Poisonwood Bible Genesis #2

Another entry about Genesis in the Poisonwood Bible.

Of all of the characters in the book so far, Adah has been by far my favorite. Her character has such a contumacious personality, and yet she is trapped inside of her shell. She is so complex and definitely has the most interesting voice of all the daughters. Adah is brain damaged so that half of her does not function well. "I was born with half my brain dried up like a prune, deprived of blood b and unfortunate fetal mishap. My twin sister, Leah, and I are identical in theory, just as in theory we are all made in God's image... But I am a lame gallimaufry and she remains perfect" (33-34). These lines say so much about the character and her disdain of her disability. She obviously blames God for her condition and sort of rejects Christianity because of this. I think because she is disabled, she not only hates God but everyone else around her. Her family is all healthy and Adah really just wants to know what it feels like to be normal. She continually refers to Leah as "perfect" and this shows how much she envies her. Adah doesn't understand why Leah is perfect and healthy and she is deformed.

Perhaps I like Adah the most because she is her father's rebel child and I am not particularly fond of the good preacher. I think she feels betrayed by God and I probably would feel like that too. "She grew strong as I grew weak. (Yes! Jesus loves me!) And so it came to pass, in the Eden of our mother's womb, I was cannibalized by my sister"(34). Her sarcasm can be imputed to her insecurities about her disability. Along with hating everyone around her, I think she also hates herself. She is incredibly obsessed with symmetry because she compensates for her asymmetrical self. "...physicians in Atlanta pronounced many diagnosis on my asymmetrical brain..."(34). She hates herself so much that she focuses on things that are the exact opposite of her. For example, she loves palindromes in a fanatical way. She makes up her own hymns or "snmyhymns" as she calls them that are all palindromes. "Evil, all its sin is still alive"(72)! Everything about her language is immersed in symmetry to compensate for her own lack of symmetry. "And palindromes, with their perfect, satisfying taste: Draw a level award"(57)! One of the themes we have been talking about in Lit. 8s is the idea of America not translating well to Africa. Adah and her palindromes might tie into this because Adah likes things that are the same always. Backwards or forwards or in America or Africa they are always the same.

"For never can true reconcilement grow, Where wounds of deadly hate have pierced so deep." John Milton

Poisonwood Bible Genesis #1

So we are reading the Poisonwood Bible right now and I am the "New Critic" who is the person who identifies and analyzes important passages of the book. So here is the first post. I discuss the book by the chapters.

Orleanna Price:
The first paragraph of the Poisonwood Bible is really heavy on the imagery and it kind of seems like a giant foreshadowing of everything to come next in the book. It starts with a lot of images of violence and war. "...poisonous frogs war-painted ike skeletons...vines strangling their own kin...a single-file army of ants...sucking life out of death. This forest eats itself and lives forever"(5). The wat references are woven into this scene as to say that violence is intertwined with life.
In this chapter, Orleanna also talks about the idea of her own life. It's odd she submits two contradicting opinions within two pages of the book. On page 8, she says, "My daughters would say:You see, Mother, you had no life of your own. They have no idea. On has only the life of one's own". The implication is that she disagrees with her daughters' opinions. However on page 9 she says, "I had no life of my own. And you'll say I did". These lines introduce the theme of freedom, or possibly the lack of it. Because of all the contradiction, I think the author wants us to really examine what freedom is. I examined the differences in the construction of these sentences and there were some discrepencies. In the the first opinion, it is her daughters that are judging her. She also responds in an impersonal way using "one" instead of "I". She is talking in general instead of about herself. In the second opinion Orleanna says "you" will judge her and we don't really know if she means the reader or someone else. Then she says "I had no life of my own". In this sentence she speaks about her own life, setting herself apart from the generalization she made earlier. In examining this, I have absolutely no idea if it means something or nothing. These lines just stuck out to me so I wrote about them.

"Life is all memory except for the one present moment that goes by so quick you can hardly catch it going." Tennessee Williams