Essay About Journals Of Orleanna And Tone Of Her Journals

Starting Over
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Starting Over
In a battle between light and darkness, which would win? Where light is, darkness
cannot exist. In her novel The Poisonwood Bible, Barbara Kingsolver proves this point through
the eyes of three women who persevere through hardships. As the journals of Orleanna, Leah,
and Adah unfold, three separate meanings of “walk forward into the light” are found.
Kingsolver uses her excellent sense of diction to weave heavy-hearted words throughout
Orleannas journals to express her sufferings following Ruth Mays death. In her journals,
Orleanna states, “Maybe Ill even confess the truth, that I rode in with the horsemen and beheld
the apocalypse, but still Ill insist I was only a captive witness. What is the conquerors wife if
not a conquest herself?” implying that although the guilt should fall to her husband, Nathan,
she too feels the pain because she is tightly knit to him. Her darkness is obviously a guilt-ridden
conscience. Apart from the heartache, Orleanna feels responsible for her daughters early
passing. She believes her daughters absence partially her fault, having stayed in Africa long
after she had intended. The light is her garden. She returns home and plants a beautiful flower
and vegetable garden all her own. This garden reminds her that she left not only her house in the
village, but also the pain and eventually the guilt, and she comes to accept a new life.
Leahs loss of faith proves problematic during her stay in Africa. Throughout her life,
Leah yearns for Gods approval and acceptance. She does everything in her power to earn His
favor. When the fire ants swarm the village, her faith in her God dissipates. The darkness in this
case is Leahs sudden disbelief in a loving God. Metaphors are abundant in Leahs journals. On
page 94, she compares her fathers demonstration garden to a funeral parlor, full of flowers, but
no produce. Also, the tone of her journals indicates that she cannot understand why such a
loving God will allow something like this to occur. She claims she “felt the breath of God go
cold” (376). The light is her renewed faith not in her God, but in her “white triangle of shirt,”
(282) her lover, Anatole.
The tone of the majority of Adahs journals is that of an obituary. Phrases such as, “The
smiling bald man with the grandfather face has another face” (307) and “In the world, the
carrying