Essay #1

Home is where the heart is and when it is ripped from you at birth you find that you are always the outcast and you never fully feel you fit in. In the case of  Adah in The Poisonwood Bible by Barbra Kingsolver this is very much her story. As a baby growing in the womb of her mother, she was first set with enormous disadvantages in comparison to her siblings Rachel, Ruth May, and twin sister Leah. In the early stages of her life she was contained within herself remaining mute under will and clearly a prison to her own body's limitations. However, the literary theorist Edward Said says that excile is "potent, even enrichig," and in Adah's life she choses to do just this, to enrich, by maintaining communication and finding a more welcoming place within Africa where nobody is remotely perfect, all with deformities of their own kind. The acceptance she feels in the Congo leads her back at the end of the novel where she remains for the rest of her life. The novel fully gains from the presence of Adah by giving an almost outside view on what is happening within her family and how she struggles with herself throughout the piece.

Adah's personal experience with alienation within her person exile is tormenting to her in she never fully escapes. This character, unlike the rest of her family isn't big on the idea of religion or the belief in God because of her deformity in that she blames others for her struggles within herself. She remains in exile within herself due to feelings of rejection and abandonment. In the novel an ant colony ransacks the entire village, with everyone screaming and running, however Adah can't run. In this instant, Orleanna, Adah's mother has to choose between Adah and Ruth May the youngest to take. Within the struggle Orleanna chooses Ruth. The situation is important in Adah's exile to realize there needs to be a change. She finnaly feels that she shouldn't be left behind and she has to work to be a part of something grander than herself. The feeling of abandonment is enriching in Adah's life because she changes for the greater good due to her severe struggles in her life.

In enriching her life Adah finds she does want to go to college even though it was always against her Father Nathan Price's wishes. She realizes after her struggles that she has to move away from her family to relieve her exile and self imprisonment. In doing so Adah gets herself into a Medical school and learns to speak noramlly. While in school she reaches another step in her freedom in trying to relearn to walk correctly. However she finnaly reaches her furthest step away from her exile when she moves to fulfil her goals of helping the less priviledged in Africa. She finds that through her struggles that she can help the less fortunate with her understanding capabliities. As Adah goes through her life she never forgets how she was treated or felt during her exile years and sometimes misses being maintained within herself. Yet she finds the "enriching" substances of her early years to become her reasons to be the better Adah she is in the end of the novel.

Adah makes the novel because she speaks of not only herself, but of everything around her in different perspectives. She adds enhancements by her struggles and internal imprisonment that makes her an exile to her own family. Nevertheless she pushes through her struggles and ends the book making others with similar issues to herslef better in places that need it the most. She uses the meaning of "potent, even enrichig" by Edward Said to reflect her immense changes and embraces of who Adah really was and who she has become.