Moving to a different country is difficult enough but moving to Congo with the intention to convert the illiterate locals to a new religion takes immense dedication and patience. Nathan Price an opinionated, evangelical, Baptist from the town of Bethlehem, Georgia brings his family of six to do just that. Nathan, his wife, and his four daughters are located at Kilanga an isolated village in Congo. Nathan is very confident that he will convert all the locals in the name of God but he is forgetting something, Nathan is forgetting that he is in a place where not just the language is different but also the inherent perspectives.
The story of The Poisonwood Bible starts with the frantic commotion of the Price family after they have just been told that there is a wieght limit for their bags which are overflowing with seemingly essential pieces of their once known life. It seems as if the reason the Price family insisted on stuffing cake mixes, books and other western novelties was not to have them in case but to have some connection with the world they grew up in. For Orleanna, Nathan's wife, her special bone-china platter with the blue flowers has a “protective power of primitive amulets and charms, that is an assurance that the arrow, the flames, and the flood are not as brutal as they seem.” (The Hero with a Thousand Faces, p107). …show more content…
Nathan still pursues his goal of the major conversion of the village and is told indirectly by the village leader that what he is doing is not acceptable. Nathan struggles to come to terms with the fact that most of these people have a deep belief in their current religion and can’t quite wrap his head around the idea of following any other religion, which further exemplifies the zealot in