In The Poisonwood Bible, Nathan Price leads his daughters to believe that a woman’s only purpose in life is to become an obedient wife. Adah never subscribes to Nathan’s views, while her twin sister Leah becomes the effective head of her household. Rachel, the daughter who seems to most identify with the role of a wife, eventually chooses business over marriage. By the end of the novel, the three surviving Price daughters reject the idea compulsory heterosexuality which their father instills upon them.
Adah, Leah, and Rachel grow up in a house where a woman’s only purpose is to become a husband and serve a man. Their father views education as not only unnecessary, but potentially wasteful and dangerous: “Sending a girl to college is like pouring …show more content…
She mockingly refers to Nathan as “Our Father,” recognizing that he does not live as the image he believes he portrays (63). Upon her return from the Congo, she immediately defies her father by riding “the Greyhound to Atlanta and limp(ing) into the admissions office” at Emory University (408). Her father believed that a woman attending college wasted her potential as a marriage prospect, but at the very first available moment after her separation from her father, Adah enrolls at Emory. She “needed to get out of Bethlehem, out of my skin, my skull, and the ghost of my family” (409). Adah breaks from the “ghost of (her) family” without any hesitation …show more content…
She dreams of returning to Georgia to “be a carefree American wife, with nice things and a sensible way of life…I’d never panned on being someone different,” a dream which has been imposed on her by her father (367). However, her father uses his own power to take away the same dream he instilled in his daughter when he promises his daughter to Eeben Axelroot in order to calm tension in the community. While Rachel is led to believe that the arrangement is “only for appearance’s sake” in order to convince Tata Ndu that Rachel is not for sale, Axelroot attempts to kiss Rachel “the very first time we were alone for ten seconds on the porch” (269). Axelroot’s initial treatment of Rachel in private suggests that the arrangement between he and Nathan is a real one, Rachel never actually marries Axelroot, but takes his name, emphasizing her treatment as chattel by her father. Her use of Axelroot’s last name instead of her father’s represents a transaction as she is no longer the property of a Price, but now the property of an Axelroot. Rachel begins to reject her father’s power, claiming, “If I’d known what marriage was going to be like, well, heck, I probably would have tied all those hope-chest linens together into a rope and hung myself from a tree” (424). Continuing to be demeaned by Axelroot, Rachel begins to reject the power of men
Adah, Leah, and Rachel grow up in a house where a woman’s only purpose is to become a husband and serve a man. Their father views education as not only unnecessary, but potentially wasteful and dangerous: “Sending a girl to college is like pouring …show more content…
She mockingly refers to Nathan as “Our Father,” recognizing that he does not live as the image he believes he portrays (63). Upon her return from the Congo, she immediately defies her father by riding “the Greyhound to Atlanta and limp(ing) into the admissions office” at Emory University (408). Her father believed that a woman attending college wasted her potential as a marriage prospect, but at the very first available moment after her separation from her father, Adah enrolls at Emory. She “needed to get out of Bethlehem, out of my skin, my skull, and the ghost of my family” (409). Adah breaks from the “ghost of (her) family” without any hesitation …show more content…
She dreams of returning to Georgia to “be a carefree American wife, with nice things and a sensible way of life…I’d never panned on being someone different,” a dream which has been imposed on her by her father (367). However, her father uses his own power to take away the same dream he instilled in his daughter when he promises his daughter to Eeben Axelroot in order to calm tension in the community. While Rachel is led to believe that the arrangement is “only for appearance’s sake” in order to convince Tata Ndu that Rachel is not for sale, Axelroot attempts to kiss Rachel “the very first time we were alone for ten seconds on the porch” (269). Axelroot’s initial treatment of Rachel in private suggests that the arrangement between he and Nathan is a real one, Rachel never actually marries Axelroot, but takes his name, emphasizing her treatment as chattel by her father. Her use of Axelroot’s last name instead of her father’s represents a transaction as she is no longer the property of a Price, but now the property of an Axelroot. Rachel begins to reject her father’s power, claiming, “If I’d known what marriage was going to be like, well, heck, I probably would have tied all those hope-chest linens together into a rope and hung myself from a tree” (424). Continuing to be demeaned by Axelroot, Rachel begins to reject the power of men