The Poisonwood Bible Analysis

individuality. “ Swallowed by Nathan’s mission, body and soul. Occupied as if by a foreign

Throughout the novel, Nathan exhibits cruelty towards his family and the villagers. Cruelty is a direct antonym of Love. Looking back to the Bible, Paul states in a letter to the: “And now these three remain: faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is love ( New International Version, 1 Corinthians 13:13).” While Nathan may be spreading faith and hope, because of his cruelty, he is certainly not showing love, which according to scripture is the most important. Instead of loving his wife Orleanna, Nathan rebukes her many times for no reason and even acts out in physical cruelty by roughly batting Orleanna away as she tried to nurse his wounds. Nathan’s actions are again hypocritical and go directly against the Bible says. Paul, in another letter, writes “Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her.” (Ephesians 5:25). Ultimately Nathan is not able to convince any of the villagers to be baptized because he has not showed love and therefore not God to them. John, another apostle, states to a church that is struggling with false prophets: “Whoever does not love does not know God, because God is love”(1 John 4:8). One may conclude from these verses that even though Nathan Price may have some knowledge of the Bible, he truly does not know God,

The novels The Awakening, written by Kate Chopin, and The Poisonwood Bible, written by Barbara Kingsolver, both contain a female protagonist who strives to shine light on women’s society and demonstrates how women should be treated. These two women, Edna Pontellier in The Awakening and Orleanna Price in The Poisonwood Bible, live in two separate worlds but stumble upon the same ceiling. Although Edna is a wealthy homeowner living in New Orleans and Orleanna is a missionary from a poor and trying culture of Kilanga, they both seek the same independence. Their husbands treat them as property, which was the custom at the time. These women were growing tired of their old lives

In The Poisonwood Bible, the novel opens with a narrative instruction, and it has an effect on the reader in one main way. The directive is meant to make the reader put him/herself in the setting of the story, and read it as if you are in the novel. In the opening paragraph, it tells us, “I want you to be its conscience, the eyes in the trees,” which is telling the reader to read the novel as if you are there (Kingsolver 5). This suggests about the novel that the Price family is going to do missionary work in Africa, and there are going to be events that occur to show what happens when they go to Africa. When Orleanna continues her narration, the “you” that she is speaking to appears to be the God that she believes in. Orleanna states, “Your bright eyes bear down on me without cease,” which shows that she is talking to someone from above (Kingsolver 7). The great disasters that Orleanna alludes is when her and her family do missionary work in Africa. The reason why she is telling the story looking back on Africa and the girls tell it as if it is happening is because they both have different perspectives on the whole situation. Orleanna is talking about something that she has experienced while she was in Africa, and the girls talk about stuff that happens in their everyday lives. Orleanna is talking about the whole trip at one time, while the girls take it step by step.

His arguments with Brother Fowles showed Nathan to be upset at the success he had with the people there. We see this determination in Nathan to show Fowles and everyone else that he can go above and beyond what he has done there. Since we never hear from Nathan’s perspective, we cannot really determine whether or not he ever just wanted to be right. This mystery can make Nathan’s character be analyzed in two different ways. Was he a truly religious man who wanted the best for everyone or did he just want to show society he was right? I believe he was both of them. Nathan truly wanted to save these people as we seen after Ruth May’s death. After realizing that she would have to spend an eternity in hell, he hoped to possibly save every other Congolese child from this suffering. But then again we see this extreme force with his actions and no remorse in what he does. At one point he sends children across the water and they all die from crocodiles. I think Nathan was mad in to be this complex character because he is a representation of so many things. Nathan helps develop so many of the thematic concepts of the novel and leaving his character open like this helps develop them more clearly. Not getting into his head makes people assume he is a bad guy. He potentially wants to help the people and should not assume that all his intentions are

reality and Nathan was exiled from his mind. It is said that post-traumatic stress disorder has

Nathan Price’s real goal for going to the Congo was to baptize all the villagers in the area. This, however, was relentlessly being opposed by many villagers because of the incident where a crocodile ate a young girl in the same river Nathan was going to baptize the people in. Although opposed, Nathan remained unwavering in his goals. This causes many villagers to hate him and change their opinion of him, his family, and

It is unfortunate how often we hear about a disaster occurring in Africa. From civil wars in Somalia and Congo, famine in Yemen and viruses spreading through Liberia, people associate Africa as being chaotic, violent, corrupt, and incredibly poor to the point many Americans still believe animals freely roam in the cities. Naturally, many people and organizations feel the need to bring order and peace to the continent, by policing it, spreading the word of God among the natives, or provide resources such as food, water, or money. However, most people never take the time to learn of African culture and traditions, or understand that some Africans are content with what they have and how things work. We label them as being poor because they do not match our preconceptions of happiness, as we believe living comfortably with others leads to happiness.

Barbara Kingsolver uses green space to show the difference in culture between the American culture and the African culture. “Baza? he repeated, pointing at me. He delicately touched my forehead and recoiled, as if my skin might burn him. Any woman who has baza should take the two babies to the forest after they are born and leave them there” (211). The Poisonwood Bible is a story about a missionary family that travels to Africa to spread their religion. However upon arrival they are shocked to see the drastic difference between them and the natives. Throughout the book, the Price family deals with the cultural norms of Kilanga while trying to keep the family stable. The Price family life in Africa leads to a dangerous spiral of unfortunate

Nathan Price was the sole survivor in his battalion in the Bataan Death March and received a Purple Heart for his bravery. However these horrific events have shaped Nathan as the man he is today. His life 's purpose since has been to save all souls that he encounters. In Nathan 's mind the way to do this is through his God. Nathan 's past also means that he is relentless in the thought that he will never shy away from a

Nathan, an narrator, has a character’s personality trait which is being helpful and this trait helps him learn the theme, helping will reward you. For example, Nathan, an main character

This is another example of her bitterness because she is so upset with Nathan that she thinks it is appropriate to compare Nathan to a devil. The way she speaks of him leads the reader to believe she has nothing but hatred for the

family is fighting for independence from their father, Nathan Price. Nathan is the reason for most

Nathan is very one mindset and prideful character in the book and nothing will ever change

The movie illustrates what I think are two major problematic personalities we will have to deal with in the development of AI. One illustrated by Nathan, the archetype of the power hungry egotistical developer. The other archetype illustrated by Caleb, the eager good intentioned, yet impulsive and uninitiated. The former providing the most obvious of dangerous personalities. Nathans consumption of god like feelings and sloppiness with control is clearly presented throughout the movie, thus leading to the deadly conclusion to Nathans story. Which is what I feel we see in history and countless stories throughout time in regards to glutinous, sloppy, power hungry leaders and