Although in this specific context, the two words have very different meanings,alienation and enrichment both have the power to describe ones life time during a specific event or many built up over time. In Rachel Price's situation from The Poisonwood Bible by Barbara Kingsolver, she is put into both situations. As the drastic move to the Congo from her hometown Georgia begins, Rachel it totally against the idea and wants to go home right from the start. Yet as she seems to settle in and build relationships with the locals, Rachel realizes that Africa truly isn't a bad place to be in. However she is still set on the fact that she wanted to go home and go back to how things used to be and what was normal to her very basic life style. In this situation, Rachel was feeling lost and alienated because she wasn't just in a new place, but in an entirely new country where it wasn't just her surrounding that had changed but the form of communication and the culture as well.
For the beginning months of her stay in Africa, Rachel had made no effort to try and fit into the culture. She felt uncomfortable when all the children began to pull on her hair because it was of a different color when she had been used to her hair being admired in a normal American society. Rachel felt completely lonely in the world without her friends and hoped for her return back home every day. Rachel was more concerned about her materialistic items to bring while packing and thinking about how her sweet sixteenth birthday was going to be at home that she passed up the opportunities to mingle with the locals and refused to even go outside of the house. Growing up in an American society, Rachel was expecting a very elaborate party for her sweet sixteen and was very upset and 'alienated' when she realized that she couldn't blow out any candles or simply have a cake for her birthday and what she had hoped for her party was everything but.
After Rachel had realized that her situation wasn't going to change anytime soon, she had made an effort to change and thus starting kingmaker her stay in Africa a very memorable one. However, Rachel gained a lot of responsibility when her mother and youngest sister got sick and she was now being looked at to put food on the table for herself as well as provide for the family as well. This was the biggest step in opening Rachel's eyes to a new society in that she gained a form a respect and appreciation for what she was lucky enough to have in America. As time elapsed, Rachel was afraid to go home because of what the others may say to her or now perceive her as after she had come back from such a poor area and thus remains in Africa. Although she had relocated to a new area, Rachel was making her own contributions to Africa and was running a very prestigious hotel in which she was very welcoming and thoughtful towards her customers.
As we had learned from Edward Said's quote, alienation can bring enrichment and in Rachel's case it truly did. After she had "dared to begin," Rachel had turned her experience into a very different one than she was exposing herself to when she first arrived. It wasn't until she truly put herself into the culture did she realize that she was the one whom was alienating herself. She was making herself seem different and therefore she was. After she put herself into the culture and realized that it wasn't so bad, Rachel not only was enriched herself, but was beginning to enrich the lives of others as well. Edward Said was simply saying what no one else would. Putting the world into our hands and blaming oneself for the feelings that we may feel.
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