Rachel Rebeccah Price

Character Analysis

Miss Malaprop

We thought about writing two pages about Rachel's beautiful hair, because that's what she would do here, but you know what? We're running the show, and there's a lot more to say.

If the oldest Price daughter weren't so funny (both intentionally and un-) she'd be completely unlikeable. This is a girl who, within the first chapter, says things like "took for granite" (1.3.3) and "give up the goat" (1.3.5) and later calls Amnesty International "Damnistry International" (5.5.5). Plus, according to Leah, she's "famous for making things up out of thin air and stating them in a high, knowing tone" (1.9.6). (She must get that from her father.)

But there's a lot of appropriate irony behind all that malaprop-ific ignorance. Like, when she says, "I'm willing to be a philanderist for peace" (3.11.4), she means philanthropist, but we realize about three or four husbands later that she ends up being exactly what she says she'll be.

Uptown Girl Living In Her Wonder Bread World

Rachel's a child of the sixties. She cares about her hair, herself, and her hair, not necessarily in that order. With her "sapphire-blue eyes, white eyelashes, and platinum blonde hair that falls to [her] waist" (1.6.11), she sounds more like the seventh Brady child than someone who's going to adapt well to life in the Congo.

Aaaand, she doesn't. Being the whitest white girl in the Congo, Rachel doesn't really take to anyone of a darker race. Adah says, "My sisters all seemed to determined to fly, or in Rachel's case, to ascend to heaven directly through a superior mind-set" (2.4.7). Rachel thinks she, and the rest of the white race, are totally superior. As an adult, she even looks to South Africa as a model of African race relations. (If you're not sure how problematic this is, watch District 9.)

Rachel is completely oblivious to pretty much everything. Living in South Africa, she says that understanding other cultures is the key to life there: "That is one part of living here. Being understanding of the differences" (5.5.2). This coming from one of the least understanding characters in the book. And her actions at The Equatorial, the hotel she inherits from one of her husbands, are racist at best, repugnant at worst. (More on this hotel on the Symbols page.)

Whose Fault is It Anyway?

Rachel's ignorance, willfully imposed or not, is Rachel's key to survival. She may seem glib and flippant about everything, but there's no denying she's had a hard life. She lived through the plague of hands, a strange non-marriage with creepy Eeben Axelroot, and did everything she could to survive. Plus, we can tell that she's sad about never being able to have children, and just downright afraid to return to America.

Adah says that Rachel has "the emotional complexities of a salt shaker" (5.10.36). Maybe. But if The Poisonwood Bible were a stew, it wouldn't be the same without a pinch of salt.