Nathan In The Congo

Coming from the first world, economically blessed United States, the Price’s travel to the third world country of the Congo. Amidst all of the dangers; the dark and dreary jungle filled with snakes of animal and human nature, the Congo’s unsafe, unsecure quality of life, and the constant struggling fight for supremacy, the Price’s have come to revive the broken souls of the Congo. They have come to achieve redemption for abolishing the spirits of those who died in the Bataan Death March, by shoving religion down the Congolese’s throats and washing away their sins in a foul smelling, mossy, green decayed, alligator filled river. Life in the Congo, however is similar to the united states in that the men have a feeling of superiority over the …show more content…
This is where female inferiority began in this family. Nathan, being a man, feels as if he has the right to drag his whole female family with him wherever he goes because "he often says he views himself as the captain of a sinking mess of female minds" (Koza 4). By his demanding actions, it is clear that Nathan sets himself up as a godlike figure because he “came to redeem an unworthy world" (Foster 120). Intentionally or unintentionally, he rules over his family's lives, just as a God would by trying to guide them toward enlightenment, however instead of guiding them, he is more forcing them. This is seen as a man controlling his family’s (all women) lives. This constitutes masculinity over the femininity of his family by forcing them to move to a foreign country without a true say. It shows the power (Nathan) relationship between men and women (his wife and daughters). He is only worried about seeking redemption for his own self after being the only one to survive an attack in World War II. He is so focused on this redemption that he is found to be running the lives of everyone around him by forcing baptism on the citizens of the Congo and dictating their every move rather than working with them to achieve his desired goal. The women in his life feel that "it doesn’t look to [them] like [they're] in charge of anything, not even [their] …show more content…
At this point in the story, the village that the Price family lives in is struggling immensely with having enough food to go around. A group of men gathered to go on a big hunt to capture some food for the village. Leah, learning to shoot a bow, wanted to participate. The chiefs and elders (men) of the village took a vote on whether or not to let her participate in this event, she barely won. Since Leah was a girl, not a man, this shows that the standards and expectations for women are lower than that of a man. And those who disagreed took their beliefs to extreme measures. They got in “a shouting match between people who’d voted for [her] and those who’d voted against” (Kingsolver 353). The shouting match occurred due to those in disagreement in whether or not to allow Leah to hunt, and added to this, snakes were planted throughout the village to endanger the lives of Leah's family and Anatole. This reveals the extremes in which the men in this story reach to maintain heir belief of male autocracy. Their inordinate feelings overtook them to where they were willing to literally fight for what they believe in. This behavior displayed how the "women suffered unbelievable injustices” (Austenfeld 7) by showing the unfair, unequal treatment they were receiving. This greatly added on to the already present feeling of resentment that the women felt towards the men and hindered the