1. The Poisonwood Bible Book 4
This presentation will be used in an AP Literature class for seniors students.
Students are reading the novel on their own (without supporting documents like guiding questions/comprehension packets) and making connections between the larger themes, symbols, and character development in this novel with those of the previous novel, Heart of Darkness. In the past, notes from the reading have been provided by the teacher on the board. This is an attempt to make the notes clearer, standard, and easily transferable for when students are not in class.
I have used PowerPoint at various points throughout the class for other activities. However, I do not use them as much with the literature component. There are parts of the reading, analyzing and evaluating process that I like to have be organic. I usually like that the discussion can take us to multiple places without having one set agenda. However, I realize that I do have some core points that I want students to be able to recognize and evaluate together. These are also components that will help with the final essay based on this novel’s content. This presentation is an attempt at making points clear. I hope it will be a starting point for great discussion.
Book 4

2. Mobutu “A rook who would be king.” Connection to CIA
Truth comes out 15 years later (1975)
Lumumba threatened the world
CIA wanted/needed a replacement
Lumumba is beaten savagely- dies
“Oh, it’s a fine and useless enterprise, trying to fix destiny” (324).
Q: What does it mean that the CIA is involved? How does this US control affect the outcome? How is it similar to colonization? What did the US have to gain?
Kingsolver uses the chess analogy. Q: What does this statement of the “rook” imply?
FATE! We’re back to it. What is the Congo’s destiny? How do we know?

3. What we lost “Each bad thing causes something worse” (327).
Nathan forces a vote for Christ; Christ loses.
Result: Nathan’s perception of the “pitiful country…children dying…poverty.”
Tata Ndu
Knows the history, the place, the people
Knows the strength of Congolese comes without/despite white men
Kingsolver sets this relationship up as a traditional character foil.
Ironically, the things Nathan dislikes about Tata Ndu are actually the aspects that make him an effective leader in the community.

4. Village Hunt Village Hunt
Create a ring of fire to trap animals
Leah is allowed to accompany the men (unheard of before)
Irony: the same people who voted down Christ, vote for Leah
Serves as a warning to Tata Ndu= the people have chosen to make change.
Leah kills a young impala/ others (Tata Ndu’s son) claim they did it
Village Hunt serves as a last-ditch effort of survival and salvation.
Leah is able to cross lines in with not only the Congolese villagers, but the Congolese men.
Leah’s success is potentially harmful after all…Q: What would it mean for Leah to be more successful than the young Congolese boys? How does this reinforce the colonizing mentality?

5. Seeing the Hunt Adah Rachel Sees Tata Ndu’s anger
Watches the hunt with anticipation- what will come?
Sees the happiness that death brings the people: “The death of something living is the price of our own survival, and we pay it again and again” (347)
Rachel
Too awful to watch the hunt
Wants food without the consequences
Tries to wash herself clean
Equates humans to animals
Connect this quote to others of Adah. Q: What is the price of survival?
We also see this connection to PRICE. Kingsolver uses this naming to mean so much. Death is the Price Ruth May pays.
Rachel, again, is in avoidance mode. She continues to want without work.
Interestingly, her connection of humans to animals reiterates Adah’s point- they agree on this point.

6. What should have been the best was the worst
“Eyes watched us from the trees…” (353).
Snake
Nelson sees a snake outside the chicken house: “There was some dark thing out there watching us from the forest and coiling up” (357).
Tool of the witch doctor?
Tata Kuvudundu (“single dancer with six toes”)
Threatened the family
Placed the snake in the family’s way
We return to the “eyes in the trees”- references the initial story at the start of the novel. We also recall that Ruth May had been eyes in the trees in her spying on Axelroot.
Snake- reminds us of the biblical “garden of Eden”. Nelson warned the girls of this before…now he sees and warns again. (Q: Are we working with/for/against fate?)
Q: Does Kingsolver want readers to see Tata Kuvudundu as evil? Symbolism of snake increases.

7. Ruth May’s Death Bitten by a snake
Adah recites Dickinson poem, “Because I could not stop for death…”
Orleanna “behaves as if someone else had already told her” (368)
Did she know/anticipate she’d lose a child?
She seems prepared
Ultimate irony: Ruth May dies without being baptized
****Read this passage aloud**** Examine Kingsolver’s use of figurative language.

8. Baptism Cleansing: Orleanna washes Ruth May
She sings to RM like a baby
Everyone watches Orleanna’s love for Ruth May and sees her favoritism
Ruth May’s death equalizes Orleanna with the Congolese women (370).
Orleanna gives everything away- she’s done
Symbolic cleansing: What is she washing off of RM? Africa? Guilt? Pain? Or, is this a cleansing for herself?
Q: What do the sisters feel while watching this very private act?
Congolese women are accustomed to losing children; Orleanna and US women are not. Q: Does this act bring them closer together?

9. The Storm Needed to end the drought
Symbolically comes after Ruth May’s death
Nathan takes the opportunity to baptize Ruth May and all the other children of Kilanga