Literary Device Entries

Literary Device Entry Example Personification: The technique of giving human characteristics to inanimate objects creating an amplified effect. Example:  "In the Congo, it seems the land owns the people." (The Poisonwood Bible, p. 283)

Function: The Three C’s: Context, Concept, Connection Function: In this quote, Leah is trying to explain to Anatole how money is important to by food and shelter, and also how the United States is different from the Congo in that food is grown in giant fields and distributed to people in the city.

Concept This is an example of personification because she says “Congo owns” something. The land cannot literally own anything, but here it makes sense because the land is so harsh. It is unforgiving, and the people have to work hard to find food in the jungle including vegetables and animals to hunt. The village never has enough food because it is so hard to get, and the Congo controls the food, not the people.

Connection Personification is used here to demonstrate that no matter what the people of the Congo do, the land will always be in control. We see this pattern throughout the novel with the Prices and with the Congolese people. Culturally, the Prices don’t fit in with the people of the land. They are white, “wealthy” and don’t know how to interact. Nathan is incapable of communicating his message to the Congolese people. This is seen over and over again when he stumbles over translations during his sermons. Also, he fails at cultivating a garden. The rains wash his mounds away thus killing his seeds. The Congo is also unforgiving to the people with examples as the ant swarm that totally destroyed the village. They had no control over this event, and once again, the Congo seems to be in charge. One of the most important instances of the land’s control over the people is when Ruth May is bitten by the mamba snake. No one can help her as she sinks into death, again the result of the brutal land. This theme of control continues to the end of the novel, when we see Nathan Price, the patriarch of the family, burned alive in a tower. The Congo destroyed many aspects of the Price family, but at the same time making the surviving members of the family stronger and more capable.

The Three C’s Recap Remember, with the three c’s, you are trying to: (Context) Give your reader enough context so they can follow your discussion of the next 2 c’s. (Concept) Demonstrate that you comprehend the term and can explain its meaning in the text. (Context) Demonstrate that you can analyze the term and its meaning and how it plays into the overall theme or themes of the novel.