Some advice for Nathan Price;

A few days ago we had our first entire class discussion about the Poisonwood Bible, and let me tell you it got heated! Ok, well most people were in agreement on many opinions of the characters and book itself, but the things we dicussed and the questions that were raised were still quite interesting.

Our discussion mainly revolved around the highly complex Nathan Price. Basically, from what we know of him, he comes of ass completely selfish, thinks the world revolves around him, and he is both physically and mentally unable to see any point of view other then his own. These traits are beautifully displayed in Revelations, where he is argueing with Anatole about the stupidity of idolatry. And how the Congolese people are unable to change and see what could be actually helping them. I think this scene is pretty ironic because it is shadowing his complete inability to try and understand the Congolese people and compromise. He can't accept that his beliefs and teachings stand no chance if he doesn't take into consideration how different the people in his village are from his hometown. A good metaphor for this situation is in Genesis when he is talking to leah about his plants not bearing fruit. He seems to understand the necessity of adaptation when he explains to Leah how you can't just make African bee's pollinate American plants and you cna''t bring American bee's to the african plants. This perfectly mirrors the way he can't show up and force the African people to accept Christianity unless it is adapted to fit their lifestyle. He can't try as much as he wants to plant the seeds of his religion into the heads of the Congolese people, but he can't force them to follow it just as he can't force hisplants to bear fruit. It takes some sort of adaptation, or something like the planting mounds to bridge the gap from American religion to religion in the Congo. Nathan Price is a character I find very frusterating and it seems as I delve further into the book the more I am aggravated by his extreme stubborness, and disrespect towards nearly everyone besides god himself, especially his family members. I have not even started to address the sexist/gender issues in this book which I will attempt to do in Revelations. But on an ending note, as our class discussion was winding down someone playing the devils advocate brought up the fact that he thinks he is doing what's best for the people of Kilanga and for his family he just has a completely messed up way of carrying out his wishes. This raised some hard questions for me;

If someone had good intentions, but a bad outcome or way of going about it, does that make them a bad person?

If your intentions are good and pur is it ok if the results are not?