Ruth May's Significance

Take a moment to picture a loving family eroding away into chaos and having their lives forever changed for the worse; seems kind of unrealistic, doesn’t it? Well that’s exactly what happened in the tragic tale the Poisonwood Bible by Barbara Kingsolver; an innocent family spirals into a dark abyss of pain, loss, and finally separation. They moved to the Congo on a mission to persuade the natives into following their beliefs; what they didn’t count on was the difficulties they’d encounter in order to achieve their goal. But what on Earth could cause a family to fall into such ruins? I answer with only two words: Ruth May.

            Ruth May is one of four daughters of Nathan and Orleanna Price. She is a quiet and soft-spoken young woman who’s trying to adjust to the sudden change both environmentally and spiritually.  She doesn’t directly play a role in her family’s deterioration but she still has a major effect because even the deaths of people not well known can still cause a dramatic change. For example, the quote, “The life of the dead is placed in the memory of the living” by Marcus Tullius Cicero, expounds upon my view. It’s meaning can be interpreted as but not limited to the point that the death of Ruth May haunted her family because after she died. They realized how important she had been.

            Another quote that helps my view is as follows: ”Love and death are the two great hinges on which all human sympathies turn.” This quote by B. R. Hayden lets us know that death has a profound effect on the living and can cause strange emotions to lead to even stranger reactions, like causing a family to splinter and go their separate ways, perhaps. I’ll leave it at that. After Ruth May’s death, her family probably felt like they were missing an important part of themselves and decided that the best way to deal with change is to change as well in order to counteract the effects.

            In all, Ruth May’s death is very significant in The Poisonwood Bible. Her end is the catalyst that causes the Price family to alter their life styles and head into the future without looking back at the past. Her sisters decided to split and go their own ways, one staying in the Congo to continue to help the inhabitants, and the others along with their mom returning to America to continue their lives the way they were before they left. In closing, the demise of one is the demise of all.