Who brought them their?  Who taught them their christian ways?  Who pushed them too far.  The answer to all three of these is simply: Nathan.  Nathan Price, the father of the Price family, was the main factor of the breakup of the Price family and the various paths they took after their Congo adventure.  Similar to Fidel Castro, "the former political leader of Cuba who caused his country's economic system to go haywire," Nathan causes the family to go crazy (Rant, Daniel).  Although their are many, two main reasons Nathan was the source of this split are: he pushed the family too far, and he put the villagers spiritual life above his own family's physical life.

Certainly, we know that Rachel didn't want to go to the Congo at all from the start, so she was already a problem.  As for the rest of the children, they might have had some opposition, it was never as much as Rachel's, Ruth May was even excited.  If we were to compare Nathan's enforcement of his ways of doing things to someone in real life, it would be Benjamin F. Butler, "a militaristic general in New Orleans who made the Nazi Gestapo look like a Catholic girl's school choir by pushing them way past their limits," (TopTenz.net).One scene that particularly shows Nathan's far fletched attitude is when he makes his children do "The Verse."  Although this may seem just a simple punishment, the children's father told them christianity was the only way and he never let the explore new ideas or even somewhat stray from Christian viewpoints and values.

When the Price family was forced with the decision of staying in the Congo without financial support, Nathan immediately said their family was staying.  The people couldn't believe that the Price's were getting to be as poor as they were.  This is just yet another example of Nathan's involvement in the family's split.  It is a crucial point in the story because it causes so much pain and suffering in their lives.  We can see from this that Nathan really puts the people in front of his family's physical needs.  They might starve, but never would Nathan let up and go back to America.

As we have examined, not only were there the two main factors, Nathan pushing too far and the fact that he put the people's lives and "needs" in front of his own, but that there were many other smaller ones which added up to equal the downfall of the Price family.

-Evan Snider

(Fidel Castro)                     (Benjamin F. Butler)