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?