Ruth May Price

     
by Gray Hansen
       I wonder how it felt for Ruth May to find out that her sole purpose in the life was to die and cause action.  Her death shocked Orleanna into action much like a hurricane surprises refugees who waited too long to evacuate.  By then, it’s too late to do anything except scramble to get the heck out of there.  But what would have happened had Ruth May not been killed?  When would Orleanna realize that she needed to leave Nathan before things got worse? 

        Before Ruth May died, Orleanna was in some kind of emotional stupor.  She felt like she could not do anything to get away from her tyrannical, washed-up husband.   In a Prezi, Burnt Halvorson states, "Orleanna represents the wives who act as bystanders to their husband's actions." “What did I [Orleanna] have? No money, that’s for sure. No influence, no friends I could call upon in this place, no way to overrule the powers that governed our lives.  This is not a new story: I was an inferior force” (Kingsolver 192).  I feel that Orleanna gave up on life for a little while.  Ruth May's death was so shocking that Orleanna's gears finally started moving.  I mean, it takes a spark to start a car.  Without a spark, the car stays at rest.  It would take another "spark" to get Orleanna's butt moving.  Nathan, of course, would be the instigator of this event.

         Nathan's unrelenting fury is clearly evident throughout the novel.  That fear-inciting, hand-raising,  bible-busting fury that Nathan uses to "make his point" is bad enough at the beginning of the novel, but it even escalates from crazy words to insane actions (I mean, if you would describe getting kids eaten by alligators crazy).  He behaves very irrationally.  Laura Fitch's blog says, "Nathan Price becomes intensely drunk on The Bible and his supposed good intentions in the Congo."I could honestly see Nathan hitting his wife or one of his daughters (or worse).  How traumatic the event would be, though, that would finally shock Orleanna into leaving.

         Tata Kuvundu could have been another reason to leave.  He wass drunk on his customs as well. Drunk people do crazy things; like putting snakes in people's houses.  Would he have killed someone someone in place of Ruth May or scared off the Price family?
         Had Ruth May lived, she would probably be useless. Her sole purpose in the the novel is to die and light a fire under Orleanna.  Had Ruth May lived, God knows how long it would have taken Orleanna to come to her senses!