Nathan Price is characterized as selfish and unaccountable, blinded by his faith and closed-mindedness. He sees helping the Congolese people as only for his own salvation and is unwilling to accept their culture. He shows he does not care about his daughters and drowns a child in a misguided baptism. Orleanna is initially submissive to Nathan but also prescient, as she wants to leave due to foreseeable dangers. She is suppressed by society after their experiences. Leah is tomboyish, intelligent, and courageous as she takes on tasks usually reserved for men and openly disobeys her father. Adah is faithless and cynical towards the God she

2. Characterization
in the
Poisonwood Bible
Ben Blumenberg
Charlie Buehler
Samarpan Rajan
Tapasya Surti

3. Nathan Price
Selfish and Unaccountable
Blinded by Faith and Closed-Minded
Monstrous

4. Selfish and Unaccountable
“Nathan’s company died, to the man, on the Death March from
Bataan…. His first words to me were to speak of how fiercely he
felt the eye of God upon him.”
“I am the messenger of God’s great good.”
The only reason he wants to help these people is for his own
salvation.

5. Blinded by Faith
and Closed-Minded
Brother Fowles: “[The Natives] are very humble about their debts
to nature.”
Nathan Price: “Hymns to their pagan gods and false idols?”
Closed-Minded Nathan is unwilling to accept the Natives’
culture.
When Nathan notes that he hears rifle shots frequently near
Kilanga, the doctor says, “Lord help us.” Nathan replies, “Why, the
Lord will help us!”
He is unworried about the rifle shots because he puts trust in
God.

6. Uncaring and Monstrous
“Nathan who simply can see no way to have a daughter but to own
her like a plot of land. T work her, plow her under, rain down a
o
dreadful poison upon her.”
Says fairly upfront that Nathan doesn’t know how to care
about his daughters.
Nathan drowns a child in an attempt to baptize him, and intends to
repeat this act with all the other children.
Nathan is so overcome by his obsession over making these
people Christian, that he can no longer see when he has
crossed the line.

7. Further Insights

8. Orleanna
Submissive
Prescient
Suppressed

9. Submissive
When Orleanna expressed desire to leave with her daughters,
Nathan says, “You’d like what, Orleanna?” in an aggressive tone.
She is submitting to Nathan’s superiority by not continuing to
argue for the family’s safety.
“Father looked at Mama hard for talking back to him. ‘Well, sir,’ she
said, ‘that is just what it looks like to me.’”
At first Orleanna is arguing with Nathan, then, as soon as he
responds, she backs down.

10. Prescient
When she hears about the danger from the Congo revolutions she
wants to leave.
She knows that things will end badly.
“[When Ruth May died,] Mother did not rant or tear her hair. She
behaved as if someone else had already told her, before we got
there.”
She already knew that Ruth May was dead.

11. Suppressed
Once, when Adah visits her mother, Orleanna, thinking of when
Ruth May died, asks, “Are we allowed to remember?”
Orleanna is suppressed by society and wants to talk with
someone.
“We were presumed insane. Mother took the diagnosis well.”
After returning to Georgia, Orleanna is used to society
shunning the those who have been changed by bad
experiences.

12. Further Insights
Orleanna symbolizes American wives at this time in History:
She is suppressed by society She is subdued by her husband
She cannot express herself.

13. Leah
Tomboyish
Intelligent
Courageous

14. Tomboyish
“She appointed herself in charge of fruit gathering, not
surprisingly, this being the category of housework that takes place
farthest from a house.”
Usually a stereotypical boy will want to spend as much time as
possible outside. In this case, Leah is fulfilling this stereotype.
“I killed my first game.”
Again, Leah is doing a man’s task.

15. Intelligent
“What I happen to know… is that a civet cat got all of the Nguza’s
hens last Sunday. So Mama Nguza will be in a mood to trade
mangwansi beans for eggs…”
She is able to make connections between obscure facts.
“In the mornings [Leah] teaches arithmetic to [Anatole’s] younger
pupils.”
It is much harder to teach someone else how to do something
than it is to do it yourself.

16. Courageous
“Leah would… talk back to Father straight to his face.”
Leah is the only one with enough courage to stand up to their
tyrannical father.
Nathan Price: “It’s nonsense for you to hunt with the men…. I forbid
it.”
Leah Price: “I’m going with the men and that’s final.”
Leah openly disobeying her father’s commands.

17. Further Insights
Leah’s Tomboyishness and Intelligence fit underneath the umbrella
of her courageousness, and the disobedience associated with it.
Courageousness
Tomboyishness Intelligence
At this time in history, young Also, women are only granted
women were expected to stay in the education necessary to
the house, learning how to do a complete their necessary tasks
woman’s chores like cooking and (again, like cooking and
cleaning. cleaning).

18. Adah
Faithless
Cynical
Detached

19. Faithless
“Our father probably interpreted Broca’s aphasia as God’s
Christmas bonus to one of His worthier employees.”
Unlike her father, Adah doesn’t believe that any good can
come of her disease, Broca’s aphasia.
“And we sing at the top of our lungs in church: ‘T Nzolo!’ T
ata o
whom are we calling? I think it must be the God of small potatoes”
Adah thinks that the God she was raised to believe in is small
and insignificant.

20. Cynical
“God works, as is very well known, in mysterious ways. There is just nothing
you can name that He won’t do, now and then. He will send down so much
rain that all his little people are drinking from another’s sewers and dying of
the kakakaka. Then he will organize a drought to scorch out the yam and
manioc fields, so whoever did not die of fever will double over from hunger”.
Adah is utterly sarcastic, and finds God’s ways to be backwards and
ludicrous.
“From that day I stopped parroting the words of Oh, God! God’s love! and
began to cant in my own backward tongue: Evol’s dog! Dog ho!”.
Here, Adah’s strange flow of thoughts causes her to find fault with the
God she was taught to fear.

21. Detached
“They jerk their feet with cocky roosterness as if they have not
heard of the two legged beasts who are going to make slaves of
their wives”.
Adah sees the perpetrators to be completely unrelated to her.
“I am prone to let the doctors prophecy rest and keep my thoughts
to myself”.
Adah doesn’t offer up her opinions to others, she merely
listens, and watches.

22. Further Insights