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Verlyn Klinkenborg Character Analysis

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“He arrives in the Congo in 1959 without any knowledge of the county’s language or the least understanding of the understanding of its culture. He sets out to evangelize his village by insulting its leaders, tries to baptize children in a river he fails to realize is full of crocodiles, and mangles the language so badly he refers to Jesus as ‘poisonwood’, a local plant that causes hives and intense itching.”(Verlyn Klinkenborg 7). Furthermore, he describes Nathan to have effectively “enslaved his household”(Klinkenborg 7) and disciplining his wife into believing any type of misery they suffer is God’s punishment to “failure of virtue”.(Klinkenborg 7). These are only among a few examples are his stupidity throughout the course of the novel.
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