PWB Blog 5- Nathan Price's Death

Since almost the beginning of The Poisonwood Bible Nathan Price has been a big-headed, heartless, preacher that loved to shove his opinions about his religion down other people throats. Throughout the whole novel the irony involved in his death has been hinted.

The first piece of irony that reflects Nathan’s death is the way he treated his family including his wife Orleanna. Nathan was very loving to his wife right away but then turned into a monster who thought every act he and his wife did was a sin then transferred that anger over to his children after they were born. The feeling he had towards his children was anger and disappointment. He thought his children were the worst sinners of them all including his wife so he abused them and yelled at them to try and “fix” their feelings and opinions of God to match his. This is ironic in Nathan’s death because the village that set him on fire in the tower did so because he took their children on a boat to try to baptize them and save them. Like he tried to do to his own children, Nathan was punished for going against the village people. He was punished by his own family leaving him because he pushed them emotionally and physically too much. The irony between his children and wife leaving to the children he tried to save also and them dying foreshadows his death.

One last piece of irony that foreshadowed Nathan Price’s death was the way he spoke of hell and fire. In his mind he thought that if you were not worshipping God every day and having him forgive your sins you were going to Hell. When in the minds of the Price women Nathan was going to be the one to go to hell because of his abusive ways of teaching religious views. The irony in his death was that he burned to death in a tower that the Congo people set on fire because of his teaching methods and how it killed their children in the river. This irony of his death is foreshadowing when he treats the Price women and the people of the Congo badly and speaks of burning in Hell.