Superficial and Growth

Growing up, I believe is when a teenager/ kids realizes something important about herself, people around her or life in general. Usually in coming of age books the main character has a certain behavior that is considered “childish” or immature. The character goes through some type of journey, physically or emotionally and by the end of their journey they realize what it feels like to be an older person. Coming of age/ growing up happens eventually to everyone, it may not happen until that person/ character is in his late teens or it may happen when the person/ character is in his or her early teens. Growing up is when the character realizes he or she needs to change his/her views.

In the book The Poisonwood Bible by Barbara Kingsolver the story is told from 4 different viewpoints. It’s a story about a religious family moving to the Congo to help the people there save them and show them the light of God. The father of the family is a preacher and he wants his family to grow up and be the servers of God, unfortunately the kids think otherwise. The mother is just watching her kids grow up and explore the craziness of the jungles. Their viewpoints are not used in the story but the girls express how they feel their father is reacting/ feeling. The story is told from the viewpoints of the kids, 4 girls. The 4 girls are Leah, Adah, Rachael, and Ruth. Each girl is unique in her own way and each girl handles growing up and moving into a new country differently. There is a set of twins in the family, Leah and Adah but you could hardly tell that they were twins by their different personalities. All the girls grow up by the experiences they have in the Congo.

Rachael is the oldest. People would think she is the most responsible and mentor to the rest of the girls, but not really. The fact is that her sisters and herself know she just cares about superficial stuff. Rachael’s struggle is that she wants to lead a normal teenage life, but how can she if she’s living in the middle of the Congo. Rachael mentions in the beginning of the book how the only thing she’s looking forward to is her birthday party. Her sisters describe her as a rebel because she wants to stray away from church. She paints her nails and wants to be free. As the book moves along she starts to learn how things that are superficial isn’t important they are just that, superficial. There are more important things in life and family than the way you look.

I haven’t finished the book but I am looking forward to seeing Rachael develop. I guess I am more interested in her than the other girls because her issue, her immaturity level is funny, how she only wants a normal teenage life except she can’t have it because of the situations she’s put in. I think in a more complex book like this, it’s important to refer to a character or something the reader notices that is more childish so the reader can focus more on the actual coming of age rather than trying to decipher the next word. I believe Rachael is complex but I also believe that the reason she’s growing up now is because she learning to test her loyalty to her father. If anyone has not read this book I really recommend it J