Mosquito Coast & Poisonwood Bible Similarities

The Mosquito Coast & Poisonwood Bible share many similarities and differences. If you’ve read and watched them you’d mistake that one has copied the plots and characters of the other. Starting with the characters each of the two both has a single family with a father, mother, and four children. Coincidentally, two of the children are twins. Not only is the set up in how the family is structured similar but their personalities as well. First of all the fathers of the households both are mainly the dominant characters in a way that have a vision while the whole family is forced to follow him and pursue their dreams. In Mosquito Coast Allie has a vision to escape from North America and move to a place where his family and him can have a fresh start without all the technology that’s supposedly “destroying” people. Nathan sets out for the Congo where he can teach the Kikongans about religion and the benefits of accepting Jesus Christ as their savior. Both fathers drag along their families to a foreign place of which they are unfamiliar with but will soon learn to adapt.
The fathers have strong wills and both with their minds set on their goals. They both show perseverance even when they are rejected they keep on trying to overcome any obstacles. Allie on one hand is a great inventor and has created an ice machine “fat boy” which creates ice from fire. When he shows this invention to a farmer who hired him for his genius his invention is quickly rejected and is so Allie decides to take his genius elsewhere. After that he takes his business to a secrete location in the jungle and becomes major of a small village. He finds that the village is a wreck and makes the best of what he’s given to improve the living conditions there and eventually they build a wonderful modern civilization. Another instance where we can see how Allie perseveres is when the three bandits are trapped in the “fat boy” and blow up the whole city that Allie has created with the help of the villagers and his family. He accepts his losses and quickly moves on to adapt at another location, the beach. As for Nathan Price he perseveres by continuously advancing his religion upon a civilization that has refused to accept Jesus Christ. He tries again and again finding new ways to try and cope with events that are happening and uses it as a lesson to teach during his sermons in church.
Both of the family chemistries are alike in the way that before they moved to their new destinations their families were both happy and content with each other, but as soon as each of the fathers will to reach their goals became too excessive the families began to break apart. They are both very disrespectful towards their wives to a point it becomes abusive. During the beginning of the movie, Charlie “the oldest son/child” is a strong believer in his father and is always at his side whenever Allie is doing something important. His characteristics remind me of Leah, although she isn’t the oldest sibling she still is always there to help and learn as much as she can from her father about the Bible. Later in the story and the movie both of these characters sort of drift away and their liking for their fathers begin to fade as hate begins to build. Since each fathers obsession with their goals enhance it’s becoming a major problem for the family and they want out of this experience. Other characters that aren’t apart of the families also play an important role in the movie and in the story. In Mosquito Coast a character which was close to the family was a person named Hatti. Hattie helped with construction and often donated supplies to the children when the father wouldn’t accept them. Another thing we notice in the movie is that Allie didn’t really accept Mr. Hatti when he started bringing his family gifts. Allie was so determined to just live off the land and make everything work out for the best by himself without the help of someone who lived off of a modern life, since Hatti lived in town. The family friend of the Prices’ was Anatole. The children didn’t really mind Anatole at all; especially Leah who really accepted him and acts as a student still learning many things about the Congo that Anatole has to offer since he has a very experienced background. Even though Leah takes a liking for Anatole, her father, Nathan feels the exact opposite because Anatole doesn’t really favor the idea behind Nathan’s purpose in the Congo. The basic similarity is that both the fathers don’t really enjoy the fact that these outsiders of the family, Hatti and Anatole are associating with their family and giving them unwanted advice and help. Even though the rest of the family doesn’t mind the assistance the fathers are very stubborn and un-accepting.
Their fathers become too obsessed and caught up in their work to achieve their goals it furthers them from their family and the family can’t withstand any more of each fathers presence. There’s a point in both the movie and the story where the family even says they’re willing to leave there fathers behind and move on with their lives whether or not it’s even with their fathers. Religion is a common theme. In Mosquito Coast, Allie is faced with his enemy the missionary. As soon as they arrive in the jungle Allie has a little Bible verse argument with the priest, which showed us how knowledgeable Allie was with the scriptures in the Bible. A similar event happened in Poisonwood Bible, where Nathan and Brother Fowles have a scripture verse slam as they both critique each others knowledge of the Bible scriptures.
The metaphors in both the movie and the story are quite similar as well. There are double meanings such as the meaning of Bangala which means poisonwood and bad if you misuse it. The poisonwood tree was a big theme in the Poisonwood Bible and the big theme in the Mosquito Coast was the “fat boy.” Allie thought that his invention was brilliant and would change the world, and it would of hadn’t it had been destroyed. This sort of relates to the meaning of bangala. Where it can become a bad thing when used incorrectly and the reason that was used incorrectly was because Allie tried to kill those intruders who threatened his family.
Animals and insects are another overlooked similarity in the movie. For one the ants played a role in the Price’s life as they swarmed and consumed everything that the village had. As for the family in Mosquito Coast, Allie lied about having an ant problem so he could try and convince the intruders to leave, so he destroyed all the furniture and even took down some homes. Other than the ants there were the pets that they had as well like they both had parrots. Even though Methuselah played a bigger role in the Poisonwood Bible, the fact that the other family would have a parrot is very coincidental.