Adah Price: the Embodiment of Congo

Adah Price: the Embodiment of Congo
“She says she spent thirty years waiting for the wisdom and maturity to dare write this book. Never has such patience been more rewarded”(Forster 3). Yes, Barbara Kingsolver has every right to thirty years of contemplation before attempting to create such a complex political novel as The Poisonwood Bible, and yes, never has such patience been more rewarded, for the novel has opened the eyes of citizens and politicians alike. “It is a novel predominantly about the Congo…about what first the Belgians, then the Americans have done to it,” and what better way to portray such views than through the embodiment of the Congo through a child (1). The child’s name is Adah Price, and she represents the Congo before and after the influence of America. Why did Kingsolver choose a child to represent this nation? Simple, she chose a child because a child can be molded while in youth, but as maturity comes, so does the realization of the effe...