Love never dies a natural death. It dies because we dont know how to replenish its source. It dies of blindness and errors and betrayals. It dies of illness and wounds; it dies of weariness; of withering, of tarnishing. (Anais Nin) Anais Nin is saying that love does not just go away; there is a cause to its diminishing. In the novel The Poisonwood Bible, multiple betrayals partake within the Price family: a family that went to the African Congo to take part in a religious mission. Among the betrayed was Adah, who felt that Orleanna (her mother) abandoned her, then Orleanna felt she betrayed her youngest daughter Ruth May, because her stay there resulted in her death, then finally Reverend Nathan Price betrayed his family by not taking them out of Africa when he was told to do so, but most importantly by taking them there in the first place. This furthers Kingsolvers message by showing how people who are powerful use their power to dominate those in society deems weak.
When Adah woke up to find, a nightmare vision of dark red, boiling ground (Adah pg. 305), she turned to Orleanna for help and she was denied of any. That night Adah did not see evil, but merely the way of all hearts when fear has stripped off the husk of kind pretensions (Adah pg 305). Meaning that fear can take grip and can strip a person of their kindness because they act irrationally and may lose themselves within all the fear. The position Orleanna was put in was that she basically had to choose between her daughters, and that was no easy decision; it wouldnt be for any mother. Adah felt that she, should have been devoured in [her] bed, for all [she] seemed to be worth (Adah pg. 305), because she wondered why she thought herself worth saving in the first place. But, since the terrible night of the ants, Mother had been creeping her remorse in flat-footed circles around [Adah] without ever speaking of it, wearing her guilt like the swollen breast of a nursing mother. So far [Adah] had refused to suckle and give her relief, but [Adah] kept close by (Adah pg. 345-346). Orleanna is full of remorse and guilt because in a sense she abandoned Adah, and left her to fend for herself. After many years, Adah came to a point in her life where she believed she was saved, not from crookedness (Adah pg. 440), but saved from the abandonment she thought she deserved. But in the end, the power is in the balance: we are our injuries, as much as we are our success (Adah pg. 496). By Adah stating this, it means that life would be balanced with both negatives and positives, because what a person goes though in life makes them who they are.
Orleanna believed as if she betrayed Ruth May, and she was drowning in grief and guilt. She blamed herself for Ruth Mays death because she felt that she was at fault for not taking her children out of Africa sooner rather than later, because the result of later was that Ruth May never got to leave. She thought she could not move forward because, the substance of grief is not imaginary. Its as real as rope or the absence of air, and like both those things it can kill. [Her] body understood there was no safe place for [her] to be (Orleanna pg. 381). She felt she needed to get away from it all because it became too overbearing for her to handle. So she decided to sell almost all of their possessions to the village mothers, but most importantly Ruth Mays. She just wanted to remember Ruth May as she was, her baby, and she did not need frivolous materials to remember her. All Orleanna needed was the, truth and light, to remember [her] babys laughter (Orleanna pg. 382). She found relief when the mothers from the village carried off the materials that seemed to be her burden. Now all she had to do was take her leave, but to also forgive herself and, walk into the light (Ruth May pg. 543).
The fact that Nathan Price brought his family to Africa and kept them there, he betrayed them. Nathan thought he had his priorities in order but in actuality he truly did not. He acted like it was his mission to change Africa and preach, Tata Jesus is bangala! (Adah pg.533) Adah said that she was, born of a man who believed he could tell nothing but the truth, while he set down for all time the Poisonwood Bible (Adah pg.533). Nathan believed that he was always right and that no one could prove him otherwise. Nathan would not even listen to Mama Tatuba about gardening because he thought he was right, even though Mama Tatuba has lived there her whole life. Which proves that how truly stubborn and pig-headed he was. Then there was the night of the ants and instead of Nathan helping his family get to safety, he preached, about Moses and the Egyptians and the river running with blood (Rachel pg. 301). He is a man who was close-minded and very arrogant. From the stay in the Congo, it truly affected his daughters; they each felt something because of their experience. Rachel felt, what happened to [them] in the Congo was simply the bad luck of two opposite worlds crashing into each other, causing tragedy. After something like that, you can only go your own way according to whats in your heart. And in [her] family, all [their] hearts seem to have whole different things inside (Rachel pg.465). Meaning that their Western culture and the African culture did not mesh well and the result that came from that was Ruth Mays death. Eventually once everyone except Nathan left the Congo, everyone went their separate ways because each of them felt they did what they wanted to do in life. Then Orleanna concluded to say that, Nathan was something that happened to [them] but his kind will always lose in the end (Orleanna pg 384). Thats exactly what happened, he ended being burned at the stake by villagers, but if he would not have betrayed his family by keeping them in the Congo, he might have lived a befitting life.
Through the course of events that took place in the Congo, several turned out to be betrayals in one way or another. There was Adah Price who felt her mother Orleanna abandoned her. Then with Orleanna, who believed she betrayed her youngest, Ruth May, because if they never had gone to the Congo then Ruth May would most likely have lived a long life. Then finally there was Nathan who would never had admitted it, but he ultimately betrayed his entire family because he brought them to the Congo in the first place. He was an ignorant man who never put his family first. All the grief and guilt that each family member felt could have been avoided if the Price family had never set foot on the soil in Africa. But sadly they did, and no matter how much the Price family would have wished to turn back time and change their actions, they couldnt; they had to live with the choices that they made that lead them to where they ended up.
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