Rachel Burrell
Hanson
English II
May 20, 2016
The Poisonwood Bible
Faith can be lost throughout time. In The Poisonwood Bible, this proves to be true especially in the case with Adah, Leah and their father, Nathan Price. Adah and Leah, two reliable narrators, both end the novel believing their father to be unprincipled, thus dramatically shaping the tone of the novel regarding Nathan Price. Adah starts the novel skeptical of her father and she observes his arrogance towards others, while Leah admires Nathan Price. Throughout the novel Leah Price’s perspective on Nathan Price changes, in the beginning of the book she “covet[s] the delicious weight of goodness”(37). As the novel goes on and Leah gets older her perspective of her father changes to “a wall of anger pushes [her] in a different direction, roaring that [she] must leave Father behind me” (435). When Adah brings up Nathan Price, she refers to him as “Our Father”(32), noting that the beginning letters are capitalized which makes the reader see Nathan Price as above himself. In Matthew 6:9 of the Bible, the beginning of the bible verse is “Our Father” referring to God.
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Leah even compares her father to Jesus, saying “He has been singled out for a life of trial, as Jesus was”(41). When Leah says this it shows how much she looks up to Nathan and how great she thinks he is. Nathan had a different impact on Adah and Leah in the beginning of the story, this impact made Leah have strong faith in God when she wanted to think like her father and Nathan is one of the reasons Adah turns against God. They were never allowed to formulate their own opinions and if they tried, they would be It allows the reader to question if they even had faith in a higher spirit at