Lit circle entry: The Judges. Orleanna and Nathan

Well, spring break is coming to a close, and I think I'll try to get ahead (or catch up, if I'm behind) by posting a lit. circle entry for the third chapter of the Poisonwood Bible: The Judges.

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The Judges starts with this narration by Orleanna (the mother):

"LISTEN, LITTLE BEAST. Judge me as you will, but first listen. I am your mother. What happened to us could have happened anywhere, to any mother. I'm not the first woman on earth to have seen her daughters possessed. For time and eternity there have been fathers like Nathan who simply can see no way to have a daughter but to own her like a plot of land. To work her, plow her under, rain down a dreadful poison upon her. Miraculously, it causes these girls to grow. They elongate on the pale slender stalks of their longing, like sunflowers with heavy heads. You can shield them with your body and soul, trying to absorb that awful rain, but they'll still move toward him. Without cease, they'll bend to his light." (Kingsolver, 191)

Even if you didn't know that Orleanna is the first narrator of each chapter (at least so far anyway), even if you don't read the sentences that are colored green above which give her identity away, it is easy to tell that it is Orleanna speaking. I always have the urge to skip over the Orleanna narrations. I am aware that they have some of the most language rich passages in the book, and that they contain foreshadowing and other details that one may want to examine. But they are also depressed brooding which, while are very poetic, make for very tedious reading. However I do read them and take in the detail.

Orleanna talks about how she was before she met Nathan, how she met him, how Nathan used to be, but most importantly what caused Nathan to become the sort of person that we have seen him as in the past chapters: his guilt. According to Orleanna, Nathan was drafted into World War 2 but because of injuries did not take part in the Bataan Death March: an event that claimed the rest of his regimen's lives. Because of this, he thought that he was a coward in God's eyes and set off on a hard path of redemption. After reading this I have to say that I apologise for some of what I have thought of Nathan in the past. For some, not all. I still think that the path that he chose was not a good one, but I'm not sure that it is entirely his fault that he chose that path. I read "The Things They Carried" last semester for english. It was about the Vietnam war, narrated by a veteran. From that book I could see how war can change a person, make them see things abstractly, differently, in ways that I can not understand. So I think that Nathan's position seems a bit more reasonable than I had thought, though, again, I don't really agree with him (disclaimers, you know).

I feel sorry (more than I already was) that Orleanna is being put in this position. I feel sorry for Nathan's misfortune and drastic personality change, but I'm angry at him for forcing Orleanna to be a spectator to his madness. It wasn't completely clear to me what she was going through when reading the previous chapters, but just by reading that opening paragraph once I can tell how much she has been affected by her husband during their time in the Congo.

Speaking of changes resulting from Nathan, Orleanna's personality took a new turn during Judges. After spending a month in bed, as narrated by Leah, "For one thing, she was now inclined to say whatever was on her mind right in front of God and everybody. Even Father. She didn't speak to him directly; it was more like she was talking straight to God, or the air, or the lizards who'd paused halfway up the walls, and if Father should overhear her, that was his nickle"(Kingsolver, 243),Leah goes on to say how Orleanna had tried to get Mr. Axelroot to fly her and her daughters out of the Congo and then begins to question her father's beliefs. This is an important personality developement for Orleanna and for her daughters because it shows that even though she has been "beat down" by her husband, she can still "stand back up". Perhaps she is trying to break Nathan's shell of ignorance, or perhaps she is just refusing to conform to his influence any longer, but in any case seeing Leah's doubt of her father shows that Orleanna is influencing the daughters as well.