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Book 1, Chapter 2
Themes
Key
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in The Poisonwood Bible, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
Freedom, Growth, and Coming-of-age
Religion and Faith
Women and Sexism
Race, Racism, and Culture
Imperialism
Summary
Analysis
Ruth May Price begins by reciting something her father taught her: the Bible argues that the Africans are the children of Ham, the “worst of Noah’s three children.” Ruth May sometimes identifies with Ham, because they’re both youngest siblings, and Ruth May, like Ham, is sometimes bad.
Ruth May describes how black people back home in Georgia conduct themselves: they’re forced to attend different schools, and never really associate with white people. Ruth May is afraid to go to Africa, because one of her classmates warned her that the Africans would boil her and eat her. She consoles herself by bringing comic books on the airplane: Cinderella, Donald Duck, etc.
Ruth May is brought up in the Jim Crow South, meaning that she’s probably been exposed to many racist ideas (like the Ham thesis). But she’s also young enough that she hasn’t had much time to internalize these racist beliefs, and so she retains a kind of innocence the rest of the family can’t access.
Themes
Literary Devices
