Article: The missionary position: Barbara Kingsolver's The Poisonwood Bible.

This essay reveals how Barbara Kingsolver illustrates the hypocrisy of religious rhetoric and practice that sacrifices the many for the good of the few in power, drawing a clear parallel between a missionary's attitude and colonial imperialism. In The Poisonwood Bible, Nathan Price does not represent the missionary profession: he "is a symbolic figure ... suggesting many things about the way U.S. and Europe have approached Africa with a history of cultural arrogance and misunderstanding at every turn." Nonetheless, Kingsolver shows how, contrary to popular opinion, religion and politics compose a combined force used historically not only to "convert the savages" but to ...

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