Passage Analysis

We had a Poisonwood Bible quiz where we were given passages from the book and we had to analyze them in a metaphorical way and in a literal way. Our assignment is to do that again, only picking a passage on our own.

"On the day of the hunt I came to know in the slick center of my bones this one thing: all animals kill to survive, and we are animals. The lion kills the baboon; the baboon kills fat grasshoppers. The elephant tears up the trees, dragging their precious roots from the dirt they love. The hungry antelope's shadow passes over the startled grass. And we, even if we had no meat or grass to gnaw, still boil our water to kill the invisible creatures that would like to kill us first." (347)

Adah says this when they are on the big hunt with the rest of the village. She is describing the attack of the animals, and how they, as humans, are also a part of this cycle. It is a metaphor for a lot of elements in the book. The Congo is under pressure from a lot of countries. Patrice Lumumba has been killed. The quote might indicate that the Congo might do some killing in order to survive. It's also a metaphor for what's going on within the Price family. The part about the elephant sounds a lot like Nathan dragging his wife and children out of their comfortable lives in Georgia. The whole thing is part of the theme of killing to survive, killing because it's all they know. Anatole said earlier, "If they bite you, they are trying to fix things in the only way they know." (308) These quotes both seem to point toward a bleak future for the Congo, full of fighting and loss of life.