The Song of the Three Children: New Critic

“But sometimes life doesn’t give you all that many chances at being good. Not here, anyway. Even Father learned that one the hard way. He came on strong, thinking he’d save the children, and what does he do but lose his own? That’s the lesson, right there. If you take a bunch of practically grown, red-blooded daughters to Africa, don’t you think at least some of them are going to marry or what have you, and end up staying? You can’t just sashay into the jungle aiming to change it all over to the Christian style, without expecting the jungle to change you right back” (Kingsolver, 515).

I found this passage very interesting as I was reading the last two chapters of this book. It stuck out in my mind even after I passed it because I felt like it sums up the Price family’s mentality when first arriving in the Congo. This passage is told by Rachel, oddly enough, and it is quite blunt and to the point, which I love. She is basically admitting that her and her family arrived in the Congo expecting to change their surroundings (in her Father’s mind, for the better) and not have their new surroundings change them in the slightest bit. Reflecting back on her time in Kilanga with her family, Rachel now understands that this mentality is completely wrong and untrue. The last three sentences of this passage are the strongest, in my opinion. It shows that Rachel’s mentality now is much more accepting of her surroundings and the impact it has had on her. This is a drastic change from the beginning of the book where all she wanted to do was return to Georgia, never return to Africa and erase every memory she ever made there from her mind.

“If I could reach backward somehow to give Father just one gift, it would be the simple human relief of knowing you’ve done wrong, and living through it. Poor Father, who was just one of a million men who never did catch on. He stamped me with a belief in justice, then drenched me in culpability, and I wouldn’t wish such torment even on a mosquito! But that exciting, tyrannical God of his has left me for good. I don’t know how to name what crept in to take his place. Some kin to the passion of Brother Fowles, I guess, who advised me to trust in Creation, which is made fresh daily and doesn’t suffer in translation. This God does not work in especially mysterious ways” (Kingsolver, 525).

This passage is told from the perspective of Leah, who is now living in Angola with Anatole and their children. I found this passage to be both interesting and significant because it shows that Nathan Price essentially destroyed Leah’s relationship with God. By pressing the Word on her for so many years, and treating his family the way he did, it completely turned Leah off from ever choosing to worship God on her own. Leah’s view on her Father did a complete 180 from the beginning of the book until this point. As we read, Leah used to worship her Father and wanted to grow to be just like him. But after realizing her Father’s true character, Leah wanted to be nothing him. In this passage Leah states that her Father drenched her in a heavy guilt and for that, it doesn’t seem as though she could ever forgive him. This is probably part of the reason why her belief in God is no longer there. God and the Word are both relationships tainted by the memory of her Father. Leah now believes in The Creation, the religion of Africa’s common people. This religion doesn’t change from day to day and it is predictable. I think that because Leah is now living in Africa leading the life she is, this is a much more suitable religion that she can believe in. It is a stable, never-changing relationship with nature.