Aaron Hinsey
Ms. Given
Honors English 11
22 January 2018
Poisonwood Bible Response #2
What is the significance of the Kikongo word nommo and its attendant concepts of being and naming? How do the Price sisters’ Christian names and their Kikongo names (210, 225) reflect their personalities and behavior? Nommo is “the force that makes things live as what they are” (Kingsolver 209), or at least to what Adah describes. Nommo classifies everything alive by name, a rabbit is a rabbit, a man is a man, and a flower is a flower, and a flower cannot live as a man or rabbit, only as a flower. Rachel’s name involves jealous and exile, Leah’s name involves an eldest daughter, Adah’s name involves a shepherd or musician, and Ruth May’s name involves sickness …show more content…
Through the election of the Congo, the ideas of justice and balance are tested, when Patrice Lumumba is elected Prime Minister, insuring revenge on the Belgians and gaining more rights for the actual Congolese people and lowering the rights for the richer, white people, and the justice for the Congolese is served, but the balance between the two races grow tenser. Betrayal and salvation is viewed in the habitat where the Price family is staying. For Orleanna and Rachel, coming to the Congo was betrayal in their eyes, leaving the home in which they once knew to a new environment, but for Leah, Adah, and even Ruth May, the Congo let them express themselves in ways that they could not due back at their home. Guilt and innocence is viewed in the ideals of every character’s point of view of what is sinful and what is innocent. For instance, from the Price family point of view the driver ants, or nsongonya, are guilty of eating out the village and even trying to eat them, while in the eyes of the Congolese the ants are bad, but they are innocent, for they are only trying to fix their way of life during the dry season. Finally, the idea of freedom and captivity can be viewed by the parrot, Methuselah. Methuselah was captive inside of his cage, then was released by Nathan. Methuselah was in fact free, but not knowing how to fly still made his in captivity to the law of gravity. In Adah’s eyes, Methuselah is finally set free when he is eaten by a predator, relieved by the shackles of his flightless body, but it can still be believed that Methuselah is still in captivity, caged in the stomach of his
Ms. Given
Honors English 11
22 January 2018
Poisonwood Bible Response #2
What is the significance of the Kikongo word nommo and its attendant concepts of being and naming? How do the Price sisters’ Christian names and their Kikongo names (210, 225) reflect their personalities and behavior? Nommo is “the force that makes things live as what they are” (Kingsolver 209), or at least to what Adah describes. Nommo classifies everything alive by name, a rabbit is a rabbit, a man is a man, and a flower is a flower, and a flower cannot live as a man or rabbit, only as a flower. Rachel’s name involves jealous and exile, Leah’s name involves an eldest daughter, Adah’s name involves a shepherd or musician, and Ruth May’s name involves sickness …show more content…
Through the election of the Congo, the ideas of justice and balance are tested, when Patrice Lumumba is elected Prime Minister, insuring revenge on the Belgians and gaining more rights for the actual Congolese people and lowering the rights for the richer, white people, and the justice for the Congolese is served, but the balance between the two races grow tenser. Betrayal and salvation is viewed in the habitat where the Price family is staying. For Orleanna and Rachel, coming to the Congo was betrayal in their eyes, leaving the home in which they once knew to a new environment, but for Leah, Adah, and even Ruth May, the Congo let them express themselves in ways that they could not due back at their home. Guilt and innocence is viewed in the ideals of every character’s point of view of what is sinful and what is innocent. For instance, from the Price family point of view the driver ants, or nsongonya, are guilty of eating out the village and even trying to eat them, while in the eyes of the Congolese the ants are bad, but they are innocent, for they are only trying to fix their way of life during the dry season. Finally, the idea of freedom and captivity can be viewed by the parrot, Methuselah. Methuselah was captive inside of his cage, then was released by Nathan. Methuselah was in fact free, but not knowing how to fly still made his in captivity to the law of gravity. In Adah’s eyes, Methuselah is finally set free when he is eaten by a predator, relieved by the shackles of his flightless body, but it can still be believed that Methuselah is still in captivity, caged in the stomach of his