The Power of Words

Barbara Kingsolver’s The Poisonwood Bible: Content (up to page 414 only)

In 1959 an overzealous Baptist minister named Nathan Price drags his wife and four daughters deep into the heart of the Congo on a mission to save the unenlightened souls of Africa.

Barbara Kingsolver’s The Poisonwood Bible: Symbolism

Methuselah, the Parrot

The Demonstration Garden

The Poisonwood Tree

Barbara Kingsolver’s The Poisonwood Bible: Foreshadowing

Methuselah's death by the hands of a predator on the same day that the Republic of Congo is granted its independence foreshadows the fate of the nation.

Barbara Kingsolver’s The Poisonwood Bible: Themes

The Cultural Arrogance of the West

Pantheism as a Superior Form of Religious Faith

The Individuality of How to Deal with the Burden of Guilt

The Impossibility of Absolute and Unambiguous Justice on a Global Scale

Barbara Kingsolver’s The Poisonwood Bible: Characterization

Nathan Price

Orleanna Price

Rachel Price

Leah Price

Adah Price

Ruth May Price

Barbara Kingsolver’s The Poisonwood Bible: Quotations - who said what

“Maybe I'll even confess the truth, that I rode in with the horsemen and beheld the apocalypse, but still I'll insist I was only a captive witness. What is the conqueror's wife if not a conquest herself?”

“The smiling bald man with the grandfather face has another face.”

“I felt the breath of God go cold on my skin.”

Barbara Kingsolver’s The Poisonwood Bible: Books within the book

Genesis

The Revelation

The Judges

Bel and the Serpent

Exodus

Song of the Three Children

The Eyes in the Trees

Barbara Kingsolver’s The Poisonwood Bible: Allusions

Bible

Myth of Ham

Moses

Children's books

Philip Roth’s “The Conversion of the Jews”: Content

A Jewish boy who forces his Jewish audience to say they believe in Jesus.

Philip Roth’s “The Conversion of the Jews”: Symbolism

Light

Philip Roth’s “The Conversion of the Jews”: Characters

Oscar “Ozzie” Freedman

Rabbi Marvin Binder

Itzie

Philip Roth’s “The Conversion of the Jews”: Setting

A synagogue in Newark

William Wordsworth’s Poetry: British Romanticism

A reaction to the Industrial Revolution

A revolt against the aristocratic social and political norms of the Age of Enlightenment

A reaction against the scientific rationalization of nature.

William Wordsworth’s Poetry: Content

The human relationship to nature

William Wordsworth’s Poetry: “Lines Composed a Few Miles of Tintern Abbey”

The description of his encounters with the countryside on the banks of the River Wye grows into an outline of his general philosophy.

William Wordsworth’s Poetry: “Composed Upon Westminster Bridge, September 3, 1802”

Describes London and the River Thames, viewed from Westminster Bridge in the early morning.

William Wordsworth’s Poetry: “The World is too Much with Us”

Criticizes the world of the First Industrial Revolution for being absorbed in materialism and distancing itself from nature.

William Wordsworth’s Poetry: “I wondered lonely as a cloud”

Inspired by an encounter during a walk, when he saw a "long belt" of daffodils.

John Keats Poetry: “Ode on a Grecian Urn”

The idealism and representation of Greek virtues in classical Greek art.

John Keats Poetry: “When I have Fears that I may Cease to Be”

Primarily explores death, the fear of it, and what it prevents Keats from doing.

Ode

Elaborately structured poems praising or glorifying an event or individual.

Apostrophe

When a speaker breaks off from addressing the audience and directs speech to a third party.

Synecdoche

A figure of speech that uses a term for a part of something to refer to the whole or vice versa.

Anaphora

A rhetorical device that consists of repeating a sequence of words at the beginnings of neighboring clauses.

Alfred, Lord Tennyson’s “Ulysses”: Content

Despite his reunion with his wife Penelope and his son Telemachus, Ulysses yearns to explore again.

Alfred, Lord Tennyson’s “Ulysses”: Speaker

Ulysses

Alfred, Lord Tennyson’s “Ulysses”: Tone

restless and rousing

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow’s “Mezzo Cammin”: Content

About a worried, “midlife crisis” type of  feeling the speaker is having.

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow’s “Mezzo Cammin”: Tone

Reflective and somewhat melancholic

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow’s “Mezzo Cammin”: Allusion of Title

The opening line of The Divine Comedy

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow’s “Mezzo Cammin”: Metaphors

Physical travel