Gender and Queer Studies

The Poisonwood Bible is strongly influenced by the voice of its young narrator's. The four girls' maturation and specifically Leah, Rachel and Adah's venture into adolescence are important aspects of the story and narration. It is clear that from their father's rigid religious influence, they have grown up in a conservative household, especially in regards to their own gender roles and sexuality. The twins are precocious and intelligent beyond their years however, will not be able to further their education because, according to Nathan, it would be like pouring water into shoes.

In these recent chapters, the girls' gender binary based identities are based on the traditional, get married and create offspring mindset. Orleanna has them create "hope chest" in which the girls create small, feminine crafts to use after they are married. The girls' futures are clear in only one respect, they will get married.

Rachel is enthusiastic about the task, perhaps the most suited to this traditional role of the three adolescent girls. Leah particularly struggles with her parents' hopes that she will get married and, as a tom-boyish, pious, and almost too smart for her own good girl, cannot see a way in which she can fullfil these expectations. In this societal framework, her only other option would be to become a missionary or a member of some religious order. 

The way the Prices and the Kilungans see and react to each other also display differences in their cultural gender roles. We see this primarily through the children as the young girls preform typically female tasks of helping their mothers will cooking or taking care of the children while the boys play games which prepare for them to build and to hunt. The Price women who wear pants are a novel sight for the Kilugans as only their men wear pants. The Prices are equally shocked to see bare-chested women or other forms of bodily exposure.

Book vs Movie

An obvious difference between the novella Heart of Darkness and the movie Apocalypse Now is the change in setting. The movie is based on the premise of the novel though is not an exact movie adaptation and the time period, setting and characters are altered for thematic purposes.

Conrad’s Heart of Darkness is a commentary on European imperialism during the late 1800s and is set in the Belgian Congo while Coppola’s Apocalypse Now is set during the Vietnam War in Vietnam. This is a significant difference between the two, however, despite these large changes, the thematic elements of the two works remain the same. Both examine a sort of western conquest and the brutal nature of war and conquest as well as the obvious futility of the killing. While the natives in the Congo in HOD are killed by overwork, guns and torture, the Vietnamese in Apocalypse are subjected to the warfare of helicopters and bombs. The time periods are different but the effect much the same: the native people are overwhelmed and unable to defend themselves against the senseless killing.

The change in setting for the movie is appropriate and relates to a more recent time period. The similar events and themes draw a parallel between the European imperialism and American foreign policy.

Despite the change in setting, the effect of the unknown jungle is much the same. The Vietnamese setting and the river are similar to the atmosphere in HoD where the soldiers are lost and aimlessly searching for their objective in the mysterious jungle. Also like the Congolese in HoD, the Vietnamese are not well represented as actual characters or people or rather as props. They are easily killed and brushed aside without becoming actual people as the bodies pile up. Both these larger thematic elements serve a larger purpose and remain constant between the two works despite the different time period and setting. Both works achieve similar objectives through slightly different lenses.