Essay #1

The Exile of Leah Price

  Edward Said- "Exile is strangely compelling to think about but terrible to experience.  It is the unhealable rift forced between a human being and a native place, between the self and its true home; its essential sadness can never be surmounted." Exile can be an enriching and potent experience because being thrown outside of your comfort zone will force you to adapt and grow like Leah Price did in the Poisonwood Bible. The Poisonwood Bible by Barbara Kingsolver focuses on an American family moving to Congo, Africa this move causes many changes in the family as a whole and individuals. Leah Price shows how this exile effected her views and life.


   When the Price family moved to the Congo for the father, Nathan Price, to spread the idea of God to the people of Kilanga. The religious beliefs differed  between the natives and the foreigners, causing Leah and the rest of her family to be alienated from their new home. Throughout the novel Nathan keeps pursuing his idea of baptism and religion on the natives the wedge grows bigger between the family and their neighbors. Leah is also exiling herself from her father's beliefs and changing her morals. "I felt the breathe of God go cold on my skin." At this point in the novel Leah's faith in her father and his view of God was changing and being replaced.
   Out of all the Price family Leah adapted and grew the most from their experience in Kilanga. Leah is still living in Africa without a lot of Western influence. Never being attached to the materialistic ways of the west, like her sister Rachel is, Leah seemed to happily be exiled from the American culture, therefore, an open mind of living in Kilanga. Although the transition was rough and once Leah got married it was still hard because she was still not accepted by all because of her skin. Leah's life shaped from being forced out of her home in America to find her true home in Africa.
   Leah Price was exiled from the fourteen years of life she originally knew in the United States, but she grew with an open mind and heart to accept and learn about the new culture she lived in. Her new home and self have been found because of the difficult times Leah and the Prices' went through leaving their comfort zones. This enriching experience of exile aided Leah to adapt and develop her views and life.