Barbara Kingsolver's The Poisonwood Bible

In Barbara Kingsolver’s novel, The Poisonwood Bible, the villain of the story is the Price family patriarch, Nathan Price. Nathan Price is abusive, sexist, and racist. All of these traits cause a problem between him and his family or the Kilanga village, I’m which the story takes place. Nathan Price lives with his wife, and 4 daughters in the village of Kilanga in the Congo. However, his abusive behavior starts to cause a rift between him and his family. I’m the beginning of the story Nathan is only physically abusive to his wife, Orleanna, but later it also turns to his three eldest daughters. However, throughout the whole story he is verbally abusive to his whole family. “Father yelled, ‘God will know the difference!’ And Rachel fell down hard before I even heard the sound of the wall and his hand. ‘God despises a coward who runs while others stand and suffer’” (Kingsolver, 238). In this excerpt Nathan Price verbally and physically abused his eldest daughter Rachel. His abuse spread to all of his daughters except Ruth May. The abuse turned all of his daughters against him and later contributed to his family abandoning him. …show more content…
“‘An election. Frank, I’m embarrassed for you. You’re quaking in your boots over a fairytale. Why, open your eyes, man. These people can’t even read a simple slogan: Vote for me! Down with Shapoopie! An election! Who out here would even know it happened?’” (Kingsolver, 167). Nathan has a very racist attitude throughout the whole book. He is saying that even the well educated black Congolese could not lead as well as a white person. Nathan's racist outlook comes between him and the village, even on his “mission” He views the villagers of Kilanga as nothing more than