Cultural Collision - Changes in Leah's Identity Caleigh Benjamin 12th Grade

In the historical fiction drama The Poisonwood Bible Barbara Kingsolver illustrates major development in culture through the use of vivid flashbacks, graphic imagery, and specific framework structure, demonstrating that a culture shock was inevitable because in the Congo the natives “boil us in a pot and eat us up” (Kingsolver 1). Kingsolver uses these tactics to display the change in identity Leah encounters throughout the course of the novel.

Primarily, Barbara Kingsolver utilizes flashbacks in order to tell the story of each of the girl’s experiences in the Congo. The readers were able to gain a more in depth understanding of the true feelings of the girls’ because of the utilization of the flashbacks. The readers got first-hand information about what Leah thought during all of her time in the Congo. It was very clear to see that Leah is the character who adjusted the best to all of their time in the Congo, regardless of any feelings of uncertainty she may have had in the beginning. At first, she was just like the other daughters who were unsure of what to do in their unfamiliar territory but it became evident that Leah had been the most well-adjusted. Everything was completely different in Africa than it was in America so...