Ruth May In Rachel's Poisonwood Bible

“People take different roads seeking fulfillment and happiness. Just because they’re not on your road doesn’t mean they’ve gotten lost” (Jackson Brown). The Price family all took different roads for fulfillment. The missionary, Nathan, his wife, Orleanna, and their four daughters all went to the Congo on one “road” but all ended up going their own separate ways. But even though some roads were cut short, none of the Prices got lost. Rachel was fulfilled with power, Adah had her determination, Nathan followed God, Leah chased love, and Orleanna grew, figuratively and literally. But even though Ruth May’s path for fulfillment was cut short, she still reached what she wanted, even if it was in the afterlife. Despite having her life taken away …show more content…
In the last section of Poisonwood Bible, Kingsolver looped the book back to the beginning, giving slight changes in the wording that Orleanna gives and the wording that Ruth May gives. Orleanna has a grievous tone while Ruth May seems at peace with her setting. One example is when Orleana says, “Imagine a ruin so strange it must have never have happened. First, picture the forest” (Kingsolver 5), while Ruth May says pretty much the same thing, but with a different context saying, “I can see you leading your children to the water, and you call it a story of ruin. Here is what I see: first, the forest” (Kingsolver 537). Even though the wording is ever so slightly changed you can tell that Orleanna is indicating that the whole situation was a ruin that can be fixed, while Ruth May indicates more of the fact that she was only leading them to the water and that it was no ruin it’s just a mother in a forest helping her children lead a somewhat normal life. They both talk about a “ruin” but when Ruth May mentions that “ruin” she says “called it a ruin” indicating that she doesn’t actually believe that her or her sisters trip to the Congo was horrible, it just helped them grow and thrive. This is the same when Orleanna says, “This forest eats itself and lives forever” (Kingsolver 5) and Ruth May saying, “I am the forests conscience, but remember the forest eats itself and lives …show more content…
A lot of her sins were juvenile, but understandable because she was only a child and the fact that her father was a man who believed that people must be punished for their sins plays into the fact that she believes her sins are the reason for her malaria in the book The Judges. She got sick because, “Baby Jesus can see ever what I do and I wasn’t good” (Kingsolver 273) since she tore up Adah’s pictures, tried to see Nelson naked, hit Leah in the leg and saw Eeban Axelroots’s diamonds, she believes that this all was the cause for her being sick. Ruth May even state herself, “That is a lot of bad things.” (Kingsolver 273). Ruth May was five when she died, she didn’t know her own way. So like any five year old girl, she followed her father, who believed that sinners had no place in heaven and that one must make up for their sins, so that is what Ruth May believed. She believed that she broke her arm because she was spying and that was her punishment. The sins that she had committed had burned into her, it even carried into her grave with her, she states that “I am your bad child now gone good, for when children die they were only good” (Kingsolver 537). But in this she says that she has gone good, so one can assume from her journey from life to the heavens she found forgiveness because “If God didn’t

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