Carpe familia
“Just do it.” This quote may sound familiar to most people. It is from one of the most famous shoes companies, ‘Nike’. This quote came up to my head when I ended up reading the book ‘The Poisonwood Bible’ and watched the film ‘The Mosquito Coast’. The male protagonists from each story are very adamant, straightforward, and fearless like Nike’s slogan. They are fathers of two to four kids, however, rather than being a reliable and caring father, they both chase their ambitious dreams.
The general flow of the two stories is very similar. In the film, ‘The Mosquito Coast’, the father ‘Allie’ leads his family (two kids and his wife) the Central American rain forest not only to stay safe from America’s atomic bombs, but also to civilize native people with his expected inventions. In order to accomplish his dreams, he buys a small village called ‘Jeronimo’ and starts to educate native people with his family from easy to complicated skills such as making tools for fixing and building constructive wells. Due to his family’s kindness, the native people get to trust Allie and they become the eventual supporters who help Allie to invent the ice machine. The ice machine, which produces ice by using fire, regards as a total success, however, the interruption of three soldiers/bandits eventually leads to the village’s destruction. And later, the family survives and escapes to beach, but Allie’s fellow missionary kills him and the story ends.
Compare to the film, the book is slightly more aggressive. The story begins with ‘Nathan Price’, the father, with his four daughters and his wife. The whole family gets to move to Congo, Africa. Nathan’s main goal is to educate African people with Christianity. Due to the bad experience he had in WWII as a young soldier, he becomes a faithful servant of God. He is described as an overly religious, egotistical, and patricentric father. And because of his patricentric thoughts, none of his family members can oppose him. Even after the family goes to Congo, Nathan’s bad characteristic of not listening to the opinions of others, later agitated the people in village.
To compare and contrast these two male protagonists, we first need to think of their beliefs. First, they are both untiring and venturesome. They also firmly believe on themselves no matter how hard and dangerous situations that they are in. However, they both don’t know that the being and spending time together as a family is much more valuable than believing in god and inventing machine. On the other hand, to compare their differences, Nathan is shown as a more pessimistic man than Allie. It is well described in the book where Nathan’s wife complains about how Nathan treats her like an animal, not as a human being. Also, the way Nathan communicated with the people in Congo can be another example of him being selfish.
In conclusion, the two protagonists from two different stories represent men’s overly exaggerated power to accomplish their meaningless goals. To compare Nathan and the book’s title, it is obvious that how Nathan’s overly religious characteristic affected others in a wrong way like a poisonous bible. For Allie, it is also easy to imagine him and his family going to ‘Jeronimo’ to accomplish their dream and end their lives like mosquitos in the middle of the coast. Thus, family’s happiness can be more valuable than one’s selfish dream.
The general flow of the two stories is very similar. In the film, ‘The Mosquito Coast’, the father ‘Allie’ leads his family (two kids and his wife) the Central American rain forest not only to stay safe from America’s atomic bombs, but also to civilize native people with his expected inventions. In order to accomplish his dreams, he buys a small village called ‘Jeronimo’ and starts to educate native people with his family from easy to complicated skills such as making tools for fixing and building constructive wells. Due to his family’s kindness, the native people get to trust Allie and they become the eventual supporters who help Allie to invent the ice machine. The ice machine, which produces ice by using fire, regards as a total success, however, the interruption of three soldiers/bandits eventually leads to the village’s destruction. And later, the family survives and escapes to beach, but Allie’s fellow missionary kills him and the story ends.
Compare to the film, the book is slightly more aggressive. The story begins with ‘Nathan Price’, the father, with his four daughters and his wife. The whole family gets to move to Congo, Africa. Nathan’s main goal is to educate African people with Christianity. Due to the bad experience he had in WWII as a young soldier, he becomes a faithful servant of God. He is described as an overly religious, egotistical, and patricentric father. And because of his patricentric thoughts, none of his family members can oppose him. Even after the family goes to Congo, Nathan’s bad characteristic of not listening to the opinions of others, later agitated the people in village.
To compare and contrast these two male protagonists, we first need to think of their beliefs. First, they are both untiring and venturesome. They also firmly believe on themselves no matter how hard and dangerous situations that they are in. However, they both don’t know that the being and spending time together as a family is much more valuable than believing in god and inventing machine. On the other hand, to compare their differences, Nathan is shown as a more pessimistic man than Allie. It is well described in the book where Nathan’s wife complains about how Nathan treats her like an animal, not as a human being. Also, the way Nathan communicated with the people in Congo can be another example of him being selfish.
In conclusion, the two protagonists from two different stories represent men’s overly exaggerated power to accomplish their meaningless goals. To compare Nathan and the book’s title, it is obvious that how Nathan’s overly religious characteristic affected others in a wrong way like a poisonous bible. For Allie, it is also easy to imagine him and his family going to ‘Jeronimo’ to accomplish their dream and end their lives like mosquitos in the middle of the coast. Thus, family’s happiness can be more valuable than one’s selfish dream.