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

College Literature, Summer 2003 by Ognibene, Elaine R

While Nathan heals, Mama Tataba reconstructs the garden shifting the design from flat to hills and valleys so that the seeds will grow, and later Leah watches as an angry Nathan levels it again. When Nathan does follow Mama Tataba's design, plants do grow but bear no fruit, because, they lack pollinators. To Leah, Nathan's failed efforts contradict his theory of balance and rewards, and his words about cause signify nothing: the Bible convention in Atlanta, Nathan tells Leah, "debated about the size of heaven . . ." and "there's room enough for everybody," especially the "righteous" (Kingsolver 1999, 78). Empty words, like empty vines, bear no fruit, Leah understands.

At fifteen, the more Leah learns about the ways of Kilanga, the more complicated her life becomes. As the sisters spy on Eeben Axelroot, securing information about the CIA, guns, tools, army clothes, and "distant voices in French and English" that she will later comprehend, Leah also learns the language of Kikango and begins to recognize the wide gap between cultures, between American games like "Hide and Seek" and the Congolese children's game of "Find Food" (Kingsolver 1999, 109, 114). Embarrassed by her father's ignorant and arrogant behavior, Leah shifts her ground. Catalysts are many, but the most important ones are her relationship with Anatole, an African teacher and co-worker whom she comes to love and marry; her increasing knowledge about war and politics, especially about Lumumba's revolutionary struggle; and her nursing Ruth May and Orleanna through a horrible bought of malaria. Each drives Leah to break the order of "Our Father" and join with "the inhabitants of this land" that she is coining to love (187).

The two episodes that solidify Leah's attitude about her father and her loss of his kind of faith are the election held by the villagers in Nathan's church and Ruth May's death. These two episodes also signify Kingsolver's testament to the power of language understood and her indictment of Nathan's rhetoric. During Sunday service, in the midst of Nathan's sermon about false idols from the "Apocrypha," the congregation is inattentive. Finally Tata Ndu, the tribal chief, stands and cuts Nathan off to hold "an election on whether or not to accept Jesus Christ as the personal Savior of Kilanga." Nathan shrieks that his behavior is "blasphemy," but Ndu hoists Nathan upon his own white imperialist petard. Ndu states that "white men have brought us many programs to improve our thinking . . . Jesus and elections" are two. "You say these things are good. You cannot say now they are not good." Leah feels a chill as her father begins speaking "slowly, as if to a half-wit" and then blows up, insulting the whole congregation. To Leah, Ndu "states truth" about Nathan's, and other white men's ignorance: "You believe we are mwana, your children, who knew nothing until you came here" (Kingsolver 1999, 333). Explaining the foolishness of such thought, Ndu clarifies the history of his learning handed down across generations, the philosophy of cultural sharing, the politics of a tribal government that teaches the need to listen to each man's voice before making a choice and then to select only if the entire community agrees, and the dangers of a majority vote capable of excluding up to forty-nine percent of the people. The congregation votes and Jesus loses, eleven to fifty-six (334). Leah sees how Nathan has no sense at all of the culture he wants to civilize; his message is as irrelevant as his Kentucky seeds to the Congo environment.