave him though, for the sake of money and her kids. Though they didnt have much of a fancy for him either.

When Flipping into the first page of each chapter, the writer, Kingsolver, repeatedly uses versus from different books from the bible like the "book of genesis" or "book of the Revelation" which instantly gives the reader an idea of how the theme would be related to religious views.

"And God said unto them, Be fruitful, and multiply, ad replenish the earth, and subdue it: and have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over every living thing that moveth upon the earth."Genesis 1:28

The significance and purpose of the Price family in Congo is the spreading of Christianity. I think the significance and usage of the Biblical allusion by the writer is to let us have a deeper understanding of the characters, and experience how a religious person views the world for instance, the protagonist's husband Nathan Price, a Strong pantheism which is really into his religious views of how all nature are a part of God, coming to Congo bringing all of their family members to spread their religious view which caused the protagonist Orleanna Price to regret marrying this insane pantheism. Overall, the way that the writer relates the bible to the character's thinking really helped me as a reader have an better insight of each character's intentions and thoughts.

Change in Character

Throughout the time that Mr.Price and Leah were working on their garden I thought that they both underwent a character change.  When they first planted the seeds they refused to accept the help of Mama Tataba.  This tells us that they think the 'Western' way of doing things is the best when in reality they don't understand that if their way of gardening worked than the locals would be doing it that way instead.  When the early rains wash out their seeds is when they begin to change.  They realise that the Congolese people may not be as backward as they first suspected.

But that's probably pretty obvious so this is when the gears really started moving and this is my deep part of my blog entry (well kinda deep anyway :) ).  What if....wait for it....the garden represents their whole mission in the Congo.  If the flat garden represents the Prices' way of life and the bumpy garden represents the Congolese way of life.  If you look at it that way than you have to question the whole reason for the Price family to be there.  The whole Christian way of life may be perfect for Western countries but and at the same time be absolute nonsense for African nations the same way the flat garden didn't work in the Congo.  So basically I think I'm just trying to show how the way Mr.Price refused to take Mama'a advice can be compared to Christianities love of trying to fit into every society even if it obviously has no business being there. 

I hope this makes sense if not let me know and I will attempt to clarify my idea.  As well I apologize if I offended anybody by kinda hatin on Christianity, I was just trying to get my point accross.  :{ ) <that's a moustache smiley face if anyone's wondering

Leah has layers

As much as many of the Price family members despise living in the Congo, it had to be some time or another until someone discovered a blessing of living there. Leah has the first major epiphany.
This comes through knowing her newly acquainted friend, Pascal, who was introduced into her life by her little sister, Ruth May, through the simpleton game of Mother May I.
Despite their language barrier, they used creative hand gestures to help understand one another. Over the course of a few weeks, simply being with one another helped each realize the others' culture and lifestyle better. For Leah, this was quite an eye-opening experience.

"It struck me what a wide world of difference there was between our sort of games-"Mother May I?", "Hide and Seek"- and his: "Find Food", "Recognize Poisonwood", "Build a House". And here he was a boy no older than eight or nine."
....
"For the first time ever I felt a sitrring of anger against my father for making me a white preacher's child from Georgia....My embarrassment ran scarlet and deep, hidden under my clothes." (pp.114-115)


This is quite the powerful passage from a first person point-of-view of Leah. Note at the end she says her embarrassment was hidden under her clothes. The significance of clothing being mentioned has to do with how blessed she is, and now knows she is. Pascal, after all, owns only a pair of khaki's. Clothing seems to run as an extended symbol throughout the novel, displaying wealth and status.

hiii

ok i'm gona do something about how it's reference to the bible ,, i'm still editing it right now .. just telling everyone my idea , so dont copy especially ruth and amanda you two i have a feeling that u guys would copy me !!

Guilt

"Maybe I'll even confess the truth, that I rode in with the horsemen and beheld the apocolypse, but still I'll insist I was only a captive witness. What is the conqueror's wife if not a conquest herself?" p.g. 9

-This quote is said by Orleanna Price in the first chapter of the book, and is a metaphor for her relationship with Nathan Price. I think this quote is foreshadowing a major theme in this story, which is guilt. The horsemen is refering to her husband, the apocolypse; a tragic event that will happen because of his actions. Orleanna feels that she too has blood on her hands from doing nothing to stop her husband, and letting the tragic events unfold.

I find it interesting how unprepared the Price familt is to live in the African community.  I don't think they knew what kind of condition they would be living in.

Points of View

I'm really liking, so far, how each chapter cycles through, in no particular order, the points of view from the characters. The Price family characters are pretty different from each other which is interesting. Just from reading the first chapter alone I can already distinguish the little niches that each girl has.

Leah has the small obsessive need to be with her dad, and kind of have him want her back (Kite Runner connection, anyone?!)
"My father had been going to the garden alone.....I sometimes went out to sit with him, even though Mother held it against me, saying he needed his solitude" (pp.77)

Adah is the most intelligent of the characters, which is my personal favorite part of the entire story so far. I will elaborate on her cleverness in another post.

Rachel is sweet, but showing signs of a typical sixteen year old. Needing her hair products, being the only one to bring a mirror, etc. etc. Not the brightest bulb, but she's observant of her younger siblings.
"Boy, what a place. Already I was heavy-hearted in my soul for the flush commodes and machine-washed clothes and other simple things in life I have took for granite." (pp.23)
lolol 'granite'

Ruth May is just cute. Curious as George, kind of sassy and pretty independent, I can picture her in my minds eye. Of course she has a lot to learn and a lot of growing up to do.
"If somebody was hungry, why would they have a big fat belly? I dont know." (pp.50)
"Our stove is an iron contraption with a firebox so immense a person could climb right in if they felt like it. Mother yanked Ruth May out by the arm, pretty hard, when she found her in there" (p. 65)

Orleanna will have her own post, too. I'm just getting to the part of the book where I'm figuring her out.

hahahas lol this is soo funny