In the book The Poisonwood Bible by Barbara Kingsolver, the voices of four daughters, Rachel, Leah, Adah and Ruth May explain their experiences in Africa after they moved there with their father, a missionary, and mother. The reader understands the lives of the four women mainly through their words. Each of the daughters can be identified by their way of using words and the emotions that are expressed with the words.
The oldest daughter, Rachel, is the most American. She was moved from America to the Congo when she was teenager. Her manner and way of speaking show a colonial attitude towards their neighbors. She makes mistakes called malapropisms that identify her as the speaker. The way I see Africa, “she says, ''you don't have to like it but you sure have to admit it's out there. You have your way of thinking and it has its, and never the train ye shall meet!” Instead of ‘train’ she should have said ‘twain’ because she means ‘never the two shall meet.’
Leah and Adah are twins but they have very different attitudes and perspectives. When young Leah was very proud of her missionary father and described him as “My father wears his faith like the bronze breastplate of God's foot soldiers.” When she matured and became more realistic about her surroundings she described him much differently saying, “My father was a simple, ugly man.” She also speaks with guilt sometimes in her voice because she feels she is responsible for crippling her twin sister Adah before they were born.
Adah does not speak of herself very kindly; she calls herself ‘nwit,’ She speaks with bitterness and a tongue in cheek wittiness that identify her. She said once that her father would describe her when she was born as “God's Christmas bonus to one of His worthier employees.” She does gain self-worth as she grows up and that can be noticed in the way she talks.
The youngest daughter, the baby, is Ruth May. She speaks in the most direct way about her life and the people and things around her. An example is when she mentions about Eeben Axelroot, “I'm willing to be a philanderist for peace, but a lady can only go so far where perspiration odor is concerned.” By giving each of the daughters their very own voice, the author makes the book easier to read. Kingsolver also made the daughters more interesting and easier to understand with this style of writing.
Reference
Kingsolver, Barbara. The Poisonwood Bible. New York, NY: Harper Flamingo. 2008.
