Lit circle on Judges.

In Judges, a lot is happening as far as exciting moments in the story go. The book begins with Nathan's decision to keep his family in the Congo and ends with the village being invaded with nsongonya or ants. In Judges, we see Leah doubt her father for the first time. "If his decision to keep us here in the Congo wasn't right, then what else might he be wrong about? It has opened up in my heart a sickening world of doubts and possibilities, where before I had only faith in my father and love for the Lord"(244). Through the prior parts of the Poisonwood Bible Leah has blindly followed her father and stood by his side through all of his mistakes. This is the first time that she acknowledges her father having done something wrong. She comes to find that the world her father lives in is much different than the real world and much different from her own. She says how she believed that if she followed her father, the same "simple laws would rule my life as well"(244). She discovers that the world is not black and white as her father sees it. Leah has been trying to look at the world in a good vs. evil perspective and finds that she cannot fit herself or the Congo into either of these categories.

In Nathan's world there is a war and his side always wins because of God's grace. However Leah does not know what side she is on. This is an important metaphor that explains the evolution of the relationship, or lack thereof that Leah has with her father. She wanted nothing more than to earn her father's favor, but she did not know how. Her father assumed that she would fight for his side, fight for all the right things without a second thought. She tried to at first despite the alienation from her father. However Leah's father would not let her fight in his war. "I'm not even allowed to carry a gun. I'm a girl. He has no inkling"(244). Leah finally admits that her father has abandoned her emotionally. He has turned his back on his daughter's love just as he turned his back on his wife.

I think this actually gives Leah and Orleanna a common thread as they have been a bit of clashing characters in the book. One of the things that occured in both Orleanna's and Leah's chapter was the mention of the "Kingdom", and also kind of being denied this kingdom. In Orleanna's chapter she says, "Poor Congo, barefoot bride of men who took her jewels and promised the Kingdom"(201). I think Orleanna considers herself and the Congo very much the same. When she talks about the "poor Congo" she is talking about how the Belgians and Americans exploited the country but she is also talking about herself. She is talking about how she didn't get the life that she wanted, the life that Nathan promised her. "What is the conqueror's wife, if not a conquest herself"(9). She was taken over and promised the Kingdom. Likewise, Leah refers to the "Kingdom" on page 244. "But where is the place for girls in that Kingdom? The rules don't quite apply to us, nor protect us either". What is this Kingdom that these characters speak of? I think that the Kingdom is metaphor for Nathan's heart. Both Orleanna and Leah had the same kind of unconditional love for Nathan and both were looked over by the one person whose love they wanted. There was no room for Leah or Orleanna in Nathan's kingdom. There was no room for any of the girls. He had only room for God in his heart and pushed everyone elso away. "They shall be as thorns in you sides..." (Judges 2:2;187) Perhaps Nathan took the words of the Bible too seriously and turned them against his own family.



"The mass of men lead lives of quiet desperation." Henry David Thoreau