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Final Reflection

The essential question that I chose was, “If you had to choose one member of the family as the principle protagonist of the book, who would you choose? How does this reading affect your understanding of the novel as a whole?” My answer to this question was that Orleanna was the protagonist because of her emotional connection to the reader and that would affect the understanding of the novel by creating a focus on Orlenna and her narration.

As I wrote the scene analysis, a few things were made clear to me about Orleanna’s character. The main thing was that Ruth May’s death affected her the most because she had the strongest reaction and she had the most grief. I realized that all of the conflicts somehow center around Orleanna’s character and how she is the most affected in most conflicts of the story. As I wrote the text to self connection, I realized that Orleanna’s character connects with the feelings of the reader and she is the character that expresses her feelings the most. The text to text connection made me realize the true meaning of her leaving the village and it gave a new perspective to her character. It showed the tough side that makes her keep moving as she tries to escape her grief. While looking for quotes, I looked through the first narration of Orleanna and that was where I found several pieces of evidence for her character’s feelings. The quote where she states that a mother could not live with the guilt shows that she is feeling guilty for Ruth May’s death which is another way to look at her character’s feelings.

The first picture that I chose for the one pager was a green mamba snake which is what killed Ruth May. I also chose a picture of an Okapi because it symbolizes Orleanna’s position in the story. For my final two images I chose to put an African village and an African mission to display the setting of the story. When I finished my one pager and I looked at the final product, my answer to the essential question was deepened. My new answer was that Orleanna’s character links the story together and her character has the biggest struggle which helps better connect the reader with her character.

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Scene Analysis

On pages three hundred eighty one to three hundred eighty two, Orleanna is venting out her feelings about her children and her experience in Africa as a whole. The author expresses Orleanna’s feelings with a simile, “As long as I kept moving, my grief streamed out behind me like a swimmer’s long hair in water.” (p. 381) This simile helps the reader grasp the true feelings of Orleanna and how she is unable to fully get over Ruth May’s death. The author continues to express Orleanna’s feelings with a metaphor that is connected to the simile. “I knew the weight was there but it didn’t touch me.” (p. 381) This metaphor connects to the simile by referring to the grief as the “weight” and connecting it to Orleanna’s “wet hair.” The author continued with the extended metaphor, “Only when I stopped did the slick, dark stuff of it come floating around my face…” (p. 381) This metaphor helps the reader understand that Orleanna begins to dwell upon her grief when she is resting or when she is not doing anything.

On page three hundred eighty two, Orleanna states, “By instinct rather than will, I stayed alive. I tried to flee from the grief.” The author uses those statements to express that although Orleanna fleed the village, her grief still remains. Throughout the rest of the page, Orleanna begins to remember her family when they first arrived at Kilanga and how they brought useless things that seem so silly to her now. These pages help provide the background of Orleanna’s suffering due to the tragedies of her family. Orleanna would be the protagonist of The Poisonwood Bible because although Nathan is in control of the family, and the children face struggles in Kilanga, Orleanna links the events together in her perspective. Orleanna starts each book with a narration of her perspective of the events in that book, but her children talk about their perspective of the events that they took part in. Orleanna is the character that brings all of the other main characters together, and she is the character that cheers up the children when they are upset about their situation in Kilanga. Orleanna’s character is the protagonist due to her ability to help her children and bring the events together in her narration.

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Text to Text

In The Poisonwood Bible, Orleanna states, “By instinct rather than will, I stayed alive. I tried to flee from the grief.” (p. 382) This quote represents Orleanna’s mood after she decides to flee the village, and it also explains her mindset in fleeing. Orleanna wanted to escape the grief of losing her child by fleeing from the place where it happened, but her grief remains. This situation is similar to the situation of the main character in the television show Money Heist or its original title La Casa de Papel, which means the house of paper in spanish. In the first episode, the main character, Tokyo, loses a loved one in the process of a bank robbery which leaves her with weeks of grief. Later on in the episode, she decides to join a heist of the Royal Mint of Spain in order to escape her grief and she would be getting hundreds of millions of euros as the heist would be worth 2.4 billion euros. Orleanna would be the protagonist of The Poisonwood Bible because she is the character that connects most with the reader.

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Speaker: Orleanna

Quote: “The mother especially--watch how she leads them on, pale-eyed, deliberate.” (p. 5)

Speaker: Orleanna

Quote: “Later on you’ll have to decide what sympathy they deserve.” (p. 5)

Speaker: Orleanna

Quote: “How could a mother live with herself to blame?” (p. 6)

Speaker: Orleanna

Quote: “One has only a life of one’s own.” (p. 8)

Speaker: Orleanna

Quote: “Nothing, save for this life of her own.” (p. 10)

Speaker: Orleanna

Quote: “Don’t dare presume there’s shame in the lot of a woman who carries on.” (p. 383)

Speaker: Orleanna

Quote: “Are you still my own flesh and blood, my last-born, or are you now the flesh of Africa?” (p. 385)

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Text to Self

I relate to the text, specifically to Orleanna when she expresses her remorse and her grief for her daughter’s death. When my family and I went on vacation last year, on our second week of the vacation we received the news of my grandfather’s death. My situation was similar to Orleanna’s in that she was away from home and out of her comfort zone. I lost my grandfather a year ago and to this day, when I have time to sit and ponder, I always think about the grief that his death caused my family and I. This situation is similar to when Orleanna states on page three hundred eighty one, “Only when I stopped did the slick, dark stuff of it come floating around my face…” The author uses an extended metaphor to describe how Orleanna dwells upon her grief when she is resting or she is not doing anything. Orleanna would be the main character of The Poisonwood Bible because she is the character that has the strongest emotional connection to the reader.