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Allusions
Book 1, Chapter 3
Explanation and Analysis—They're Different from Us:
In Book 1, Ruth May tries to explain her childish understanding of the religious justification for segregation. She does so by alluding to the myth of Ham from the Bible. While she gets some aspects of the segregationist reasoning correct, her childlike dialect and misunderstandings create a sad irony: even children who don't understand what they're saying can perpetrate racism.
Back home in Georgia they have their own school so they won’t be a-strutting into Rachel’s and Leah and Adah’s school. Leah and Adah are the gifted children, but they still have to go to the same school as everybody. But not the colored children. The man in church said they’re different from us and needs ought to keep to their own. Jimmy Crow says that, and he makes the laws. They don’t come in the White Castle restaurant where Mama takes us to get Cokes either, or the Zoo. Their day for the Zoo is Thursday. That’s in the Bible.
Before this moment, Ruth May alludes to the myth of Ham from the Bible, which was a common justification for slavery and Jim Crow laws (legalized racial segregation in the United States). As she explains, some Christians understood dark skin as a curse from God, meted out to punish Ham and his ancestors and to forever mark them as inferior to others. The original story of the curse of Ham appears in Genesis 9:20-27.
The "Jimmy Crow" that Ruth May mentions is not a real person but instead her childish misunderstanding of segregation laws. These laws were not created by a man named Jimmy Crow but were instead called Jim Crow laws because "Jim Crow" was a derogatory and racially charged term for Black Americans. Jim Crow laws, which were introduced after Reconstruction (the period immediately following the Civil War) and remained in place until 1965, forbade Black Americans from white-only spaces and heavily policed their behavior. These laws existed mainly in the American South, and they kept Black people from entering many schools, churches, train cars, restaurants, and stores.
Another justification for Jim Crow laws was that they protected white women, which adds a significance to Ruth May's assertion that Black people have their own schools "so they won't be a-strutting into Rachel's and Leah and Adah's school." Ruth May claims that it's "in the Bible" that Black people can only go to the zoo on Thursday, but the reader knows this cannot be true, which makes Ruth May's claim ironic. It also illustrates that Ruth May believes, as a result of her childhood in the South, that anti-Black racism and segregation are condoned by God or required by Christianity. Christians both advocated for abolition and promoted slavery; some Christians sought to end segregation, while other Christians violently enforced it. Ruth May's understanding of segregation, delivered in her Southern dialect, demonstrates that the kind of Christianity Nathan preaches is often hypocritical and cruel, and perhaps takes for granted that Black people are inferior.
Related Themes:
Book 2, Chapter 15
Explanation and Analysis—Ruth May's Mongoose:
In one of the lighter moments of the novel, Ruth May describes her pet mongoose. Her childish Southern dialect, allusion to a children's book, and personification of her strange pet all illustrate her innocence:
Nobody ever even gave me the mongoose. It came to the yard and looked at me. Every day it got closer and closer. One day the mongoose came in the house and then every day after that. It likes me the best. It won’t tolerate anybody else. Leah said we had to name it Ricky Ticky Tabby but no sir, it’s mine and I’m a-calling it Stuart Little. That is a mouse in a book. I don’t have a snake because a mongoose wants to kill a snake. Stuart Little killed the one by the kitchen house and that was a good business, so now Mama lets it come on in the house.
Ruth May personifies her pet mongoose by describing it as if it chose her (rather than the other way around). She also gives the mongoose a human-like attitude: "It won't tolerate anybody else." When Leah suggests naming it "Ricky Ticky Tabby," she is alluding to the short story by Rudyard Kipling, in which a mongoose named Rikki-Tikki-Tavi protects an English family living in India from snakes. This story is also set in a colonial environment, but is uncritical of colonialism, unlike The Poisonwood Bible. Ruth May's mongoose name is less loaded: Stuart Little is a mouse from a children's book. Ruth May's Southern dialect is especially strong in this passage: she says things like "no sir," "a-calling," and "Mama lets it come on in the house," which indicate to reader her foreignness in the Congo.
Related Themes:
Book 2, Chapter 16
Explanation and Analysis—Diamonds:
In Book 2, the Prices get to know the schoolteacher Anatole better when he comes to their home for dinner. Rachel is perplexed when Anatole says he "spent some time at the diamond mines down south in Katanga," and her confusion is an example of situational irony. With allusions and her Southern dialect, she describes how Anatole has presented an entirely different idea of diamonds than the one she's used to:
When he spoke of diamonds I naturally thought of Marilyn Monroe in her long gloves and pursey lips whispering “Diamonds Are a Girl’s Best Friend.” My best friend Dee Dee Baker and I have snuck off to see M.M. and Brigitte Bardot both at the matinee (Father would flatout kill me if he knew), so you see I know a thing or two about diamonds. But when I looked at Anatole’s wrinkled brown knuckles and pinkish palms, I pictured hands like those digging diamonds out of the Congo dirt and got to thinking, Gee, does Marilyn Monroe even know where they come from? Just picturing her in her satin gown and a Congolese diamond digger in the same universe gave me the weebie jeebies.
Rachel alludes to American star Marilyn Monroe, who had recently appeared in the musical film Gentlemen Prefer Blondes, in which she sings a jazz song titled "Diamonds Are a Girl's Best Friend." This allusion sets up that Rachel's understanding of the world is heavily influenced by her time spent in the United States. She never considered that diamonds had to be mined until she meets Anatole, and when she learns this reality, she experiences cognitive dissonance. How can Marilyn Monroe's diamonds come from the Congo when the Congo is the opposite of glamor and wealth? Her Southern teenage dialect ("Father would flatout kill me," "Gee," "weebie jeebies") also illustrates her foreignness to the Congo, as well as her naïveté. Rachel's time in the Congo is reshaping everything she thought she understood, including diamonds.
Related Themes:
