The Poisonwood Bible 3

Previously  it was a wonder why Orleanna and Nathan got married or if they even truely loved eachother in the beginning of their marriage when they said I Do.When Nathan was supposedly courting Orleanna "[she] didnt' recognize that's what it was. [She] thought he was just bound and determined to save [her]." He read her passages from the bible and, to her, "The words were mysterious and beautiful, so [she] let him stay." So Orleanna didn't fall in love with Nathan but with the words and passages he spoke of; The words of the Lord are pure words: as silver tried in a furnace of earth, purified seven times; and He makes me lie down in green pastures. "[She] could taste [it]..." To Nathan, "...the idea of marriage suited him well enough...[Orleanna] hardly had time to think about [her] own answer-why, it was taken to be a foreigone conclusion." In a way Orleanna didn't have a say in her own marriage, as it seems. Picturing the situation, one might see her daydreaming or in her own world while her dominant world is controled and pushed around by other people in her life. After a while, she seemed to grow affections toward Nathan but when he went off to war and came back wounded the only sign of her "old husband" was the letters he had written. "That was the last I would hear from the man i'd married- on who could laugh...call me his "honey lamb," and trust in the miracle of good fortune.

I found it ironic when "[Nathan] brought his hand down agains [Orleanna] for the first time" when she tried to laugh about the similar situation of Mary and Joseph at the Inn and their family where they didn't have any more room for another child when Orleanna was "swollen." That night when Mary and Joseph were trying to find room in the Inn was the night God's son was "born" as a human. A miracle pretty much. Something amazing and in referrance to that Orleanna was hit? She began seeing marriage as a cage; "Like Methuselah i cowed beside my cage, and though my soul hankered after teh mountain, i found, like Methuselah, i had no wings...This is why...I'd lost my wings. Don't ask me how i gained them back- the story is too unbearable." She supposedly got her wings back, eventually, but i don't think the reason how is shown yet in these chapters. Curiosity has got me!