Nathan Price is a fanatical Baptist minister who spends his life turning eyes of the unsuspecting towards a pious lifestyle of Christianity. In order to further extend his influence of missionary work, he takes his wife Orleanna and four daughters, Rachel, twins Leah and Adah, and Ruth May, to the Congo where his once deemed heroism is slowly revealed as cowardice. In The Poisonwood Bible by Barbara Kingsolver, Nathan Price lives by a stringent moral code that reveals both Nathan’s and the United States’ hostile attempt at westernizing the Congo. The missionary trip that was supposed to save African souls was only a mere guise; Nathan’s underlying intentions were to bring his own soul into salvation. In doing so, he endangers himself and his …show more content…
Tata Kuvudundu is “a respected nganga, a priest of the traditions,” someone “who people put their trust in” (131, 130). Nathan degrades Tata Kuvudundu’s title by calling him a “town drunk” and “a witch doctor” and tells his children he “conducts the sin of false prophecy” because Tata Kuvudundu leads his religious practices in a way that’s foreign to Nathan (131). Instead of trying to understand the different form of worship, he immediately dismisses it and its significance to the villagers. The Congolese believe owls visit people’s homes to eat one’s soul and that green mambas are evil signs sent as a warning. Nathan regards these superstitions as foolish, insisting Nelson, their house boy, still sleep outside in the chicken coop after finding a snake in there. He regards Nelson’s fear as merely “the unfortunate effect of believing in false idols” (357). In his mind, any African beliefs or the beliefs of those “consorting with the inhabitants of the land” are inane and trivial (38). When Brother Fowles, a previous missionary who married an African woman, attempts to discuss Christianity with Nathan by pointing out the Bible is not as black-and-white as it seems. After losing the “battle of the Bible verses,” Nathan makes sure Brother Fowles “[gets] the picture [his family] isn’t welcome in his house” (253). “[Nathan] never did give up ship” when trying to overturn Congo’s customs and substitute them with an Americanized version