A person’s identity is influenced heavily by the kind of life that they live.

While there is

indeed debate over how much their character is shaped, there is no doubt that a large part of what

makes a person uniquely themself stems from their lifestyle. Notable experiences especially

influence everyone in some way, shape or form, and people become who they are based off what

trials they have gone through. Barbara Kingsolver’s The Poisonwood Bible accurately reflects all

of this in the way she wrote it, as well as why she wrote it. Kingsolver went through a multitude

of experiences that were specific to her life, and together they helped inspire the idea that

eventually became the novel of The Poisonwood Bible. Kingsolver had many

different experiences that she drew influence from when writing her many different novels.

Whether it was where she grew up as a kid, different trips she took around the world, her family

life, or different events that affected the country she lived in, most everything in Kingsolver’s

life was later portrayed in her writing in some form. 

Kingsolver had multiple different experiences in her life, both while growing up

and as an adult, which led her to have the idea to write The Poisonwood Bible. Kingsolver lived

in Congolese village in 1963 when she was seven years old. The experiences that she

encountered there stuck with her throughout the remainder of her life.  She saw how the people

in the village she stayed at had next to nothing, with no “electricity or plumbing, let alone

western medical care” (“Barbara Kingsolver 5”). Kingsolver never forgot what the conditions

were for people living in those places, and she eventually decided to write a book that detailed

those conditions. Kingsolver writes her books to show her readers what is happening in the world

and “educate” them on political events (Austenfeld 4).

This shows during a major event in The Poisonwood Bible when America helps

the Belgian government stage a coup against the newly elected Prime Minister, Patrice
Lumumba (Arnold 2). The coup happened in real life and was something that Kingsolver

believed to be “one of the most important political parables of a century” (“Barbara Kingsolver

5”). It was such a big event and something that affected Kingsolver enough that she decided to

write The Poisonwood Bible to retell the events. She decided to create the characters in the novel

to help give a representation of America’s presence in Africa (Arnold 2). She uses different

characters to show the impact America had in the country of the Congo and make readers

question whether or not it was right for America to do what they did. By living in the Congo as a

young child, Kingsolver grew up with a fascination for the country. Thus, when America became

involved in helping end their independence, she decided to write a novel to portray the problem

she saw.    

Kingsolver lived for a little in Africa, but she spent the majority of her childhood in a

small town in Kentucky. This influenced her when she was creating the setting of her novel.

Growing up in the small town, she “learned a sense of community” and later created the small

village in the Congo to have a similar community (Kongslie 2). She had seen the close

friendships that people shared in town growing up and incorporated similar friendships into the

small Congolese village. Similar to the Price girls in the novel, Kingsolver moved when she was

very young, going from Maryland to Kentucky at the age of two (“Barbara Kingsolver 1”). By

having moved as a young child, she could relate to the feelings of the young girls in how they

felt moving to a new place. Kingsolver had a similar experience to the family in the novel with

her early life and it gave her experiences to rely upon when creating the setting of a small

community and leaving everything behind as a young child.   

When growing up, there were different parts of Kingsolver’s life that shaped her life and

she later used to help write the characters in the novel. One of the twin girls, Adah, in the novel
grows up with hemiplegia, paralysis of half her body which affects the way she talks and walks

(Arnold 2). While not as drastic, when growing up, Kingsolver had what she called a “hillbilly

accent” which “prompted ridicule wherever she went” (Kongslie 2). Although Kingsolver did not

grow up with a physical disability, she still knew what it was like to be made fun of and the pain

that it brought and that helped inspire the character of Adah and the pain which she felt.

Kingsolver was able to write about Adah’s disability in a medically correct way for multiple

reasons. One reason for her being able to write about the hemiplegia was because her father was

a physician, so she was born into the medical world and knew about medical issues from the

beginning (Kongslie 2). As well as being born into a medical family, Kingsolver also did

research on the topic of Adah’s disability and eventually brought in other members of her family

to help research the topic (“Barbara Kingsolver 5”). Because of the family she had been born

into as well as the desire to create an accurate description of a very real medical condition,

Kingsolver managed to create the character of Adah and portray the struggle of the disability she

had been born with.    

Previous life experiences also helped Kingsolver create Nathan Price, a controversial

character in the novel and one who could be considered the antagonist of the story. Kingsolver

had originally married Joseph Hoffman but had a divorce a few years later (Arnold 2).  She

created the character in a way which resembles a person who people would be unhappily married

to. Kingsolver said she had gotten letters asking, “how did you know my ex-husband” (“Barbara

Kingsolver 5”). Although Nathan Price is a hypocritical man who ruins his family, he was based

on more than just the bad Kingsolver saw in bad husbands. Kingsolver grows most of her own

food and has a garden that she maintains (Arnold 2). Likewise, Nathan Price regularly goes “to

the garden alone, everyday” (Kingsolver 77). Kingsolver used a part of her life that she regularly
practices and put it into the character she created. Nathan Price is a character that was based

upon a failed marriage, but he also has traits written in that Kingsolver enjoys.    

In the novel, the themes circle around the life experiences of Kingsolver and they help

show the lessons that Kingsolver was wanting the readers to see. Kingsolver writes the novel

with one theme being the theme of ignorance and how by being ignorant, people can end up

doing more harm than good (Williams 1). Kingsolver writes about political issues and “writes

about her convictions about United States Policies” (Kongslie 2). Kingsolver believes that when

a country has done something wrong, the mistake should be pointed out. When America helped

stage the coup against the Congo, an event that happened in both the novel and in real life,

Kingsolver realized that most Americans were unaware of the event and their ignorance was part

of the reason America was able to do such a deed that Kingsolver believed was wrong

(“Barbara Kingsolver” 7). By writing about the event in the novel, she was able to shed light onto

the event. When writing about the coup and the damage that it caused, Kingsolver created a

mood that portrayed sadness for the Congolese people and anger at America, specifically its

government, for being part of such an evil event, and by doing that, Kingsolver was able to show

Americans how ignorance is often times something to be avoided and incentivize people to know

what is happening around them.   

Kingsolver also shows the theme of ignorance with her characters, specifically the

character of Nathan Price in the way he talks and acts. Kingsolver uses the Congolese language

to prove the ignorance of Nathan Price when he “continually mispronounces the word bangala”

which means beloved when pronounced correctly but was misinterpreted by the Congolese

people by his accent to say poisonwood tree (Williams 2). By being ignorant of the language

and continuing to be stubborn by mispronouncing the word even after he has been told that he
is pronouncing it wrong, Nathan Price was not leading the people he was evangelizing to, to

Christ. He was, instead of preaching the gospel of Jesus, “preaching the gospel of poisonwood”,

and leading them away instead of towards God, the one goal he had set off to Africa with

(Kingsolver 276). Kingsolver uses Nathan Price and his character traits to show how being

ignorant can lead to turning people away from what was originally intended.   

A second theme in the novel is a theme of growing, both personally and in a family

setting. The novel shows “5 sperate journeys to find self” and how each character, especially

the two twins, Adah and Leah, change through the circumstances and become who they are by

what they faced (Arnold 6). Each daughter starts the novel as a young, naïve child, but by the

end, they grow to become successful in their individual lives, Adah grows up and walks “without

any noticeable limb” (Kingsolver 401) and becomes a doctor whose “work is to discover the life

histories of viruses” (Kingsolver 530). Adah is the character who arguably changes the most,

both physically and mentally, going from a girl speaking in palindromes with a limp to a normal

waling, successful doctor. Leah, the second twin has a much different life compared to Adah.

She grows up and marries a Congolese man Anatole and has “four sons, all named for men we

lost to war” (Kingsolver 497). Although she does not have a comfortable life like her twin,

she grows into a woman who ends with a redemption story when she helps the Congo do what is

“best for them” (Arnold 4). The twins both grow to become better people by the end of the novel

compared to the start and have drastic changes occur. 

The novel has the characters grow in their separate, personal lives, but they also grow to

become a closer and healthier family by the end of the novel. In the beginning of the novel, the

Price family has dysfunction and they struggle to cooperate in most situations and have many

arguments. There is also some disagreements between the sisters

because of Adah’s disability (Holmes 2), but the family grows and by the end of the novel, the

family becomes healthier than it was in the bulk of the novel (Holmes 3). In the beginning of the

book, the Price sisters have a poor relationship, Rachel does not enjoy her sisters’ company and

Leah and Adah have a mixed relationship of envy and jealousy. Nearing the end of novel,

however, the four sisters grow in their relationships and after they are grown, they have a reunion

between them (Kingsolver 474). The whole family also bonds together after Ruth May’s death.

When she is bitten by the snake, the sisters had to tell their parents that “Ruth May is gone”

and the three sisters wanted to “keep our family the way it was” (Kingsolver 366). The

whole family bonds together and becomes closer after losing one of the daughters. The Price

family, especially the three oldest sisters, grow from a place of dislike into one of love,

and through the circumstances, the theme of family growth is shown.  

 Kingsolver’s many different individual life experiences helped form different thoughts

that later manifested in her ideas which were eventually shown in the different novels she went

on to write later in life. There were experiences Kingsolver had as a child, her home life and

personality traits, that were put into novels; there were different national events that affected her

view on different political topics, and there were family issues later used in the characters she

created. There was also themes that Kingsolver put into her novels that came from her view of

personal and family issues.

Kingsolver lived a life that had a drastic influence on her views on many different issues.

People are influenced by previous experiences they had in life and become who they are by what

happens in their individual lives. The way people live affect what happens and what they

experience.
 A person’s identity is influenced heavily by the kind of life that they live. While there is

indeed debate over how much their character is shaped, there is no doubt that a large part of what

makes a person uniquely themself stems from their lifestyle. Notable experiences especially

influence everyone in some way, shape or form, and people become who they are based off what

trials they have gone through. Barbara Kingsolver’s The Poisonwood Bible accurately reflects all

of this in the way she wrote it, as well as why she wrote it. Kingsolver went through a multitude

of experiences that were specific to her life, and together they helped inspire the idea that

eventually became the novel of The Poisonwood Bible. Kingsolver had many

different experiences that she drew influence from when writing her many different novels.

Whether it was where she grew up as a kid, different trips she took around the world, her family

life, or different events that affected the country she lived in, most everything in Kingsolver’s

life was later portrayed in her writing in some form.