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Book 3, Chapter 42
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
Adah watches the sunset and thinks about the children who have died in the village. Whenever a child dies, Nathan goes to visit the child’s parents and tries to explain how the parents could have saved the child’s soul by baptizing it.
Nathan’s approach to death only increases the pain to the deceased’s family—he uses the tragedy to try and make the parents feel guilty. Without saying so, it’s obvious that Orleanna finds this unconscionable.
Themes
Adah has been spying on Axelroot, and whenever she listens to his radio, she hears the phrase “good as dead” to describe Patrice Lumumba. She gets the idea that President Eisenhower wants Lumumba dead. Adah is amazed that “Ike”—seemingly a kind, grandfatherly man—is secretly murderous.
