The Poisonwood Bible Character Analysis

As Nathan was treated poorly throughout the story I really saw him forgive his wife time and time again throughout the book. After the death of Nathan and Ruth’s daughter Ariel their relationship was tested to the max. Ruth would isolate herself from her husband and she almost despised him for not being upset with the Lord. Ruth could not accept how Nathan turned to God because she blamed God for all of this. While Nathan was being ignored, looked as bad, or just despised by his wife, he did not fold in and say whatever I give up. Nathan had an understanding and forgiving mindset he understood why his wife felt like this. Nathan forgave his wife while she was in the progress of despises him. Nathan never acted this way towards her, he simply turned the other cheek. Nathan showed a great will power by being able to forgive his wife so easily. This spoke volumes because he simply lived his life in a forgiving manner. As Nathan showed his faith and forgiveness through the story I saw a true man of God. Nathan lived in such a way where he could forgive people for the things they did and this was because of how strong he was in his faith. Living a life like Nathan means to live a life for God. A true man of God allowed for Nathan to live a very purposeful life.

Nathan Price faces many levels of exile before they even begin the move to the Congo. First he

Acts Of Vampires: Fosters; How to Read Literature Like a Professor, Nice To Eat You: Acts Of Vampires, explains the concept of vampirism not as the actual act of biting and consuming a person's life force, but as the destruction of innocence in regards only to personal desire. Foster says “the essentials of the vampire story [include]... an older figure representing corrupt, outworn values; a young.. female; a stripping away of her youth” (Foster 19). Nathan, in The Poisonwood Bible, is displayed as the older figure representing corrupt, outworn values who refused to respect the autonomy of others and focusses on his personal desires over the needs of others. This is first displayed in Nathan's introduction speech after the dinner during their

Father to the Price family, Nathan Price emerged his family into this mission in the hopes to spread religion to Congo. He chose to endanger his family in the hopes that he would be able to affect the religion of everyone he influenced. Similar to Rachel, Nathan also represents western ideals influencing Congo. Nathan believed that an education for women was a waste. "Sending a girl to college is like pouring water in your shoes. [...] It's hard to say which is worse, seeing it run out and waste the water, or seeing it hold in and wreck the shoes." This proves that Nathan Price was sexism towards his family was driven by his belief of Christianity. Throughout the book Nathan represents the Christianity in America in the sixties.

Nathan Price struggles with survivor's guilt from WWII. This grief weighs him down, and it not only causes him to be hard on himself personally, it causes him to be hard on his wife and four daughters. He sees himself as a coward, however, in order to hide how he truly views himself, he shows himself off as brave and strong. In reality, Nathan is a coward for hiding himself behind God, and a selfish man for not letting himself commiserate with others. Along with trying to make himself seem like something he is not, he convinces himself that he is going to save the souls of the Congolese people using God’s power. In reality, he is just trying to save his spot in Heaven since he is so guilty about not dying in WWII. Nathan Price has a certain moral code and if anyone, including his family, disobeys it, he believes they should then be punished by God. He also thinks that God will frown upon any actions that are not centered on God. For example, Nathan does not even take the time to love his own wife and daughters. "Father would sooner watch us all perish one by one than listening to anybody but himself"

Throughout the whole novel, Mr. Price acts very selfishly. The stressful move to Africa did not relieve his self-centered ways. He moved his family across the Atlantic Ocean and into a very different lifestyle than the one in which they had currently been living. This was a very conceited act. Not only is Nathan greedy, he is also stubborn as a mule. “It’s hard to imagine a mortal man more unwilling to change his course than Nathan Price” (Page 96). This is a problem for the entire family. His headstrong personality puts his family in a lot of situations they would have liked to avoid. The women in his life always seem to be the last thing on his mind. Whether it is the fact that he embarasses them or puts them in danger, it does not seem to matter to him.

No one shows the oppression, inflicted upon the Congo’s people in hope of spreading imperialism, better than the main characters in this story. Nathans only goal is to convert all of the native people’s beliefs to Christianity. By hoping to doing this, they will be able to grasp control and establish their dominance upon the village. This can be seen through Orleannas thoughts, “Call it oppression, complicity stupefaction, call it what you’d like, it doesn’t matter. Africa swallowed the conqueror’s music and sang a new song of her own” (Kingsolver 385). Kingsolver shows that individuals are always going to want and demand control, however the victims of this oppression will fight past it and won’t give in. Many people have come before the Price family, trying to do the same thing. However, the natives are smarter than to give into their new ideologies.

explains what it was like before she stopped listening to Nathan: “Feared Him, loved Him,

As Mathew 6:1 states, “Be careful not to do your ‘acts of righteousness’ before men, to be seen by them. If you do, you will have no reward from your Father in heaven,” Nathan Price, is very hypocritical as he does his good deeds to be noticed, while Orleanna does them out of faith and moral righteousness.

As once stated by Abraham Lincoln, “nearly all men can stand adversity, but if you want to test a man’s character, give him power.” In Barbara Kingsolver’s, The Poisonwood Bible, the static character, Nathan Price, is constantly attempting to exert power over other individuals, under the justification of his “beliefs.” Primarily, he believes that, since he is a Southern-Baptist, male, white preacher, he is dominant over both women and African-Americans. His desire for power leads to immense stubbornness on his behalf and immense animosity aimed at him by the women in his family and the African-Americans of the Belgian Congos. Throughout the course of Barbara Kingsolver’s novel, The Poisonwood Bible, Nathan Price’s stubborn and hypocritical attitude is demonstrated, as he incessantly desires to gain power over women and African-Americans, while validating his own

The reason why Nathan and Leah have this conflict is because of Nathan’s narrow-mindedness and lack of self awareness. The main purpose of The Poisonwood Bible is to show how different people deal with guilt. Nathan however has no guilt, and this is the source of many conflicts with Leah. Nathan has no self-awareness. When he does something he never thinks of his family, he only thinks

Nathan sees his wife children as burdens, rather than gifts. A child is supposed to be your pride and joy and Nathan does not see this. He is more of a ruler than a father. Orleanna even

Nathan Price, the only man in the family, takes his gender to his advantage and demands respect from women around him in his household. He uses the bible to support his stances and even teaches his daughters at a young age their future places in society. Rachel, however, has a strong personality and never sides with his actions or reasoning. Later on in the novel, she divorces herself from any sense of responsibility for situations she

It wasn’t until Nathan started going to W.E. Waters when his views changed on his priorities. Being around his “own people” distracted him from seeing what his true goal in life was. Now, instead of focusing on his education, he instead focused on the latest trends and worried about fitting into the social scene believing that he “had to work on getting [his]

The name Nathan in Hebrew means “to give” and this can be seen as “to give life to”, or “the giver of life” which would be a good way to characterize Nathan because he is creating new life in the form of artificial intelligent people. Nathan is asked by Caleb in the film “Why did you make Ava?” and Nathan’s response was “Why wouldn’t you if you could?”. This is important to the film because it shows Nathan’s power as an inventor to create whatever he wants, and creating Ava was a means to show off his ability. This can be related to the Bible in which we may ask “Why did God create us?”. But the difference is that God did not create us to show off his abilities, he created us to love and do his work on earth. Nathan created Ava simply because he could do so, not out of love or motivation to create a better world. Nathan starts to view himself as a higher power as the film goes along and he says to Caleb, “You know, I wrote down that other line you came up with. The one about how if I've invented a machine with consciousness, I'm not a man, I'm a God”. As the film goes along Nathan starts to consider himself a God, without Caleb or Ava thinking of him like that, and in ancient scripture and throughout history when someone viewed themselves as a God it foreshadowed a bad ending for them. The audience starts to see Nathan change as the experiment continues on and start to treat Caleb as his pet or less of a