ESSAY #1

            It is often stated that in order to progress humans must undergo some form of struggle. Whether it’s the burning feeling in your lungs after running to get in shape, or studying and trying to learn material before a test, humans struggle in order to improve. When Edward Said states that exile can be a “potent, even enriching” experience he is referring to the human tendency to struggle in order to improve. This struggle through exile can be exemplified through the young girl Leah in the novel The Poisonwood Bible by Barbra Kingsolver, and the process of her maturing in her exile from her homeland in the unfamiliar Congo. As Said states, Leah’s experience with exile is both “alienating and enriching.”

            In the beginning of the novel, Leah has a very close relationship with her father, perhaps the closest of all the Price children. She listened the ideas of Christianity her father preached and followed them unquestioningly. While exiled from her homeland in the US with the strong Christian following, Leah slowly but surely opened up to the ideas of the local people seeing the “evil” in her father and the beliefs he was trying to force upon the people. By the end of the novel she despised her father and his ideas. This clearly demonstrates how exile both alienates and enriches the individual. The deteriorating relationship with her father and her home religion shows her becoming alienated with her homeland, however it shows her accepting other ideas instead of rigidly sticking to previous ideas thus enriching her.

            So thorough were the local ideas of the Congolese accepted by Leah, that she decided to stay there permanently. When Leah’s mother decides to take the girls away from the village and try to get them back to the US, she finds herself in love with not only a man but the Congo itself, deciding never to leave. This demonstrates complete alienation from her homeland. Her decision to remain in the Congo reflects the “unhealable rift” referred to by Said. It is however important to note that Said mentions that this rift is caused when one leaves their “true home” and Leah may have found her true home in the Congo and would experience “essential sadness” if she left the Congo. With that in mind, it is apparent that Leah’s experience in the Congo was enriching in that she accepted ideas previously alien to her, and may have even found her “true home.”

            Leah went through a great struggle with her experience in the Congo, a struggle that lead her to be both alienated from her homeland and enriched as a person. Edward Said’s noting that exile from ones homeland creates an “essential sadness” but is an enriching experience is greatly exemplified in the novel The Poisonwood Bible  by Barbra Kingsolver through the growth of the character Leah, who grew enormously from her experience and became alienated from her homeland and home ideas.