Rachel's Role as Humorist in Kingsolver's the Poisonwood Bible

Rachel Price in Barbara Kingsovler's The Poisonwood Bible serves a similar purpose to that of Malachi in the last books of The Old Testament. Both Rachel and Malachi offer much-needed humor to the solemn world surrounding them.

While Malachi used satire to expose the hypocrisy of the priests at that time, Rachel employs amusing similes to lighten the mood pervading her misguided missionary family in the Congo. In her very first chapter as narrator, the sixteen year old American Rachel makes fun of her misguided father as he preaches to the Congolese: "Into Egypt, he shouted in his rising singsong preaching that goes high and low, then higher and lower, back and forth like a saw ripping into a tree trunk" (p.26). When her father criticized the custom of a shirtless Congolese woman, Rachel humorously observes that "Her big long breasts lay flat on her chest like they'd been pressed down with an iron" (p.27). When his predecessor Brother Fowles doubts Nathan Price's Biblical metaphor about an olive tree, Rachel says "Father just squinted at him, like here was one tree he'd like to make into firewood" (p.252).

Rachel's humor goes beyond the similes in her narrations. She makes allusion to cartoon characters and even compares her preacher father to one of Hollywood's most famous comic actors. "Christianity was like some old picture show that was way out of date. What did that make father ten, Charlie Chaplin waddling around duck-footed, waving his cane and talking without any sounds coming out?" (p.133). She also shows an appreciation for irony that eludes her parents and sisters, such as a warning posted on an African road: "If this sign is under water the road is impassable" (p.480) She alone is amused at the habit of a man named Frank who has a tendency to overuse the word frankly.

Though her sisters do not share her sense of humor, they sometimes appreciate her ability to lighten the gloomy mood caused by their surroundings. Even the straight-laced, often dour Leah admits that "In desperate straits (Rachel) can make us laugh, with her main talent being radio commercials oozed out in a fabulous fashion-model voice" (p.147). The prophets whose books make up The Old testament could likely say the same about Malachi.

Sources:

The Poisonwood Bible, Barbara Kingsolver, Harper Flamingo edition.