Nanthan: Obsessed Maniac

Psychological Critic

As we read through The Poison Wood Bible, we begin to learn more about Nathan Price and why he became the man he is in the book. By being the psychological critic, I began searching for some answers on why he makes the choice he does in the book along with what he says. You could also consider me to be the Devil’s advocate in this “literature figure eight” because most of the things he says and choices he makes harm people emotionally and mentally.

In the beginning of Judge’s, Orlenna Price gives us a fairly clear history of Nathan’s past along with their marriage and life spent together. Something that had caught my eye was after they had married, Nathan was sent out to war in the Philippines.
In the war, Nathan takes a wound to the head from a shell fragment. He was sent to a hospital and was taken care there but had not learned about what had happened to the rest of his company while he was in the hospital in Corregidor. He learned that after a terrible decision by a commander to have his company move out to Manila in Bataan Peninsula, they were rounded up by gunpoint and were marched to a prison camp. Nobody survived the Death March. Nathan being a very, very religious man, felt guilty and like a coward for not being there with his fellow soldiers and also probably felt like God was punishing him and despised him. “Already Nathan’s obsession with guilt and God’s reproof was infecting me” (199). Orlenna begins to feel as if Nathan cares more about what God thinks of him and that he is constantly watching his every move and Nathan doesn’t want to disappoint God or get punished severely from it. Also, the effects of war had greatly changed the way Nathan lived and began to devote himself more to God. Orlenna notices his behavior and says, “Nathan was changed, I could see, but he only seemed more devout [to his religion]” (197). With Nathan’s obsession of his religion and his guilt towards God, he turns into a monster in the eyes of Orlenna.

Now that I have established the fact that Nathan is an obsessive Christ lover (no offense to anyone that is religious), I can see why some of the choice he makes are from his guilt. For example, “Nathan was made feverish by sex, and trembled afterward praying aloud and blaming me for my wantonness” (198). After Nathan and Orlenna had copulated, his guilt motivates him to pray and blame Orlenna so that God won’t punish him for what he had done.

Also when Orlenna was pregnant with Rachel, Nathan harshly said to her, “Not a one of those men will ever see a son born to carry on his name. And you dare to gloat before Christ himself about your undeserved blessing” (198). This to me was probably one of the weirdest and meanest things for him to say when Orlenna was pregnant. This comes back to his guilt. After not fighting along with his fellow men in war, he feels as if the child she is receiving is an undeserved blessing even though she hadn’t done anything wrong to deserve that kind of abusive statement. Nathan again the tries to blame her in front of God for having a baby (since he is always watching) to not get punished from God.

Nathan is a very deranged person after the war. I personally think that religion is not always the most helpful of things. It causes disputes which turn into wars. I can also create monsters such as Nathan. In summer school, a teacher talked to us about religion and told us that we should pick our religion to fit us. Something that makes sense to us and that can fit with what you perceive on how to love your life. I think that if religion drives people to the point of obsession and paranoia of God punishing us for their sins, then why believe in it?

Genesis Lit Circle

Lexicographer

Copulation: -noun
1) sexual intercourse.
2) a joining together or coupling.

Narrator:
“… poisonous frogs war-painted like skeletons, clutched in copulation,secreting their precious eggs onto dripping leaves” (5).

Contingency: -noun
1)dependence on chance or on the fulfillment of a condition; uncertainty; fortuitousness.
2)a contingent event; a chance, accident, or possibility conditional on something uncertain.
3)something incidental to a thing.

Leah:
“Mother tried to think of every contingency, including hunger and illness” (14).

Bougainvillea: -noun
1) any of several shrubs or vines of the genus Bougainvillea, native to South America, having small flowers with showy, variously colored bracts, and often cultivated in warm regions.

Adah:
“… billowy clouds of scarlet bougainvillea” (32).

Consorting: -verb
1)To keep company; associate.
2)To be in accord or agreement.

Leah:
“Father explained to us that he had gone plumb crazy, consorting with the inhabitants of the land” (38).

hyssop: -noun
1) any of several aromatic herbs belonging to the genus Hyssopus, of the mint family, esp. H. officinalis, native to Europe, having clusters of small blue flowers.
2) An unidentified plant mentioned in the Bible as the source of twigs used for sprinkling in certain Hebraic purificatory rites.

Adah:
“…purge me with hyssop” (56). / “Likely she would run through the fields dressed in sackcloth, hunting hyssop amongst the wild bulls” (56).

Nonchalant: -adjective
1) coolly unconcerned, indifferent, or unexcited; casual.

Adah:
“Leah, on account of her nonchalant dazzling scores on reading comprehension tests, and myself by association, as I am presumed to have the same brain insofar as the intact parts go” (56)

Putative: -adjective
1) thought, assumed, or alleged to be such or to exist.

Adah:
“We listened vaguely to Our Father’s tale of the putative Mercedes truck” (74).



Bemused: -adjective
1) bewildered or confused.
2) lost in thought; preoccupied.

Adah:
“‘That road,’ said our mother, bemused, gesturing with a lazy bent wrist out the window” (74).

disconsolate: -adjective
1) without consolation or solace; hopelessly unhappy; inconsolable.
2) characterized by or causing dejection; cheerless; gloomy.
Synonyms: heartbroken, dejected.
Adah:
“She [Leah] sat ramrod straight as if she were on television, going
for the sixty-four dollar question.
‘No,’ he said. ‘Each one wouldn’t last but two or three miles.’
‘Oh.’ Leach was disconsolate” (75).

CHINESE ROOTS

Over spring break, I got the chance to travel to China with my family, my brother, mom, dad, grandpa, and grandma. We took some interesting pictures while we stayed there. ENJOY!


This is a picture at the GREAT WALL. It was snowing. Everything was coated in snow and it was so foggy and hazy (from pollution) that you could only see things within a 10 foot radius.


Now this picture is very interesting. This is mini Starbucks in the FORBIDDEN CITY (Beijing). Our private guide told us that there were many arguments and political debates on whether to have a Starbucks inside. After it is called the FORBIDDEN CITY.


Nice architectural landscaping.


a little Chinese boy with his mother (cute yea?)


little emperor


Dragon in a Shanghai garden.

Boom Chick-a-Ahhhh!!!!!!!!!

Well, since Mr. Watson posted his cool beat box, flute paying, prodigy, I thought maybe I could put a cool beat boxing guy of my own. This guy reminded me of a friend that I knew a while back. He had nasty frizzy hair and was super funny. He never had a dull moment and was always cracking funny jokes. When I first saw this I thought this was the one of the funniest things I had ever seen. Here you go.

Through the Eyes of Nathan

Today in class, we tried to step into the shoes of one of the characters from Poison Wood Bible. Then we took a stroll through our school and then tried to write a short narrative on what they would say if they saw our school. I was assigned the character of Nathan, the father of the four daughters in the story.

"We finally arrived at the God forsaken island. Orlenna insisted we take a tour of the new school that we were going to enroll our children in. The place was a disaster. I could clearly see why God sent me here. First off, it isn't a required course to memorise scriptures from the Bible. That itself is a sin. We as people have to show our deep devotion to God by reciting passages and scriptures from the Bible.
Many of the kids don't even say grace when they eat and their schedule only has chapel once or even none a week. I can't enroll my daughter into a religiously weak school. If they don't go to chapel everyday they'll end up in Lucifer's kingdom and burn for eternity. Maybe I could change the ways of this school and get most of these kids on their way to enlightenment."

Can you see Jesus?

I remember having seen this picture in 8th grade social studies/ethics class. I could never figure it out until recently. I think it's kind of like the world we live in and why we are living in it. We can't really understand it when we first encounter life and its meaning but I think the more we live and experience life, the easier or more obvious the answer may be.

OK maybe this song is a little more relevant to English. This song talks about the World and how maybe we should live in it. In the full recording of the song, the end has a man talking about how we should live.

Be, be here, be there, be that, be this
Be grateful for life, be grateful to life
Be gleeful everyday, for being the best swimmer among 500,000
Be-nign, be you, be mom's mean pie, be little black sambo With bad hair
Be aware of what a lynch is, Be, be boundless energy
Be a four star ghetto general, be no one except I
Be a strong academic student, be an A student in sociology
Be food for thought to the growing mind, be the author of your own horoscope
Be invited, be long-living, be forgiving, be not forgetful
Be a proud run, only to return to fight another day
Be peaceful if possible, but justice in ways (?)
Be high when you low, be on time but knowing to go
Be cautious of the road to college, taking a detour through Vietnam or the middle east
Be absent of wars at any past or present fought amongst themselves
Be visual of foreclosure over your shoulder while begging
A nation built on free labor for reparation, Be a cartopogropher
Be a map maker, be able to find afro-american man
search thoroughly it may be close to black man
Be ammended 5/5ths, be ammended 5/5ths human
Be the owner of more land than is set aside for wild life
Be cupid, to world government
Be found among the truth, lost tribe
Be at full strength when walking through the valley
Be not foolish as tender 18 of the mountain tops
Be a brilliant soul, sparkling in the galaxy while walking on earth
Be loved by God as much as God loved Ghandi and Martin Luther King
Be that last one of 144,000, be the resident of that twelfth house
Be....eternal!

This is one of my favorite artists. He's a very good rapper and writer.

Rachel:A MEAN, NASTY, GIRL

For my Lit. 8 I was the Devil's advocate. Here is some of the bad qualities that I have observed about Rachel.


Rachel:
As you first begin reading Rachel's first section in Genesis, you can easily see what kind of person Rachel is, a very snobby and self-absorbed.

"... you should see what the Congolese run around in. Children dressed up in the ragbags of Baptist charity or else nothing at all. Color coordination is not a strong point" (43).

From this quote, it took it as that Rachel thinks she is better than everybody else. She thinks that she knows everything and that she can change everyone to be just like her. I think one of the reasons people in general, try to change others is because they themselves feel uncomfortable with the people around them. Also she is probably at the point in her teenage life where nobody but herself is right. She is also not very interested in learning about the new culture and life style that is around her now. I think that this kind of mindset will carry on when she is an adult.
She also craves attention but tries to deny it so that she can keep her innocence. I think she does this because she wants to keep us from judging her even though we already do. For example, she talks about her hair being blonde and how everyone else around is bald and how she thinks everyone is envious of her "beautiful" hair.

"Consequently they are all so envious of mine they frequently walk up boldly and give it a yank. It's surprising that my parents allow the situation to present itself... but when it comes to something you really wished they'd notice, oh, well! Then parental laxity is the rule of the day" (48).

When it comes down to it, Rachel is pretty much your stereotypical teenager that could care less about the world around her and be so focused on herself, she doesn't realize how she is behaving and what people say about her. For me personally, she is not one of the sister I look forward to reading. When she begins to talk about something, the topic always some how switches back to her. With her mentality and attitude,it's understandable that most readers would hate her.

Scribble or Art...

The picture of graffiti is also suppose to be my common place post but I added it as an element to the page. So here is a post where anyone can comment on their point of view or opinion of graffiti. Is it Scribble or Art? Isn't art a form of expression? So why do many people hate it (probably because there is not that many nice ones in Hawaii)? Going back to my I believe, I think that if certain areas were legal to be sprayed or drawn on, all the art work would be more pleasing to look at than a plain crappy wall. For example, the pictures I have. All those were professionally done and also were done by normal people. Hit me with some comments!

SAT Essay Analysis

SATs... Where to begin.
After taking the first practice essay in class, I've now come to the conclusion that my vocabulary needs to be taken to the next level. After hearing some of the other people's essay, some of the vocabulary was very sophisticated and yet it still flowed and sounded like it made sense. I think that lexicons definitely help. I'll admit it... I have a lexicon... BUT! It helps a lot with learning new words. It might seem dorky or lame but whatever, I'll be doing better on the SATs than you... Anyway, I think that vocabulary is pretty crucial to right a good essay.
I think that the best way to prepare yourself for this essay is to live life. The questions asked are usually connected with things going on in your life or with life learning experiences. Like one practice essay we had last semester asked something about knowledge burdens people. And if you have experienced it or dealt with something like it, its easier to see things not only from your perspective and opinion but of others that were also apart of that experience. S you basically can pretty much get a 360 degree view on the issue.

BLOGGING...

I think that the Blog spot is a very resourceful tool. Not only do we not have to buy more notebooks to put our homework in it, but it is a space where I can express myself freely. This also gives me the opportunity to see the perspectives and P.O.V. (point of view) of others in my class or around the world. I think that posting is not bad (it even comes with spell check!) This is a great place to put down ideas and thoughts on life, school or whatever. Blogging is pretty gnarls. I think its silly that we can't put our pictures on here. What about "myspace"? I'm sure there are more predators on "myspace" than blogger...