118 pages • 3 hours read
Barbara KingsolverThe Poisonwood Bible
Fiction | Novel | Adult | Published in 1998A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more. For select classroom titles, we also provide Teaching Guides with discussion and quiz questions to prompt student engagement.
Book 7Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Book 7 Summary: “The Eyes in the Trees”
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The spirit of Ruth May declares, “I am muntu Africa, muntu one child and a million all lost on the same day” (537). She explains that death is not worse than life, but she has a “larger view.” She describes the journey to the picnic outlined in Orleanna’s memory in Book 1. She also explains that every life affects other lives in profound, but unknowable ways.
She observes her mother and sisters on their reunion trip, ostensibly to find Ruth May’s grave and say goodbye, but actually to say goodbye to Orleanna. They intended to find Ruth May’s grave so that Orleanna can leave a marker on it. Unfortunately, they cannot make the journey, as Zaire has descended into war once more. Mobutu dies of cancer, having fled. After his death, there is a moment of pregnant silence just as there was after Ruth May’s. The women are in the marketplace and find a woman from Bulungu. Orleanna buys wooden elephants for Leah’s grandchildren and is given an okapi carving as a gift. The family is disturbed to learn that the woman claims there is no village called Kilanga—there is only jungle south of Bulungu.
Ruth May’s spirit forgives her mother and encourages her to forgive herself and move on:
You are afraid you might forget, but you never will. You will forgive and remember. Think of the vine that curls from the small square plot that was once my heart. That is the only marker you need. Move on. Walk forward into the light (543).
Book 7 Analysis
Book 7 closes the story with a sense of symmetry and parallelism, referencing the picnic which Orleanna first described in Book 1. The foreshadowing of Ruth May’s desire to look down upon the world, omniscient and at peace, is realized by her spirit, which is now part of muntu, looking down at her mother and understanding her thoughts as she had once imagined.
The family’s inability to find Ruth May’s grave highlights the theme of moving forward, emphasizing that one can never truly go back into the past. This point is made clear by the fact that time has changed not only the political landscape of Zaire, but also the physical one: the jungle has swallowed up the land that once was the village of Kilanga. Further, all memory of it, at least according to the woman from Bulungu, is no more.
Ruth May’s last message of forgiveness and peace serves as the conclusion of the story. She instructs her mother to forgive herself so that she might move on. Ruth May states that she does not need a grave marker since she is now muntu. Orleanna does not truly need Ruth May’s forgiveness (which is also given), but rather needs her own. Whether Orleanna is able to forgive herself and find closure without finding the grave is unknown. However, this moment conveys the message that the type of closure she seeks is something that she cannot find externally, but something she must choose to give herself.
Ruth May’s instruction for her mother to “step forward into the light” also echoes her father’s instructions to the children he baptized after her death (543). Baptism is traditionally meant to wash away the burden of original sin so that a person might be reborn in Christ, allowing them to leave the sins of their past behind and start anew in God’s grace. By drawing this parallel, Ruth May invites her mother to wash away her guilt and be reborn that she might start anew in the light of forgiveness.
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