Mosquito Coast and P.W.B. Differences and Similarities

Lately in English we've been reading the Poison Wood Bible, we've also watched the movie featureing Harrison Ford, the Mosquito Coast. The movie the Mosquito Coast if very similar to the Posion Wood Bible in many ways. The movie is about Harrison Ford plays an inventor in the 60's I think who is fed up with American life and American living and decides to go on an adventure and drag his whole family along for the ride. His family consists of his wife, two sons and young twin girls. They go to a small country in the Banana republic and settle down in a tropical rain forest village that they bought. The village is very much still primative in its appearance and ways of living of the people. Harrison's character is very optimistic about creating a new civilization from scratch. But things go terribly wrong and he takes it out on the people of the village and most of all on his family. He refuses to go back to real civilization, he'd rather stay in the jungle and tough it out, no matter what the costs.

Some similarities we as a class found in the two, Posion Wood Bible and Mosquito Coast, were the roles of the fathers in both stories. Both fathers are very independant, very determined and stubborn. They do not take to mind the health of their family when they do things. It seems always that they want to do thing their way and will have it no other way. The two characters are very proud of themselves and they will not allow others to persuade them away from their set beliefs. Both fathers neglect the reasoning of their wives and they show up to be very upright and just. Both families feel the same way towards the head of the family, the father. That feeling is not good at all, both set of children have a small degree of hate for the father, beyond the normal dislike that most adolecent children feel towards their fathers. The family set ups are similar as well. Both families in both stories have big families. The Price family consisting of 4 children, and the Mosquito Coast family consisting of 4 as well. Two other similar characters are the oldest boy in the Mosquito Coast family and Leah in the Price family. They both follow the same journey through the story, from following in the foot steps of their fathers and really admireing and revering their fathers. Then in some different stituations they lose trust in their fathers, they tend to stray away from the father's footsteps, and they finally they disobey and dislike their fathers all together. This is important to see in the Poison Wood Bible that Leah is very much like the oldest son in the family, even though she is not the oldest and is not a boy. More similar character's I've found are the wives in the stories. Both are very unwilling to go against their husbands. They both are very passive personalites. Its very clear that both are very alike. Another similarity that we've found in class was the comparison of the really big ice chest in the Mosquito Coast movie and the bible and christianity in the Poison Wood Bible. They are similar because they are both two advance things that the fathers in both stories try to bring and introduce to the new societies that they are in. They almost so far as force these things onto the people and the people seem to not need it but the two fathers are determined to bring whatever it is they want regardless.