missionary position: Barbara Kingsolver's The Poisonwood Bible, The

College Literature, Summer 2003 by Ognibene, Elaine R

Like Orleanna, the highly intelligent fourteen year old twins, Leah and Adah, stand still and silent under their father's autocratic rule for much of their time in the Congo. They stand, however, at different ends of the Nathan continuum. Leah, an avid conversationalist, likes spending time with her father more than she likes "doing anything else," pays him due homage, and vows "to work hard for His favor, surpassing all others." She is, as her twin sister notes with disdain, "Our Father's star pupil" (Kingsolver 1999, 36-38). Adah, the twin who suffers from hemiplegia, loves palindromes, and does not speak until she is an adult, ridicules her father throughout her narrative with a brilliant ironic wit. Both, however, capture Nathan's destructive behaviors in their narratives: Leah via unconscious irony that grows into conscious knowledge and Adah via conscious understanding of her father's pride and ignorance. Both undergird their "Father" story with the a narrative of domination and greed in the Congo, demonstrating similarities. By the end of the novel, their diverse views connect, and each woman names herself a pagan of sort, an "un-missionary" (525). Like their mother they come to see that the Emperor, in this case "Our Father," is not wearing any clothes. Like their mother, they also believe that they are responsible in some way for the horrors that happen in Africa and they seek forgiveness.

Leah begins with stories about Nathan's arrogance and abuse. Watching Nathan correct Orleanna's mistaken notions about items to take to the Congo, she sees his disdain for the woman he associates with the "coin-jingling sinners" in the temple (Kingsolver 1999, 13). Leah next observes Rachel fall victim to a strap thrashing when she paints her fingernails bubble-gum pink, to Nathan a warning signal "of prostitution"(15). A third example appears as the family lands in Leopodville, and Nathan arrogantly dismisses Reverend Underdown's kind efforts as an attack on his self-reliance. Leah's comments upon landing in Kilanga arc ironic: "He led us out . . . into the light. . . . Our journey was to be a great enterprise of balance. My father, of course, was bringing the Word of God-which fortunately weighs nothing at all" (18, 19). Leah is both wrong and right about "light" and "balance" in ways that she cannot yet imagine.

In Kilanga, Leah's sisters prefer to be mother's helpers, but she prefers to help father "work on his garden." Her garden story becomes a parable of the minister's inability to harvest either seeds or souls. Nathan plans his Garden of Eden to be his "first African miracle" and instructs his daughter while they work with a moral paradigm about the balance of God's "world of work and rewards." He states, "Great sacrifice, great rewards!" (Kingsolver 1999, 37). When Mama Tataba cautions Nathan about both his method and the poisonwood plant, he cites scripture and ignores her words. Next morning, with "a horrible rash" and swollen eye caused by the red dust from the tree, Nathan, one of "God's own," feels unjustly cursed. Denying responsibility for his own foolish acts, he screams out his rage at his family.