The Poisonwood Bible - Relationships

Explore the ideas that texts construct ways of seeing the world which support and/or challenge particular values, attitudes or beliefs with reference to Kill To Eat

The purposes of texts are to produce or represent the idea of the writer. While reading texts now days we as the readers are challenged to accept the ideas portrayed by the writer or either reject them. We are influenced by the particular values, attitudes or beliefs that we the readers may value. As you can observe text may also construct the different ways of seeing the world. For instance many believe that the text Kill To Eat by Oodgeroo Noonuccal represents the value of siblings loyalty, equality in family treatment and the strong value of Aboriginal culture. As many based on their particular values, attitudes and beliefs may completely disagree and say that it's about the stupidity of Aboriginal people making life hard for themselves etc.

Kill To Eat is a short story based on the adventure of three Aboriginal children and their hunting journey encountering difficulties such as breaking the sacred Aboriginal hunting law " When we are hunting we must understand that our weapons were to be used only for the gathering of food. We must never use them for the sake of killing" And the loyalty of the siblings that were presented as none of them informed the elders (father) about what had happened.

Kill To Eat portrays a main theme of sibling loyalty. This was presented at the beginning of the text where one of the eldest children had purposely killed the kookaburra, when he did this he had broken the sacred Aboriginal law on hunting ("You must not kill for the sake of killing, and that your weapons are to be only used to gather food"). According to the Aboriginal culture Kookaburras are not to be eaten as their merry laughter's bring happiness to the Aboriginal tribes. They are to be treated with respect as they are the brothers and friends of the Aboriginal people. Their sibling loyalty defiantly supports their Aboriginal values and beliefs as they are taught to treat each other with respect and be trustworthy with one another. This alerts the readers of Kill To Eat to be conscious of the importance of sibling loyalty