118 pages • 3 hours read
Barbara KingsolverThe Poisonwood Bible
Fiction | Novel | Adult | Published in 1998A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more. For select classroom titles, we also provide Teaching Guides with discussion and quiz questions to prompt student engagement.
Quiz
Reading Check, Multiple Choice & Short Answer Quizzes
Reading Check questions are designed for in-class review on key plot points or for quick verbal or written assessments. Multiple Choice and Short Answer Quizzes create ideal summative assessments, and collectively function to convey a sense of the work’s tone and themes.
Book 1: “Genesis”
Reading Check
1. What does Orleanna Price describe seeing on the other side of the river in the first chapter?
2. Who are the Prices? How many people are in the family that are heading to the Congo?
3. What problem does the Price family run into at the airport on their way to the Congo? What is their solution?
4. What is one of the first things that Reverend Price does in the yard after the family moves into their new home in Kilanga?
5. What is the difference between how men and women dress in Kilanga?
6. Who is Methuselah?
7. On what type of occasion are the Price children told to complete “The Verse?”
Multiple Choice
1. Which two types of figurative language is Mrs. Price using when she says that the dark green hills of the Kilanga landscape are “looming like the Judgment” (37)?
A) allusion and metaphor
B) allusion and simile
C) metaphor and personification
D) allusion and personification
2. How does Reverend Price feel when he struggles to plant a garden?
A) frustrated and perplexed
B) patient and calm
C) accepting and understanding
D) nervous and fearful
3. Although Adah’s sisters call her “Ade,” she says she prefers to be called “Ada” because the name is an example of which literary device?
A) anomaly
B) allusion
C) palindrome
D) personification
4. How can the Prices’ experience and judgments of their new home best be described?
A) Both Reverend and Mrs. Price are unified and determined to stay in Kilanga, while all of the Price children want to return to Georgia.
B) Reverend Price is losing hope in his mission, while Mrs. Price and the Price children encourage their father to stay and keep building the church.
C) Mrs. Price has decided to leave Kilanga and take the children with her, but Reverend Price is determined to stay.
D) Some of the Price family members have expressed dissatisfaction with their new home, but none of the family has tried to return to Georgia.
Short-Answer Response
Answer each of the following questions in a complete sentence or sentences. Incorporate details from the text to support your response.
1. Describe the Prices’ first day in the Congo. How are they greeted at the airport? How are they greeted in Kilanga? What is one of the first things that Reverend Price does?
2. What are the different approaches that Reverend Price and Mrs. Price take towards finding new congregation members during the Easter Picnic? Which approach is more successful?
3. What happens to the Prices’ garden after the rains in the first chapter? How does the family respond?
4. What makes Reverend Price release Methuselah at the end of Book 1? What is Leah’s description of the release?
Book 2: “The Revelation”
Reading Check
1. When Mrs. Price reflects on her time in Africa, which one of the five senses is invoked?
2. What foreshadowed information do readers learn from Mrs. Price’s first-person narration at the beginning of the second book?
3. Why do the children of Kilanga gather outside of the Prices’ home every morning?
4. What is the name of the game that Ruth May plays with the children of Kilanga?
5. Which precious item of Mrs. Price’s does Reverend Price break during an argument?
6. How do the people of Kilanga react after the rumor of Adah’s death?
7. Who is Patrice Lumumba?
8. Which special event in Leopoldville does Reverend Price take Leah to see?
Multiple Choice
1. Which type of figurative language is used in the following quote by Mrs. Price: “A wife is the earth itself, changing hands and bearing scars” (101)?
A) allusion
B) simile
C) personification
D) metaphor
2. How did Mr. Price interact with his family over the course of their time in Kilanga?
A) He withdrew from his family as he became more focused on his church.
B) He suffered from anxiety and paused his weekly sermons while he rested.
C) He was attentive and supportive in helping his family adapt to their new home.
D) He determined that Kilanga was not suitable for his church and made plans to move to Leopoldville.
3. How can the political disagreement between Reverend Price and the foreign doctor in the Stanleyville hospital best be summarized?
A) Reverend Price believes that the Congo will become independent from Belgium soon, while the doctor insists there is no chance this will happen.
B) Reverend Price is skeptical of the role that the Western countries have played in the development of the Congo, while the doctor believes that they have brought civilization and widespread industrialization to the country.
C) Reverend Price believes in neither the possibility of an independent Congo, nor in the negative effects that Western colonization has brought to the Congo, while the doctor believes in both.
D) Reverend Price supports an independent Congo, while the doctor does not feel strongly either way.
4. Adah’s discussion with her Sunday school teacher at the age of five led her to what conclusion?
A) She could not lose her faith in God.
B) She had a passion for theology and wanted to become a teacher someday.
C) She did not understand parts of the Bible, but found the teachings important.
D) She no longer believed in God.
Short-Answer Response
1. Who is Eeben Axelroot? What is his job, what secret item does he own, and how does he help the Prices when Ruth May breaks her arm?
2. Who is Anatole? What work does he do in Kilanga, and what is an interesting physical characteristic of him?
3. Describe the rumor regarding Adah’s death. What happens in the end?
4. What is a hope chest? Compare and contrast the different Price children’s reactions to spending time making hope chests.
5. What information do the Underdowns bring on their visit to Kilanga in early 1960? How do the Prices react?
Book 3: “The Judges”
Reading Check
1. What is one of the reasons that Mrs. Price chose to marry Reverend Price?
2. What financial problem do the Prices encounter shortly after the independence ceremonies?
3. What disagreement do Nelson and Adah have about twins?
4. Who is Brother Fowles?
5. What does Tata Ndu bring to the Price household several days in a row, and why?
6. What item do Mrs. Price, Rachel, Adah, and Leah find behind Ruth May’s bed?
7. What plan is created to avoid Tata Ndu’s offer?
8. What secret does Eeben Axelroot share with Rachel?
Multiple Choice
1. What is ironic about the name of the city in the United States where Reverend and Mrs. Price chose to live and raise their daughters?
A) It is the same name as their new home in Kilanga.
B) It is a biblical allusion to the same place where Jesus was born.
C) It is a biblical allusion to the same place where Jesus was crucified.
D) It is the same place where the Underdowns are from.
2. How does Prime Minister Lumumba feel about supplying the United States and Belgium with Congolese natural resources such as diamonds, copper, and zinc?
A) He does not support giving away natural resources to Western powers.
B) He is eager to make trade deals so he can keep the money for himself.
C) He is only supportive of supplying Communist nations with Congolese resources.
D) He is only supportive of supplying Capitalist nations with Congolese resources.
3. Why is Reverend Price’s use of the word “bangala” in his sermons unfortunate?
A) He is openly cursing the people of Kilanga for refusing baptism.
B) He thought his pronunciation meant “precious,” but it actually meant “poisonwood.”
C) Anatole incorrectly informed him that this word meant “love” in Kikongo.
D) Rachel has informed him it is a derogatory word for the people of Kilanga.
Short-Answer Response
1. What is muntu? What is the difference between muntu, kinto, and kunto? What gives the muntu life?
2. What is the main disagreement between Reverend Price and Brother Fowles on how they interpret the Bible?
3. How do elections differ in Belgium from the Congo?
4. According to Adah, everyone except Reverend Price has changed during their time in the Congo. Briefly explain how each of the Price women has changed.
Book 4: “Bel and the Serpent”
Reading Check
1. What does Tata Ndu call for during Reverend Price’s sermon on Bel and the Serpent? What is the result?
2. What does Rachel do as a result of the hunt?
3. What venomous creature is left in the Price’s chicken house as a threat to the Price family?
4. What event happens to Ruth May?
5. As this book closes, what action is Reverend Price performing?
Multiple Choice
1. What is the main difference between how Adah is viewed in the United States versus in the Congo?
A) Her strength and independence combined with her physical impairment were preferred socially in the United States, but not in the Congo.
B) Her will and body were not accepted in the United States, but they are united in the Congo.
C) Her will was too strong in the United States, but is too weak compared to other Congolese women.
D) Her physical impairment makes her ineligible for marriage in the Congo, but is accepted in the United States.
2. How can the relationship of the Price family best be described at the end of the book?
A) They are united in their grief.
B) They are fearful towards the village.
C) They are vengeful towards Leah and Rachel.
D) They are disjointed as each member processes their sorrow differently.
Short-Answer Response
1. Although the other names of the books in this novel are from the King James Bible, this book is named after a book from the Apocrypha, which is a set of scriptures that are not usually included in the Hebrew Bible. According to Leah, why does Reverend Price still teach from these books?
2. What controversial thing does Leah want to do during the upcoming hunt? Describe the various reactions to her proposition and the outcome.
3. Describe the evening of the hunt. What major events take place?
Book 5: “Exodus”
Reading Check
1. According to Mrs. Price, what is the source of the Price women’s exodus from Kilanga?
2. What happens to Leah as she arrives in Bulungu? What do Mrs. Price and Adah do?
3. Where does Rachel go for her exodus? How does she accomplish this?
4. Where do Adah and Mrs. Price go? What does Adah choose to do with her life?
5. Where does Leah wait for Anatole’s imprisonment to end?
6. What two things are significant about January 17?
7. What has become of Reverend Price since the Price women left Kilanga?
8. What great change does Adah experience by Christmas 1968?
9. By the mid-1970s, what has happened to the Western names of cities in the Congo? What is the new name of the Congo?
10. What is The Equatorial?
11. What happened when Leah, her husband, and her children returned to Zaire in 1981?
12. What information does Leah share with her sisters on their road trip in 1984?
Multiple Choice
1. What literary device is used in this quote by Mrs. Price: “As long as I kept moving, my grief streamed out behind me like a swimmer’s long hair in water” (433)?
A) metaphor
B) personification
C) allusion
D) simile
2. How does Rachel feel when remembering her family while she is living in Johannesburg?
A) She is filled with a frequent longing.
B) She feels a persistent melancholy.
C) She thinks of them infrequently.
D) She feels shameful and scornful.
3. By 1981, how does Leah feel about the United States?
A) unhappy with the culture, but determined to raise her family there
B) more out of place each time she returns
C) a sense of belonging when she landed at the airport
D) excited to continue her life there after she and Anatole finish their degrees
4. Why do Rachel’s and Leah’s views on marriage differ?
A) Rachel believes marriage is sacred, while Leah finds it patriarchal.
B) Rachel does not think she needs a man anymore to tell her what to do, while Leah is willing to make compromises to be with the one she loves.
C) Rachel has never been legally married, while Leah has been faithfully married for many years.
D) Rachel supports the subordinate role of women as wives, while Leah vowed to never enter a marriage union after witnessing her mother’s marriage.
5. Adah notes that “Congo was a woman of the shadows, dark-hearted, moving to a drumbeat. Zaire is a tall young man tossing salt over his shoulder” (562). Which of the following literary devices is used in this quote?
A) allegory
B) personification
C) palindrome
D) simile
Short-Answer Response
1. Analyze the meaning of the following quote by Mrs. Price: “To resist occupation, whether you're a nation or merely a woman, you must understand the language of your enemy” (435). How does this sentence apply to the choice of her exodus from the Congo?
2. Adah says,“Carry us, marry us, ferry us, bury us: those are our four ways to exodus, for now” (469). Match each phrase with the corresponding Price child and explain each statement's context.
3. According to Adah, which of the Price women are religious? Which are not? What does she mean by the term “religion”?
4. Describe the reunion between the Price sisters in 1984. Does it go as planned? Why or why not?
Book 6 “Song of the Three Children” and Book 7 “The Eyes in the Trees”
Reading Check
1. Why didn’t Rachel ever have children?
2. Where do Leah, her husband, and her family live?
3. What is Adah’s profession?
4. Why do the Price women try to return to Kilanga in the last book?
5. What startling information do the Price women learn from a woman selling trinkets on the road?
6. What item does the woman give Orleanna?
Multiple Choice
1. What is one reason that Rachel chose not to return to the United States?
A) a fear of not belonging
B) the lack of money needed to travel
C) the shame of several failed marriages
D) her profound love of Africa
2. Which of the following sentiments best describes Leah’s newfound attitude toward religion?
A) She is still a fervent believer in the Baptist Christian faith.
B) She no longer believes in the same tyrannical God that the Reverend Price preached about.
C) She is a staunch atheist.
D) She has adapted her faith to the local religion in Angola, which is a mix between Catholicism and polytheism.
3. Adah reflects in her chapter that, “I am born of a man who believed he could tell nothing but the truth, while he set down for all time the Poisonwood Bible” (603). Which of the following literary devices is used in this quote?
A) allusion
B) irony
C) metaphor
D) personification
Short-Answer Response
1. January 17 marks the day of two notable deaths for the Price women. On the day the Price women try to return to Kilanga after many years, what new notable death has occurred? How does this affect their journey?
2. Who is the narrator of the last book, and how do you know?
Quizzes – Answer Key
BOOK 1
Reading Check
1. an okapi (7)
2. The Price family consists of the father, Reverend Price; Mrs. Price; and their four children: Rachel (the eldest), Adah and Leah (twins), and Ruth May (the youngest). Reverend Price is an evangelical Baptist who moves his family to Congo to open a church (Book 1, Chapter 1).
3. Their luggage weighs too much, so they decide to wear most of their clothes on the plane (17).
4. Reverend Price begins to prepare the land for a garden (42).
5. According to Rachel, women dress in one style of clothing, whereas men can dress in any style they like (51).
6. Methuselah is the name of the parrot left by the Prices’ predecessor, Brother Fowles (68).
7. The Verse is a form of punishment requiring the Price children to copy a specified verse, along with the following 99 verses (69).
Multiple Choice
1. B (37)
2. A (47)
3. C (67)
4. D (Book 1)
Short-Answer Response
1. The Price family is greeted by Mr. and Mrs. Underdown in Leopoldville, who usher them on a plane to Kilanga, their new home. In Kilanga, the villagers hold a welcome celebration for them, which overwhelms the four girls and their mother. Father Price uses this occasion to give his first sermon to the village, which is met with mixed reactions (19-34).
2. Reverend Price holds a sermon and a picnic by the water to encourage the residents of Kilanga to become baptized. While none of the people in Kilanga are interested in this, they are interested in the meal prepared by Mrs. Price, who has cooked a fried chicken dinner. Reverend Price does not commend his wife for her assistance (54-57).
3. The rain destroys the garden and sweeps away the seeds. Reverend Price decides to take his neighbor’s advice in landscaping the garden the Kilanga way, and Leah helps him (73). This is an example of the personification of Africa, since Adah states that “Our Father has been influenced by Africa” (73) and Reverend Price bends his will and changes his idea to fit the land.
4. After finding out that the people of Kilanga are scared to let their children go in the river after one died from being eaten by a crocodile, Reverend Price releases Methuselah from his cage in a moment of frustration. At first, Leah thinks that the bird will not fly because of Reverend Price’s “rough grip;” however, the bird surprises her and takes flight (93-94).
BOOK 2
Reading Check
1. scent or sense of smell (99)
2. that one of her daughters “remains in the dank red earth” of Africa (i.e., the foreshadowing of the death of one of her daughters) (99)
3. They are coming to look at the Prices because they are “peculiar” (118).
4. “Mother, May I?” (127)
5. the blue-flowered china platter (152)
6. More of the people in Kilanga begin to go to Reverend Price’s services because they believe he accurately predicted this event with his sermon on Daniel escaping the lion’s den (176).
7. a charismatic Congolese man who wins the election and becomes the first prime minister of the newly independent Republic of the Congo (202)
8. the independence ceremonies and inauguration of Prime Minister Patrice Lumumba (206)
Multiple Choice
1. D (101) (this is an example of the role of women in the 1960s)
2. A (111)
3. C (137-138)
4. D (196) (relates to the theme of the loss and gain of religion)
Short Answer
1. Eeben Axelroot flies a chartered plane, bringing supplies from place to place. He brings the Prices their monthly allowance. He owns a radio, which Ruth May found while spying, and when she broke her arm, he took her in the plane with Reverend Price to the hospital in Stanleyville.
2. Anatole is the interpreter for Reverend Price’s church services. He is also the teacher at the school house and is fluent in many languages. He has small scars on his face, which look “like a tattoo” (142-143).
3. After seeing the footprints of a lion following the footprints of a girl with a limp (i.e., Adah), Tata Ndu comes to report that a lion has killed Adah. While Adah does feel that she was followed during her walk home, she returns to the house unharmed, and the lion had instead killed another animal (i.e., bushbuck) (154-160).
4. Another reference that is linked to the role of women in the 1960s, a hope chest is a box that holds items for future marriages. The following quote summarizes the reactions well: “Rachel hoped too much and ran out of material, while the rest of us hoped too little and ran out of steam” (174). In other words, Rachel reacted positively to the idea of the hope chest and produced many embroidered linens, while Adah and Leah moved slowly and were not as enthused. Ruth May was exempt from building a hope chest (173-174).
5. The Underdowns inform the Prices that there are reports that the Congo will become independent from Belgium and hold its first election in June 1960. They urge the Prices to leave the Congo. While Mrs. Price is concerned about her family’s safety, Reverend Price is adamant that they stay, much to the dismay of the Underdowns (185-194).
BOOK 3
Reading Check
1. Marriage provided a chance to leave the area she grew up in, and also provided the possibility of “a world of flattering attention” (221).
2. They have lost their monthly stipend and now have no money (234).
3. In the Congo, women who birth twins take them to the forest and leave them there for the gods; if a woman does not do this, there will be a catastrophic event. Leah shares that twins are not uncommon in the United States (240).
4. Brother Fowles is the missionary who lived in Kilanga before the Prices (281).
5. Tata Ndu brings gifts to the Prices every day because he wants to marry the eldest daughter, Rachel Price (293-296).
6. They find the malaria pills that she was supposed to be taking for a year, but instead were chewed up and stuck on the wall behind her bed (300).
7. The plan is Rachel will pretend that she is already engaged to Eeben Axelroot (303).
8. The US will support the assassination of the newly elected Prime Minister Lumumba (333-334).
Multiple Choice
1. B (Bethlehem, Georgia)(225)
2. A (259)
3. B (312)
Short Answer
1. Muntu means man, but it refers to people who are alive and dead. Kinto refers to things not alive (i.e., objects), and kuntu is the quality of being (i.e., adjectives like “beautiful”). Nommo means word, but refers to the idea that something is not alive until it is named (238).
2. Reverend Price believes in more of a literal interpretation of biblical passages, while Brother Fowles believes in an abstract interpretation, since he considers the possibility of errors in different translations (283).
3. Elections in Belgium are based on a majority win, while in the Congo, they try to come to a decision that everyone agrees upon, so there are no losers (298).
4. Mrs. Price, who before was withdrawn and made everyone stay in the house, encourages the girls to go outside. Ruth May is still sick and not as interested in the world as before. Rachel has become very focused on her fake engagement with Eeben Axelroot. Leah has become focused on studying with Anatole, so Adah and Leah have become even more distant. Adah is now considered more “normal” (312-314).
BOOK 4: “Bel and the Serpent”
Reading Check
1. Tata Ndu calls for an election on Jesus. Jesus “loses” in the election (376-380).
2. She chooses to become a vegetarian (395).
3. a green mamba snake (413)
4. She is bitten by the snake and dies immediately (415).
5. He is baptizing the children of Kilanga in the rain (426-427).
Multiple Choice
1. B (390)
2. D (419-427)
Short Answer
1. Contrary to many preachers who believe the books of the Apocrypha are only for “fear-mongering,” Reverend Price believes these books are still the word of God (374-375).
2. She wants to participate in the hunt as an archer, with her bow and arrow. Anatole and Nelson support her, while Tata Ndu and most of the other men in the village do not, including Reverend Price. In the end, the village elders hold a vote, and she is allowed to participate in the hunt (381-387).
3. The village of Kilanga participates in a hunt together, forming a circle to trap animals in the bonfire. Leah shoots and hits an antelope with her arrow, but there is a dispute between her and Tata Ndu’s oldest son about who actually kills the animal. This leads to further division between the Prices and those who do not support the family in the village (391-397).
BOOK 5: “Exodus”
Reading Check
1. the need to keep moving (435)
2. She comes down with a fever (447). Mrs. Price and Adah carry on with their journey while Anatole stays to take care of Leah (450).
3. She leaves with Eeben Axelroot in his plane, and he takes her to South Africa (456-458).
4. They return to Georgia and Adah enrolls at Emory University to study medicine (461-462).
5. She waits in a convent in the Central African Republic.
6. It is the day Ruth May died and the “national mourning for independence” for the execution of Prime Minister Lumumba (486).
7. He has also left Kilanga and is most likely in the forest (491).
8. She can now walk straight with much less of a slant (497).
9. The cities and villages have been removed of their colonial namesakes and have received indigenous names. The Congo is now called Zaire (503).
10. the name of the hotel that Rachel receives from her third husband (521)
11. Anatole’s passport is confiscated at the airport, and he is soon after imprisoned (531-532).
12. that Reverend Price has reportedly died (551)
Multiple Choice
1. D (433)
2. C (481)
3. B (528)
4. B (523) (535) (relates to the theme of the role of women in the 1960s)
5. B (562) (this is an example of the personification of Africa)
Short Answer
1. This question ties into the theme of the role of women, mainly in that many women who are in “oppressed situations,” such as Mama Mwanza, are unaware that others might refer to them as “oppressed.” Mrs. Price uses the following example: “When a government comes crashing down, it crushes those who were living under its roof. People like Mama Mwanza never knew the house was there at all” (435). Mrs. Price recalls that maybe she should have left her marriage before, but as many other women choose to do, she simply carried on until it came to the point where she needed to keep moving.
2. “Carry us” refers to Leah because she was carried while sick; “marry us” refers to Rachel who left with Eeben Axelroot (although they were not married); “ferry us” refers to Adah who left in a ferry with Mrs. Price; and “bury us” refers to Ruth May, who was buried in the African soil (Book 5).
3. Mrs. Price “has one now,” but Adah alludes to the fact that she is begging forgiveness from Ruth May. Leah’s “religion is the suffering;” and “Rachel doesn’t and she is plainly the happiest of [them] all” (499). Adah says that she does not have a religion, but she thinks she may need one. This question ties into the theme of the loss and gain of religion; while each of the Price women was previously associated with Reverend Price’s staunch Baptist Christian outlook, their exodus from Kilanga has also led to an exodus/transformation of faith.
4. They planned a road trip from West Africa to Zaire. It does not go as Rachel plans since the sisters immediately start to argue when they meet in Senegal, particularly about politics. Additionally, they planned to see the Equatorial, but Anatole’s release from prison overshadowed their plans (539-544).
BOOK 6: “Song of the Three Children” and BOOK 7 “The Eyes in the Trees”
Reading Check
1. She wanted them, but she received an infection from Eeben Axelroot (582).
2. They live on a farm in Angola (591).
3. She studies the life histories of viruses (599).
4. They want to visit the grave of Ruth May (610).
5. The woman says there was no village of Kilanga (613).
6. an okapi (612)
Multiple Choice
1. A (581)
2. B (594)(relates to the theme of the loss and gain of religion)
3. B (603)
Short Answer
1. January 17 is the day that Ruth May and Prime Minister Lumumba both died. When the Price women return to the Congo, the dictator Mobutu has died, making it difficult for the women to travel within the country (611).
2. Ruth May is the narrator, and the reader can glean this from the first-person narration about forgiving her mother (613-614).
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