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Megan Nalli

Ms. Hester

AP Lit

12 September 2011

Exile

         To exile: to separate from country or home whether by choice or by force.  Orleanna, the mother in Kingsolver's The Poisonwood Bible, becomes exiled from her home and the roles she once played.

         Orleanna feels cut off from her home not only physically,  but emotionally as well. Her trials with learning to cook without the convenience of her life in Georgia denotes an underlying will to learn from her experiences, despite her being virtually useless when dealing with her husband. Her will to carry on despite being unsure of her own position in the new environment is strong,  With Mama Tataba around, she has a guide much the same way a teacher would, Mama Tataba tries to teach the Price family to live in Africa, thus shortening the gap between the worlds. However, when Mama Tataba leaves because of Nathan, it ultimately affects Orleanna the most. Orleanna becomes exiled from herself—from the good house-wife she used to be. Her only way to gain the skills she needs cut off from her.

         Not long after the Mama Tataba's departure, dinner at the Price family's goes awry. Nathan, in a fit of rage, slams Orleanna's bone-china plate onto the table spilling its contents with it “dribbling like blood” onto the white table cloth.. The plate, one of Orleanna's last useful things from her old life, breaks as if it were her heart. Nathan's cruelty and lack of sight both literal and figurative, has further isolated Orleanna. She no longer can say that she still has the same family.

         Orleanna—once a nature lover—reverts back to her former self in order to cope with the guilt of doing nothing to protect her children. The climax of her journey into exile, the dinner  party where Nathan finally severs the ties between them, casts a dark shadow on the future events that will push Orleanna til she breaks. Where as Nathan deals with his guilt by baptizing the Congolese children at Ruth May's funeral, Orleanna simply leaves. Cut off from home and family, she is forced to find herself and remember how to cope with life. 

         Most of her children in Africa, Orleanna clings to Adah—the daughter often ignored and isolated on her own right—as she escapes the place that forced her to become a virtual island, dependent on herself. In the beginning of the story, she likens Africa to immortality—a sort of phoenix that rises from the ashes of its past—and it is an appropriate analogy. Unlike her, Africa never changes. Orleanna's isolation due to Africa's influence, changes her despite leaving her homeless figuratively. She entered the heart of darkness, lost her way and still somehow made a new path: no exile is without merit.