The Poisonwood Bible Argumentative Essay

“The Poisonwood Bible” (Argumentative Essay)

The Poisonwood Bible was written by Barbara Kingsolver, a former biologist and well-traveled explorer who wrote this “haunting... novel of character.”( New York Times Book Review). In the novel, Kingsolver successfully demonstrates character development by using the viewpoints of Orleanna Price and her four daughters. Spanning several decades in this integrated format, character development effortlessly unfolds. Adah, crippled by hemiplegia at birth experiences countless changes in her cynical ways of life as she matures into a more optimistic and independent women throughout the book.

In the beginning of the novel, Adah is somewhat held back, not necessarily participating in life but merely observing it. She remains mute in her adolescence claiming she is “the one who does not speak”(32) Although quiet and unresponsive she remains exceedingly thoughtful and insightful, always feeling like what she believes to be accurate must be. Growing up as a preacher's daughter, at this point in the novel she believes “Most of the details seem pretty much beneath [god's] dignity”(37). Moreover, in the beginning of the novel, Adah shows signs of how her faith in God and her father falters from the start, exhibiting the evolution of character development present in the novel.

Throughout the novel Adah comes to the conclusion that her father is insane, finding his devotion to Christ almost childlike. Especially since he doesn't tend to his family as a father should. Adah becomes increasingly observant of nature and aware of how the Congo teaches her that all life is connected. What little faith in God she initially displayed has completely diminished by the time she “finally got up with sharp grains imbedded in [her] knees, [and] found, to [her] surprise, that [she] no longer believed in god” (171). This blunt statement came with no surprise, as she generally always says what she perceives to be true. Adah additionally comes to the awakening revelation that she values her life, when pugnaciously battling to stay alive in the flood of ants. She then promptly strived to find who she was, leaving her cynical ways and paying attention to the beauty of the Congo to whatever extent that may have been.

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