The feeling of betrayal plays a key role in the choices that we, as humans, make to better our circumstances for both the present and the future. We can use our emotions to drive our actions to be both powerful and cowardice. Whether we use our emotions to provoke us to ‘fight back’ or we use them to be unresponsive to the situation, our emotions encourage and enforce ourselves to make choices to be represented in our actions. The emotion of betrayal is evident throughout the movie Hotel Rwanda and the book Poisonwood Bible. Through these mediums, we can conclude that betrayal plays a key role in our psyche and the choices that we make under that psyche.
Nearly every character in Poisonwood Bible feels betrayed at one point or another, but we first understand betrayal through the Mother Orleanna’s eyes. Orleanna feels betrayed throughout her marriage because of the harsh circumstances and lack of choice that her husband allows her to have. Barbara Kingsolver portrays this when she writes “I was occupied so entirely by each day, I felt detached from anything so large as a month or a year. History didn’t cross my mind. Now i know, whatever your burdens, to hold yourself apart from the lot of more powerful men is an illusion. [...] On the wings of an owl the fallen Congo came to haunt even our little family, we messengers of goodwill adrift on a sea of mistaken intentions.” (p. 323) Orleanna is describing her hatred towards the circumstances that she was involved with during her time in the Congo. She followed her husband into his pursuit of spreading the word of the Lord only to be met with an awful time which she wasn’t experiencing vivid emotions. Rachel Kingsolver then goes on to add “Strange to say, when it came I felt as if I’d been waiting for it my whole married life. Waiting for that ax to fall so I could walk away with no forgiveness in my heart.” (p. 323) Orleanna is yet again improving her argument that she was ‘chained’ into her relationship with Nathan and that there was never symbiosis between the two. The relationship was not beneficial to Orleanna and Nathan’s implied mandate to move to the Congo against the wishes of his family portrays betrayal in the eyes of Orleanna.
Orleanna recognizes this betrayal earlier in the The Poisonwood Bible and she makes an effort to adapt her wishes and actions to better meet the new needs of her family. Barbara Kingsolver makes this evident when she writes “And where was I, the girl or woman called Orleanna, as we traveled those roads and crossed the lines again and again? Swallowed by Nathan’s mission, body and soul. Occupied as if by a foreign power. [...] every cell of me was married to Nathan’s plan. His magnificent will. [...] I tried hard to do what I believed a wife ought, things like washing white shirts and black sock separately in rooming-house sinks. Making meal after meal of fried corn mush.[...] I was lodged in the heart of darkness, so thoroughly bent to the shape of marriage I could hardly see any other way to stand.” (p. 199) Orleanna wanted out of her marriage early on, but was unable to do this because of Nathan’s desires. Throughout Orleanna’s chapters in the book, we understand that she was hoping that Nathan would change in order to accommodate for her wishes. Because this never happened, Orleanna felt alone in her marriage. The relationship consisted too heavily on Nathan and not enough on Orleanna. This deteriorated the trust between the two causing feelings of betrayal.
Feelings of betrayal in the case of Orleanna and Nathan were onset by the two holding separate aspirations and desires. Orleanna was putting time and effort into the relationship and was expecting Nathan to provide for her in the future. Of course, this did not occur. Instead, Nathan continued to solely look for the support of his family without giving them the time to achieve the success that they wished to experience. In an article called The Sting (and thrill) of Betrayal published by Psychology Today, Joachim I Krueger writes “When people trust, they bank on reciprocity, betting that its force will be stronger than the force of selfishness—with a sufficiently high probability. If reciprocity were assured, there would be no trust dilemma.” In this, Krueger is suggesting that with each action that somebody in a relationship will pursue, the other person will receive some kind of ‘payback’. By the other person pursuing a personal aspiration, it requires that the relationship between the two is not always going to be the top priority. When the other person is not allowed to pursue their own aspirations or to be rewarded in some other way for their patience, the feeling of trust is broken, leading to the feelings of betrayal.
Betrayal leads to withdrawal and regression as seen in Orleanna’s experiences in the Congo. In the article The Sting (and thrill) of Betrayal, Krueger moves on to compare repetitive negative or positive experiences that eventually lead to a middle ground of mediocrity. “If [...] your first visit to La Cucina is delightful, you will come back for more. What you miss is the regression effect. [...] Few things are consistently terrific or terrible. As you go on to sample La Cucina's cooking, you will notice that on average your delight is not quite as intense as it was on the first day. If you now average your impressions [...], the result is more negative than it would be had you continued to sample both places.” Krueger is demonstrating that as we experience the same feelings over and over again, we become numb to the experience. Instead of something providing us with pleasure, it is just a normal experience that carries little emotional value. This is evident in The Poisonwood Bible as Orleanna continually suggests her lack of emotion and efforts in the Congo.
We understand that throughout Orleanna’s experiences throughout the Congo, she experienced feelings of betrayal onset by her husband's actions. Psychologically, her overwhelmingly negative experiences in both her relationship and her time spent in the Congo, forced her to withdraw from any kind of activity that would make her feel personable. This was represented throughout her insights in The Poisonwood Bible. Lack of trust, commitment, and compromise directly leads to feelings of betrayal, just like it did for Orleanna.
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