Journal of African Literature Contemporary Series II

IRCALC

1

frican Literature -JAL 9

3

Journal of African Literature - JAL 9 - Contemporary Series II Editors: Chin CE - Charles SMITH Version 1.2 Copyright © 2011 Lulu Press. All rights reserved. ISBN: 978-1-105-51553-8 This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License. To view a copy of this license, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/2.5/ Or send a letter to: Creative Commons 171 Second Street, Suite 300 San Francisco, California 94105 USA http://www.lulu.com Image and Cover Design: Michael Randall eEdition courtesy of The International Research Council on African Literature and Culture, IRCALC.

An Africa Research International Project

5

IRCALC

The International Research Council on African Literature and Culture,

IRCALC. The journals of Critical Studies (CS), African Literature (JAL) and New

Poetry are indexed by the MLA International Bibliography, which provides a classified listing and subject index for books and articles published on modern languages, literatures, folklore, and linguistics, as complete Print, Electronic and ePub publication in English with specialty on African literature and culture. As a collegiate program the Contemporary Series of African Literature (JAL) is an international, double blind reviewed publication of the International Research Council on African Literature and Culture (IRCALC). Research contributions are usually welcome but all papers prior to final endorsement may be subject to extensive assessments and/or revisions in line with the objective of IRCALC. Original submissions in English or French are acceptable. Materials in other languages shall be accepted as long as they are followed with their English translations. Other contributions may include text or book reviews, book news and publication information, photographs, drawings, recordings of art and artistic impressions, music, films and translations of foreign language materials, et cetera.

The recommended citation format is MLA current. Papers which citations do follow MLA format will not be assessed.

Visit Call-For-Papers <http://www.africaresearch.org> for details.

7

Contents

Prefatory Note ...................................................................................... 9

Forum ................................................................................................. 13

Unity in Variety: The Teaching of Hermes Trismegistus (Thoth) ..... 15

Florice Tanner

Intertextualities ................................................................................... 35

The District Commissioner in Colonial Africa: Hollywood, Empires

and Reinvention of Patriarchy .................................................................... 37

Paul Ugor

Émigré et Immigrant Intertextualité : une Correspondance de Vision

entre Textes Sociologiques et Romans Postcoloniaux Contemporains ... 5151

Emmanuelle Recoing

English Translation .............................................................................. 733

Female Subjectivities ......................................................................... 95

‘Silencing their Abusers’: Marriage and Death in African Women’s

Writing ........................................................................................................ 97

Dianne Shober

The Search for Female Subjectivity in Toni Morrison's Bluest Eye 111

Soheila Poorali

Gender Issues in Ola Rotimi’s Drama .............................................. 131

Omolara Kikelomo Owoeye

Rethinking Feminism and the African Woman’s Identity in Tess

Onwueme’s Tell it to Women ................................................................... 149

H. Oby Okolocha

8

Heroes, Memory and Race ............................................................... 165

The Construction of Heroism in Rwandese Insigamigani Texts ...... 167

Rodrigue Rwirahira

African Storytelling and Development ............................................. 185

Osedebamen David Oamen

Memory and Palimpsestic Time in Ben Okri’s Famished Road ....... 197

Kei Okajima

British Racial Problems and the Poetry of Fred D’Aguiar ............... 209

Dilek Sarikaya

9

Prefatory Note

2012 Journal of African Literature Series -JAL #9

IN the Contemporary Series [I] of the Journal of African Literature

[JAL#8] we featured the oral-written interface in Achebe's fictions which reveals how folk materials revise the anthropological discourse of the West through which African cultures were inferioritized by juxtaposing an alternative idiom of African orature with a unique manner of structuring reality that might offer a way of ending Africa's discursive indentureship to the West. We went further to examine the status of the oral performer in African traditional societies that encouraged a wide range of human expression to create identity for members of the community, and we proposed a challenge to sustain the methods of creative transmission through these African performers who are living proofs of the survival of African oral traditions, especially in the propulsion of communicative action and the communicative strength of men, women and children in the community.

This current instalment, Contemporary Series [II], is also dedicated to deeper investigations of black identity in modern black texts, and the commemoration of ancestral heritage for its capacity to redeem the present. Thus Journal of African Literature [JAL] #9 further pursues the permutation of Black literary traditions within and beyond the continent, sustaining the bridge for the perpetual communion of black literary and mythological heritage which inhere in restoring lost values. The opening Writer’s Forum has Tanner’s study of salvaged fragments of the wisdom of Thoth, the mythological Ancient Egyptian teacher known to the Western world by various names such as Tahuti, Theuth, or Hermes Trismegistus, the Thrice Greatest. Yet in spite of advances in the thoughts and writings of primordial civilisations, human progress seemed to have been inscribed in serial reversals. With the colonial vestiges of 'anachronistic phantasms of paterfamilial class

10

power' having played, or still playing out, in mainstream information and entertainment media of the West, the modern African text since, Things Fall Apart, has found itself constantly seeking and reinventing new spatializations, new definitions and new ways in which universal African visions may find expressions in and by means of literature.

One of these ways locates the affirmation of self and collective identity in human sexuality and gender relations. The understanding of gender as a cultural arrangement on a wider social scale, and as the psychological representation of general aspects of human development, has for decades been at the heart of issues and contentions over female silencing all through modern civilization. This has been interrogated within African writing particularly as it addresses the muting and 'marginalization' of African women by male writers through their scripts of patriarchy from their inherited traditional and western cultural traditions. But the recurrence or prominence of female subjectitities in African writing proves not so much here a validation of the feminist impetus as the realignment to the indigenous harmonic traditions of ancient ways of being - which has been the original trajectory of African familial, and cultural, existence. So, as few writers and scholars are beginning to recognise, there is a movement away from the rote repetitions of the preternatural male-female divide towards confronting the loopholes and discrepancies within dualistic feminist ideology, which significantly highlights the problems men and women face in a developing society where dogmas and ideologies are adopted without adequate understanding of their impact on enduring traditional values. This rediscovery - and revalidating - of the values of traditional African womanhood that are fast being eroded by western dogmas is an ongoing exercise in new creative and academic circles.

Further approaches to the problems of race, concepts of heroism and the African writer’s memory and reinvention of time are all highlighted in this volume. It has been observed, in spite of claims to centuries of human development and civilisation, that the cultural division between black and white had often been fixed and naturalised through majority societal representations. Instances of this abound in

11

black immigration to the western world where they are still conceived as a threat endangering white racial ways since those immigrants, instead of incorporating themselves into the mainstream white culture, try to preserve their own racial identity by creating a kind of counter-cultural distinctiveness.

It is within the stuff of these challenges, however, that heroes have been fashioned. Indeed heroes are never lacking in human societies. The heroism and wisdom of African proverbs as a metagenre are being rediscovered in the new writings of African scholars. The unity of culture is also highlighted, not just when it comes to the sharing of the tribal meat after a hunt, but in the importance of sharing equally fruits of modern collective efforts. Also emphasised is the idea of faith and trust, where everyone is counselled not to underestimate one’s and others’ respective and particular responsibilities within the universal continuum.

The future of the world with 2012 marking the end of the Mayan calendar of millennial history certainly holds aloft the prospect of making or marring the dreams which humanity had so often expressed through their enlightened spokesmen and women. But history, or the conception of progress in human memory, remains largely whimsical, selective and often propagated according to the dictates and choices of what must be remembered. Could a palimpsestic or multidimensional notion of time and existence replace the linear time that is very much an arbitrary creation of human civilising efforts, as scholars are beginning to see from recent African literature? What lies ahead in the realm of progress and understanding can only be summarised in the words of the leading guest on this forum: that the age of separatism, where each person feels himself apart from others, is truly passing; that we are learning to recognize the common ideals which unfold as we grow; that the contribution emphasized by each great thought, as it develops, enriches all; and that the perception of unity in great variety broadens us. As we recognize these common values, the plan of universal brotherhood, indeed, comes nearer and we begin to sense our own place in its realization.

12

As usual, here is thanking the scholars of Black and African writing featured in this volume, and welcoming other serious researchers prepared and willing to work with the editors to propagate the literature and thought of ancient and modern Africa, helping, thereby, in the mission to further the imaginative approach to Africa's leadership and development concerns beyond the twentyfirst century.

Chin CE - Charles SMITH, 01-2012

13

Forum

15

Unity in Variety: The Teaching of Hermes Trismegistus (Thoth)

Florice Tanner

The Mystery Teachings in World Religions. Wheaton: Theosophical Publishing, 1978.

A VAST period of time was needed to develop earliest man's

form and simple consciousness but even vaster were the preceding eras necessary to develop earlier life forms. Small changes may have taken millions of years. Scientists, with the carbon fourteen test and tree-ring calibrations, are calculating time more nearly as do occult searchers, in much greater time spans. But at least we know that the span from mineral or vegetative existence, where there is little awareness, to individualized consciousness represents almost unimaginable time.

Through the ageless wisdom, handed down to us from many lands and from different centuries, we find evidence that man has long had knowledge of a oneness of being. Usually, though, man is not consciously aware of this basic unity. He often feels separate and alone. Our civilization is in a transitional stage between one in which the individual feels separate, and one in which he feels himself to be an individualized unit of a universal whole. As man develops he realizes his own oneness with the ‘unifying ground’ in all life. This unity may gradually become a conscious awareness relating all consciousness and form.

Almost every religion, for instance, teaches the One Life or the unity of God. Often repeated through the ages is the thought that the one God is known in three ways. Philosophers describe three qualities such as power or will, love-wisdom, and active intelligence. Religions often personify these aspects as three kinds of characters. Repeatedly God is thought of as one in nature but triple in manifestation.

16

Most religions outline graded spiritual intelligences, with archangels, angels, shining ones, or formative nature energies, called by different names but all ‘sons of God.’ Man is at his own place, according to his development, on this evolutionary ladder. He too is a spiritual intelligence and a son of God. Many religions teach that consciousness develops toward more perfection; that there are cyclic changes both on earth and in unseen dimensions; that a law and order characterize nature and the outer world as well as inner development; and that great teachers appear to inspire people and guide evolution.

The Unity of God: Ancient Hermetic Concepts of Unity The burning of the Serapeum under the edict of Thedosius ‘The

Good’ was a sad deed of vandalism by early Christian Church Fathers. About 400,000 parchment scrolls were destroyed, and the accumulated wisdom of 10,000 years was lost. Only fragments remained, carved in stone and incised in clay tablets, and most of those which have been recovered were found in tombs.

In 1799, the Rosetta Stone was discovered with hieroglyphs and many rows of Greek letters. Napoleon placed it in the Cairo National Institute and had copies the stone distributed to the learned of Europe. This stone furnished the key from which Egyptologists have translated the fragments left by the great Egyptian civilization. But the main problem has been to understand the meanings beneath the familiar words which they translated. For this inner meaning, the scholars had no key.

According to ancient tradition there lived in Egypt a teacher, Hermes Trismegistus, who was called ‘The Thrice Greatest’: the greatest of all philosophers, the greatest of all priests, and the greatest of all kings. He was credited with establishing writing art history mathematics, medicine, law, religion, astronomy, chemistry, astrology, divination, architecture, and chronology. He made laws determined the rights of people taught how land and property should

17

be divided, worked out a system of measurements and weights and modified the calendar.1

This great teacher, known by many names - ‘Thoth, ‘Tahuti,’ ‘Theuth’ in Egypt - and in the West called ‘Hermes,’ was the personification of wisdom, the initiator who had an inexhaustible supply of knowledge recorded in approximately 20,000 books. Some scholars think he was a mythological personage credited with works that actually accumulated during many centuries, as the tribes intermingled in Northern Arabia and Africa.

His work might be a composite result of several leaders. He may have been a mortal who was deified at some remote time because of his benefits to the people. At any rate, he was messenger of the recognized One Light and Wisdom in all.

Gradually through the mingling of tribes and culture the Egyptians developed a central teaching which emphasized light, long before the Christian Bible was written. The Great Troth first said the familiar words [the] ‘Light which lighteth every man that cometh into the world.’ His transcendent learning taught the ruler to ‘Look for the Light,’ for only as he saw the divine light in his people could he truly rule, and they could be worthy only as they were ‘following the Light.’ He taught the people to recognize the light in the heavens, and the light within man, animals, vegetables, and minerals, and to find God, the Light, in all.

These people, living on the borders of the Mediterranean, used human energies to influence the subtler worlds. ‘Magic’ or the finding of the correspondences between man, the microcosm, and the mighty macrocosm in which they lived gave them surpassing knowledge. Wise men travelled from all parts of the world to learn the wisdom of Egypt which Hermes Trismegistus had taught.

The Egyptian Messiah was not a personage coming at a specific

1 Manly P. Hall. Twelve World Teachers. California: The Philosophers’

Press, 1937 p. 142

18

time; rather, the ancients watched the rhythmic appearance of planets and stars and in their constant repetitions found assurance of an unfailing fulfilment. For them there was no such thing as ‘to be saved’ for all eternity. ‘Becoming’ took place in the life of man and in nature at all times. ‘Becoming’ was a process expressed in a symphony of relationships; each step, each cycle, each rhythmic pulse of life, fulfilled each creature’s being by carrying it onward. Egyptian ‘magic’ included the knowledge and use of these rhythmic pulsations in man and nature. The Egyptians attained great skill in using what we might call ‘different frequencies of consciousness’ in the plant and animal kingdoms well as in themselves.

Hermetic books now known are probably recent versions of earlier writings. The seventeen fragments of the Divine Pymander seem to have been known only since the second century. It is an allegorical account of philosophical and mystical truths. Its deeper meanings are frequently not comprehended. Hermes preached:

O people of the earth, men born and made of the elements, but with the spirit of the Divine Man within you, rise from your sleep of ignorance! Be sober and thoughtful. Realize that your home is not the earth but in the Light! Why have you delivered yourselves over to death, having power to partake of immortality? Repent, and change your minds. Depart from the dark light and forsake corruption forever. Prepare yourselves to climb through the Seven Rings to blend your souls with the eternal Light.2

The Book of Thoth reveals sacred processes by which the

regeneration of humanity can be accomplished. Its pages are covered with hieroglyphic symbols which give, to those who are instructed, power over spirits of the air and the subterranean divinities. It also gives the key to other mysteries and has been faithfully preserved through the ages by initiates. Many other

2 Hall, p.34

19

fragments, both in stone and on papyrus give us meagre knowledge of the light and wisdom of ancient Arabia and Egypt. The spiritual sun whose essence was invisible was their Formless One. The visible sun giving life to form was their symbol of a universal father.

During many thousands of years, the convictions of the tribes and clans in western Asia and Africa were interchanged. One of the early Egyptologists, de Rouge, described the religion of the people of the Nile Valley as pure monotheism manifesting itself externally by symbolic polytheism. The conviction of One God continued. The tribes of Arabia Africa West Asia and the Mediterranean territories taught the people in various ways of the One Source of all. From these intermingling peoples has come the foundation of many modern beliefs. Hermetic teachings became reflected in the Jewish concepts later in the Christian and Muslim concepts and still later in modified beliefs of other groups. Each stage of development is influenced by concepts inherited from preceding cultures.

Some Egyptian Hermetic expressions of unity state: Holy is God the Father of all things the One who is before the First Beginning. Holy is God whose will is performed and accom- plished by His own Powers which He hath given birth to out of Himself. Holy is God who has determined that He shall be known and who is known by His own to whom He reveals Himself. Holy art Thou who by Thy Word (Reason) hast established all things. Holy art Thou of whom all Nature is the image. Holy art Thou whom the inferior nature has not formed. Holy art Thou, who art stronger than all powers. Holy art Thou, who art greater than all excellency. Holy art Thou who art better than all praise. Accept these reasonable sacrifices from a pure soul and a heart stretched out unto Thee. O Thou Unspeakable, Unutterable, to be praised with silence! I beseech Thee to look mercifully upon me, that I

20

may not err from the knowledge of Thee and that I may enlighten those that are in ignorance, my brothers and Thy sons. Therefore I believe Thee and bear witness unto Thee, and depart in peace and in trustfulness into Thy Light and Life. Blessed art Thou, O Father! The man Thou hast fashioned would be sanctified with Thee as Thou hast given him power to sanctify others with Thy Word and Thy Truth.3 Thy God am the Light and the Mind which were before substance was divided from Spirit and darkness from Light.4

Trinity: The Egyptian Hermetic Trinity The Egyptian astronomers considered the sun the most

important celestial body in the heavens. It became for them the symbol of the Supreme Creative Authority, the One Light. The concept of the Trinity, the Eternal One seen as three, corresponded to the powers and principles of the sun. First, they noted that the sun set or ‘died’ each night but rose again the next morning; this made it a fitting symbol of immortality for them. Second, the astronomers noted the sun’s annual passage through the twelve celestial houses of the heavens, staying in each thirty days.

Third, they noted the path of the sun called the ‘precession of the equinoxes.’ It retrogrades around the zodiac through the twelve signs at the rate of one degree every seventy-two years. In their allegorical language, the sun was said to assume the nature of the living creature in each zodiacal sign while passing through the sign. The Solar Fire, travelling through the twelve houses of the zodiac, was also thought to perform twelve essential benevolent labours for

3 Manly P. Hall. The Secret Teachings of all Ages. California: The

Philosophical Research Society, 1943 p.Xl (Citing 'The Vision of Poimandres of the Divine Pymander.')

4 Hall. Twelve World Teachers, P.42

21

the human race. The philosophers noted also three distinct daily phases of the

sun: rising, midday, and setting. The symbol of light, God, Creator of the world, was represented by the sunrise phase; God, the one sent out across the world, was the Son, shown by the midday phase; and corresponding to the Holy Spirit was the sunset phase, after which the sun wandered in the lower worlds of activity. The visible sun personified the Spiritual Sun in three classifications of its functioning.

The Egyptian God Osiris has been considered by some as the positive universal life agent, and Isis, the great Mother Goddess, as representing the active temporal institutions of the mysteries and priesthood, or the Third Aspect of the Trinity. Horus, their son, manifested the dual characteristics of the Second Aspect of the Trinity. Typhon was the power in the physical universe constantly seeking to destroy spiritual values.

The ancient Egyptians were a highly civilized and gifted people. They were well informed and had long been trained in the mysteries of subjective thought. Their priests knew the seven liberal sciences. They experimented with animal and mineral magnetism, the lodestone, forces of psychological impressions, reading the inmost secrets of the soul, and sending their own spiritual force out from the body. They were masters of mesmerism, clairvoyance, and electro-biology. They used herbs and drugs and employed music and resonance. They could imitate precious stones by chemical processes. They employed engineering skills to change the course of the Nile and to quarry, shape, and place huge building stones with mathematical precision. They established ethical Codes which other nations adopted. Their metaphysics perceived the relation of causes and effects. Their philosophy abolished the terrifying power of death. They realized that life depended upon an invisible energy, both in man and in the universe, and that the un-manifested power produced the objective universe.

Although the Egyptians have been accused of superstition, their

22

beliefs were not contrary to Nature. Instead the Egyptians had great knowledge of natural laws, and their ‘magic’ was knowledge of super-physical laws. They believed in both visible and invisible powers at work in Nature. Many natural truths are beyond sense perception and elude us, but the Egyptians believed that every phenomenon, physical or super-physical, was related to laws of cause and effect that could be examined and classified.

Aknaton, known in history as Amen-Hotep IV, King of Upper and Lower Egypt, was born in 1388 B.C. The young pharaoh learned to honour within himself an ever-present Spirit, the ‘Sun behind the sun.’ His sense of Spiritual Light, ever flowing to the birds and insects, to the poor and the rich, to enemies as well as to his countrymen, enabled him to establish a new social order in an effort to re-establish the ancient teachings and to overcome a corrupt priesthood.

Meditating upon the cosmic significance of the Sun as the Universal Father, he envisioned and then established, for a brief period in history, a true brotherhood. His convictions were overpowered after a reign of sixteen years. Yet at this early date in history, thirteen hundred years before the birth of Christ, he applied the principle of political democracy and women’s suffrage, settled internal disputes by arbitration, and refused to go to war against invaders of his kingdom because he regarded all as the children of the Sun and therefore his brothers. He replaced the local deities with a universal concept, believed the Spiritual Sun to be everywhere, so even those who died remained ever in the Light.5

In his new capital city, Aknaton erected a temple to Formless One. He realized, while meditating, that the one God was no tribal deity but a Universal Essence. The solar disc was chosen as the visible symbol of this universal Force. Carvings in stone of the rays of the sun ending with human hands indicated to his people the

5 Erich Von Daniken. Chariots of the Gods. New York: G. P. Putnam,

1969, p. 163

23

Active Aspect of God, the hand of God in all things. The light of the sun was the ‘Giver of Life’ to the people. The ever-present Spirit was in all things. Aknaton recognized the triple aspects of deity. He had the moral strength to sacrifice wealth, honor, position, and life itself rather than compromise ethical principles. His dream of a government that is based upon the ideal of love yet challenges mankind.

Graded Intelligences and Earth Changes: Egyptian Hermetic

Concepts of Graded Intelligences and Ideas of Changes in Earth and the Unseen Worlds

The Egyptians did not consider their deities as actual persons

but as representations of the energies of nature, of matter, of mind and they arranged these intangible powers in a graded hierarchy. They used poetic names for these energies, but their gods did not have human flesh. The intangible powers were given imagined form, but it was the creative energy within the form that was venerated, not the form itself.’ They had much knowledge of the forces of nature, such as rays, some of which our scientists still explore.

Hermes Trismegistus taught that the Universal One first emanated superior beings which were said to circulate the ‘heavenly fire which is the life of all things.’6

These Gods were represented by the planets and stars. The Seven Planetary Governors ruled terrestrial life. The orbits of the seven planets (known to the ancients) formed a ladder connecting heaven and earth. Each of the Governors was said to give man one of his own qualities, so man gained seven natures as gifts of the Gods. These gifts are available to man but by his choices he makes himself capable of receiving them.

6 Manly P. Hall. Twelve World Teachers, p. 39

24

Hermes Trismegistus taught that ‘the vice of the soul is ignorance the virtue of a soul is knowledge ....’ The usual modern attitude classifies the ancient beliefs as superstitions, but the ancient scholars' writings refute this. Their central idea, restated in many ways, is that the lower physical natural or brute forces are to be controlled by perfect harmony and balance, and that training the reasoning intellect is a divine art. Their philosophy taught that true evolutionary development is to be attained by uniting the forces of spirit with those of the world; thus the lower is to be disciplined by the higher. They encouraged the individual to advance by cultivating wise habits in his daily living, teaching that an inner principle of consistency fosters in life a continuing process of becoming. This gives man a sense of stability and fullness. The idea of process was succinctly expressed in the Book of the Dead, by the soul ‘steppeth onward through eternity...’ in one life after another. Spirit was accepted as reality, the mundane world as less real. Egyptian and Mediterranean beliefs are based, taught that great ‘celestial fields’ were known in the unseen world and later were established in terrestrial geography. The real world is the heavenly world, the home of the gods. The earth is the underworld, called ‘Amenta,’ the place of illusion and death. Much of their teaching has been misinterpreted because they symbolically represent earth life as dead or unreal.

Many tales in Egyptian and Greek mythology represent the solar hero as descending into some place of darkness where he suffers, conquers physical nature, and emerges victorious, having attained higher spiritual values. Many versions teach the same concept. Racial experience is also described by means of stories with the same general theme. The Biblical Israelites, wandering in the wilderness and in Egypt, symbolise a people groping to gain spiritual experience. The term ‘Egypt’ is often used, not as a place on earth, but as a symbol to indicate a state of illusion or a period of difficulty.

Such terms as wilderness, desert, cave, cavern, abyss, and pit

25

refer to human psychological struggles. The god descends into the cave or darkness of the human body, suffering through the earthly underworld, but rises again to the light of the higher spiritual worlds In the tale of Hercules, the soul tracks the lion (symbol of the Spiritual Sun) into the cave to capture it. The Egyptian Horus awakens ‘the sleepers/ in their caves.’ In the Ritual, Ra is said to enter the cave to ‘revive the heart of him whose heart is motionless.’ The soul which dwelt in the cave or secret dwelling-place of the body was called forth by Jesus on several occasions.

The universal solar myth told of the god or hero descending from a higher state to suffer in the dark region of the unknown world until, conquering the illusions of the lower world, he rose again to the promised land of the spiritual world. The earthly body of man was the Egyptian’s theological world of darkness. Into this world of darkness the Spiritual Sun brought light in order to transform the lower world into the higher world, to synthesize all divided natures into the original unity.

Symbolic Egyptian astrology depicted mankind’s birth in the zodiac in the house of the Virgin Mother, Virgo. The sun, symbol of Spiritual Fire, descended into the western darkness of the physical underworld and rose again in the East, symbolic of regenerated spiritual man. A body in which such a transformation took place was often likened to a city, the City of the Sun, called ‘A-NU’ by the Egyptians and ‘Heliopolis’ by the Greeks. Much later Egyptians built the earthly Egyptian city of A-NU, where the priests presented an annual drama portraying Osiris or Horus in the rituals of death, burial, and resurrection. Nature supplied much subject matter that the teachers identified by analogy and used to impart exalted spiritual understandings; thus they helped their pupils to comprehend intuitively the concepts of universal order and unity. Egyptians did not worship material things, nor did they write much about changes in the physical earth.

Symbolic astrology expressed ancient religious wisdom. The soul’s experience was believed to be depicted in the chart of the

26

heavens, and spiritual history on a cosmic scale was thought to be portrayed in the heavens before man was born on earth. The history of the human soul, first written in the starry skies, was extended in various forms before it was written in literary scriptures. Alvin Kuhn describes the Somerset Zodiac in England, calculated to have been built 2700 B.C., as covering one hundred square miles. (To suggest its size, the distance from nose to tail of Leo, the Lion, was four miles.) The Heavenly Man, whose bodily cells and organs were the sun and the planets, was the prototype for man. The Divine Cosmic Man became the secret anatomical graph and early man was taught to make all life ‘after the pattern in the skies.’

This general ‘pattern of things in the heavens’ was so widely accepted that events and places came to be described in symbolic terms. The literature from various cultures is thus not yet truly understood. Celestial typology was grafted onto topography, and over long periods of time spiritual concepts were recorded as a nation’s history. Kings and heroes were part of the heavenly drama that prevailed in many lands. The names and events of assumed history made up much of the early literature that has been so confusing to Western habits of thought.

Back of all racial, national, and human history the ancient religious teachers indicated the pattern in the skies. The scriptures and the epics were fashioned to simulate the structural unity in the divine plan of the cosmos and man. Typically, according to Kuhn, one finds the holy city, or the centre where rulers and leaders lived; the Upper and Lower Land were heaven anti-earth, or spirit and body. A river, to describe the union of the divine and animal principle, connected the higher mountainous kingdom with the lower kingdom, bringing fertility and the living water to the lower area. The typical history also included a neighbouring sea (symbolizing the emotional turmoil of mortal life) and a lesser body of water crossed by the soul to reach bliss. Land was divided into

27

seven provinces to typify the seven stages of unfoldment or the seven kingdoms of nature.’7

The seer sought everywhere on earth for archetypal design. Only the wise ones in the mystery schools understood this concealed universal wisdom; only those capable of rightly using the power were entrusted with deeper knowledge. Only in recent years have scientists begun to measure the gravitational pull from the movements of sun, moon, and planets in the cells of man and other smaller forms of life. It is now recognized that ‘the influence of space penetrate everywhere.’8

Universal law: Egyptian Hermetic Concepts of Universal Law The priest-magicians of old Egypt had a profound knowledge

of natural laws. They emphasized the visible and invisible constitution of nature; Isis personified Universal Nature, the mother of all and the ‘Queen of Wisdom.’ The priests realized that there were many truths beyond physical sense perceptions and that in nature, there was a cause for every effect, even though there were many effects whose causes were not understood. Modern science acknowledges cause and effect in physical action, but the Egyptians recognized that basically all causes are super-physical - mental, moral, or psychological. They sought to perceive and classify causes. Their form of learning, based upon long training in the knowledge of subjective life, has not been attained by present cultures.

Those who have belittled the ‘magic’ of the priest-magicians have confused it with sorcery, Most Egyptian priests practiced an exact science based upon nature and its laws. They did not believe

7 Alvin Boyd Kuhn. The Last Light. New York: Columbia University

1940, pp. 80-81 8 Michael Gauquelin. The Cosmic Clocks. Chicago: Henry Regnery Co.

1967 pp. 143-144

28

in the supernatural any more than do our modern scientists; instead their knowledge and work based on natural laws extended beyond physical sense perceptions. The priests had learned how to ascend from the material state of consciousness to a consciousness of universal purpose. By this means they possessed great power.

The Great Pyramid of Gizeh stands as a record of the knowledge of very ancient peoples in the Nile Valley. The date of its construction is still disputed. Many scholars have spent years of their lives trying to find when it was erected, by whom, and for what reason, but the mystery of antiquity surrounds it still. Some consider that it was not built by a primitive people, and many believe it was built by a culture long before our records.

The Great Pyramid, which covers thirteen acres, is one of the largest structures in the world. The mathematical calculations and relationships found in the structure amaze scholars. Knowledge of the laws of mathematics, engineering, acoustics, astronomy, and profound symbolism make its scientifically accurate structure a fitting symbol of divinity, truly an image of time and eternal existence. The feat of constructing it with simple machines and of lifting huge stones and fitting them so exactly is only a small part of its marvels. Calculations from its dimensions have enabled modern mathematicians to figure accurately the distance of the sun from earth. Their knowledge of astronomy was utilized by so constructing the descending shaft to the pit that the star Vega shines directly through it. The four sides of the pyramid are in direct line with the four directions, indicating that its foundation was based on the laws of nature, and upon this foundation was built the symbol of the ‘resurrection of spirit out of matter.’9

It was a symbol of immortality in the pre-Egyptian wisdom, and the temple of the mysteries was the place of light, life, and truth. Recent work by Dr. Robert Pavolita in Czechoslovakia indicates

9 Manly P. Hall. The Phoenix. California: The Philosophical Research

Society, 1957 p.164

29

that the pyramid shape forms a resonant cavity with specific qualities of energy. This shape radiates an energy collected by a psychotronic generator which completely baffles electronic scientists.10

Temples in all lands were dedicated to the worship of divine powers. They were cleansed of evil; in the world of conflict they were protected and sanctified areas where divine invisible powers, represented by sages and prophets, could focus energies to regulate and aid man’s survival.11

The Great Pyramid symbolized the gate to eternal life for those who succeeded in passing from the material world into the transcendental parts of nature. During initiation the disciple experienced divine enlightenment; he experienced firsthand the illusion of death (changing consciousness) and the rising again to serve in the world of men. It was this wisdom, developed to a high degree, which brought the wise from all parts of the world to study the laws known in Egypt, The Great Pyramid was like the fabled Mount Olympus, Meru, Sinai, and other high places of God where man found union of himself with the Supreme Deity.

Unfoldment of Consciousness: Egyptian Hermetic Concepts of

Unfolding Consciousness and Form The wise men of the ancient lands bordering the Mediterranean

recognised that many divinities, which the ignorant worshiped, were personified attributes of the one Creative Force. Students in those days exchanged the knowledge they possessed. Scholars came from many lands; they were not considered heretics if they studied with teachers of more than one belief, because they recognized the principles worshiped, not the names. They sought wisdom, and how

10 Sheila Ostrander and Lynn Schroeder. Psychic Discoveries Behind

The Iron Curtain. New Jersey: Prentice Hall, 1970 pp 357-365 11 Manly P. Hall. The Secret Teachings of all Ages, p XLIL

30

it was described or named did not confuse them. The fable of Isis and Osiris has been fantastically interpreted by

Plutarch and others. As an initiate, Plutarch would have had to hide the meanings from Casual students; he would only have hinted at the hidden meanings. Many scholars tried to interpret the myths and fables but looked on them with disdain and superiority. They missed the deeper implied significances. The fable about the life, death, and resurrection of Osiris can be studied as a mystery teaching about the possibility of expanding the pupil’s awareness. When Truth (Osiris) was dead or exiled into the invisible world, Typhon ascended the throne; then institutions dominated by greed, ruthlessness, and ambition obscured righteousness. Isis gathered the scattered consecrated initiates and searched for the ‘body of her lord’ (Truth). By magic (for all initiate-priests used invisible power), Isis resurrected the dead god, Truth, and through union with him brought forth Horus, the Hawk with the all-seeing eye.

Ambitious Typhon again captured, killed, and scattered the fourteen parts of Osiris, dispersing the wisdom all over the earth. Then Isis and the mystery schools searched for ages to restore the wisdom, piece by piece, 'all except one part, the phallus, the Lost Word. The phallus, which was said significantly to have been swallowed by a fish, was the threefold generative power. By magic, again Isis reproduced the missing piece so the divine power of Osiris was restored.12

In all ages, religions have confided the real meaning and the higher truths only to those who were advanced and dedicated to serving humanity. There is little doubt that the Osirian cycle was an Egyptian, initiatory drama. Wise men of the world journeyed to Egypt, staying twenty or thirty years to learn from these profound mysteries. Certainly a man such as Pythagoras would not have spent twenty-two years of his life studying in Egypt unless he were

12 Manly P. Hall. Freemasonry of the Ancient Egyptians, California: The

Philosophical Research Society, 1943p.73

31

receiving the highest form of human knowledge. The description of the earth as the underworld where a death-like sleep prevailed symbolized that man might rise from this lethargic, ignorant state to a higher understanding. It indicated that truth might be destroyed for a time, as was Osiris, but that truth would rise again and be preserved.

It is quite possible that the Great Pyramid was not an observatory or lighthouse, nor, as usually considered, the tomb of the Pharaoh Cheops. For instance, some say that the sepulchral vault was never completed. There is not proof even that the building was erected by Egyptians, for it lacks their usual mortuary art. The seashells embedded at the base of the Pyramid suggest it may have been erected by much earlier peoples and may be perhaps 100,000 years old.

The word ‘pyramid’ signifies light or fire, thus is a symbolic representation of the one Divine Flame in all that lives, Others liken the pyramid to the universe, with the capstone as man; or mind might be the capstone of man; or spirit the capstone of mind. If it had been meant to be a symbol of the microcosm and of the macrocosm, the secret teachings of Osiris and solar energy appropriately depicted the universal sepulchre in which man is entombed and later resurrected. Manly Hall suggests:

As a rough and unfinished rock, man is taken from the quarry and by the secret culture of the Mysteries gradually transformed into a true and perfect pyramidal capstone. The temple is complete only when the initiate himself becomes the living apex through which the divine power is focused into the diverging structure below.13

If, as seems possible, the Great Pyramid was a chamber for

mystery school initiations, the wise entered as men and walked out of the mysteries with the wisdom of God in their hearts. Here they

13 Manly P. Hall. The Secret Teachings of All Ages, p. XLIV

32

met, face to face, the holy one who never left the house of wisdom. Here they found the gateway to the Eternal. Here the dying god rose again.

The Great Pyramid was dedicated to the God Hermes or Thoth, who personified Universal wisdom. Entrance into the mysteries was not limited by race or creed. The only two qualifications were that the inquirer must live a clean life and that he must want the wisdom more than he wanted life itself. The wise ones came from afar to learn the hidden wisdom and to pass through the tests and rituals of initiation.

The labyrinth and subterranean passageways represented the journey through the sorrows, temptations, suffering, and confusions of earthly existence. Hades, Amenta and the Underworld were all names for that journey from cradle to grave, as travelled by those who wandered rough life dominated by the senses. These were indeed in a sepulchre or cold coffin of self-limitation.

The Egyptian mysteries taught that there were two kinds of existence, one for those who are asleep and another for those who are awake. In a universe planned to provide opportunity for infinite growth, some exist in ignorance, in selfishness, and in egotism, unaware of change, development, and service. They are, indeed, sleeping or ‘dead,’ even though they walk on the earth. Their self-generated lower natures have brought them this limitation.

Those who are awake search for the light and make use of every opportunity. They progress toward wisdom, beauty, and the good. Gradually they unfold talent after 'talent and become master in one situation after another. The world and its problems are the laboratory in which men gain various strengths. They come to know themselves and to be conscious of the Self which is not the physical body, nor the emotions, nor the mind. They realize that body and form may change but that the Self is immortal. The consciousness of the Self eliminates death as the end and replaces it with the concept of changing forms.

In the mystery schools, a pupil might gain power and

33

illumination, coming nearer the perfection of ‘the gods.’ As he realized the relation between the individual self and the Universal Self, he became more sensitive in using the divinity buried within himself. The development of man’s spiritual nature was not regarded as a haphazard process. Definite laws and procedures were taught. The secret process of resurrecting the divine nature in man was taught only to the worthy. A person entered the temple of initiation dedicated to service and consecrated to finding truth and wisdom. The depth and degree of this consecration determined whether his consciousness was ready to use greater wisdom. Great care was necessary in testing candidates because greater sensitivity might be dangerous, both to himself and to others, if prematurely given. The process of raising the consciousness or the ‘frequency’ was guarded with the greatest secrecy in order to avoid misuse and great harm. Those who came to the temple were put on probation while they prepared themselves. The ceremonies and rituals used by the Egyptians and other schools are not fully known, nor is the sacred process ever written down.

The Book of Thoth is still in existence and contains some of the processes used for the regeneration of man. It is thought to describe the method of stimulating certain areas of the brain which extend consciousness. Carefully guarded glyphs gave hints; when the time was judged right, the candidate achieved the ability for his consciousness to slip out of his physical body for experience on higher levels. Afterwards he returned to continue his earthly life, ‘resurrected’ or ‘born again,’ but knowing actual immortality. He then knew death to be only change from a physical body to a finer frequency of consciousness. As a man learned to use this knowledge, and much more that was given him, his life became a great centre through which power radiated to help mankind.14

14 Manly P. Hall. The Phoenix, pp.168-173

34

The age of separatism, where each person feels himself apart from others, is truly passing. We are learning to recognize the common ideals which unfold as we grow. The contribution emphasized by each great religion, as it develops, enriches all of us. The perception of unity in great variety broadens us. As we recognize common values, the plan of universal brotherhood, indeed, comes nearer and we begin to sense our own place in its realization.

35

Intertextualities

37

The District Commissioner in Colonial Africa: Hollywood, Empires and Reinvention of Patriarchy

Paul Ugor

Whether representations shape or create, few doubt their power to influence the selves we feel ourselves to be. Thus, critical analysis of representations, representation of subjects in particular, remains an urgent issue. (Gaggi xii) …it is possible for a viewer perfectly to understand both the literal and the connotative inflection given by a discourse but to decode the message in a globally contrary way. He or she detotalizes the message in the preferred code in order to retotalize the message within some alternative framework of reference. (Hall 517)

Introduction In an illuminating essay examining the second-lives of

Victorian fiction in film, Josh Mash and Kamilla Elliott effectively unraveled the enormous social significance of film as an apparatus of culture in the twentieth-century. They first traced the social functions of the 19th-century novel, arguing that motion picture technology inherited that same cultural role. In their view, the present-day cultural role of cinema technology is its concern with the continuance of “fiction’s burden of social commentary, community building, and the dramatization of [European social] values” (459). While this disclosure sheds a meaningful and powerful sidelight on the preponderance of filmic adaptations of Victorian fiction in the contemporary Euro-America cultural landscape, it also ignites curiosity about the precise processes and literary content of that cultural inheritance, provoking the quest for a

38

meaningful heuristic for apprehending the cultural politics of contemporary visual arts such as cinema.

In an earlier critique, Said had theorized the exceptional social responsibilities of the western novel prior to the emergence of the film genre. He deconstructed the very politics underlying the empire novel by untangling its imbrications in the colonial enterprise through the unique deployment of specific narrative tropes, styles, settings, devices, and linguistic framings, ultimately ensuring the hegemonic grip of the west over colonial expanses all over the world. His critical model in Culture and Imperialism, which proceeded from his earlier work on Orientalism, offered what Said called “a marvelous instance of the interrelations between society, history, and textuality” and how all these connect to discourses of “ideology, politics and the logic of power” (24). And though Said’s critique was restricted to the empire novel, Roy Armies has argued that a similar conjunction can be wedged between the western movie industry, on the one hand, and the colonial (and now post-imperial) venture on the other.

Indeed, in their critical text entitled Unthinking Eurocentricism, Ella Shohat and Robert Stamp have demonstrated precisely how the cultural cum ideological responsibilities of 19th-century novelistic pieces have found their way into film. According to the authors, the emergence of cinema coincided precisely with what they call “the giddy heights of the imperial project,” that is, the very historical climax of Europe’s “sway over vast tracts of alien territory and host of subjugated people” (100). They note also that as the new cultural machinery indexing the progress of modernity, cinema was also invented and controlled by the key actors of the imperial enterprise such as France, Britain, Germany and, later, the United States. And since narratives, whether of the novelistic or filmic genre, naturally reflect, personify and serve the historical moments that occasion them (Castriota 1986), motion picture technology inevitably embodied the very spirit of the imperialistic mission. Thus, it can be argued justifiably that “just as the colonized space was available to

39

the empire,” the colonial landscape also became “available to imperial cinema” (Shohat and Stamp 101). But this was not all. Shohat and Stamp further argue that in a certain sense the “psychic space” of early cinema audiences also became “available for the play of the virile spectatorial imagination as a kind of mental lebensraum” (101). Put differently, the very context of cinema’s invention ensured its mobilization into the imperial agenda of covert exploitation and ostensible civilization.

By inheriting the social responsibilities of the empire novel, especially its role in what Edward Said has phrased as the “formation of imperial attitudes, references and experience” (xii), cinema also inherited some of fiction’s iconic narrative strategies and rhetorical figures. Here we will reflect on one of the recurrent rhetorical figures which colonial cinema inherited from the empire novel, and then proceed from that point to focus on how that figure, over time, provides much of the socio-cultural model and ideological stoking for what constitutes our contemporary historical experience especially in the arena of global politics. Specifically, we will reflect on the figure of the District Commissioner in Zoltan Korda’s 1935 movie Sanders of the River. And by focusing on this iconic imperial figure inherited from the 19th-century novel, we can draw weighty conclusions that connect him to the current Euro-American imperial agenda of policing the entire world into line in its self-commissioned schema of safeguarding the neo-liberal age of democracy and late capitalism. Generally if the film medium inherited the novel’s responsibility of propagating the imperial ideology, it also transformed those social responsibilities in a different historical epoch of neo-liberalism in the 21st Century, where the new American “emporium”1 is frantically anxious about the “civility” or otherwise of Other nations and its own citizens.

1 See Negri and Hardt (2000)

40

“Wondrous Difference” and the Reinvention of Patriarchy What Simon Gikandi calls the “colonial factor”-the force and

commanding influence of the colonial power- is central to most narratives about Africa and Africans by westerners (including even those written by African writers). And the one distinguishing figure intensely symbolic of the so-called “colonial factor” is the character of the District Commissioner. As the chief agent of the colonial force, he represented the imperial interest(s) both by running its administrative machinery in the colonies and ensuring the actual implementation of its policies. The most memorable and prototypical personage of the District Commissioner is encapsulated in Chinua Achebe’s Things Fall Apart. There, we see his characteristic imperial authority and indifference to local concerns when he proposes to frame the entire communal misfortune of Umuofia, symbolized in the tragedy of Okonkwo, in just one paragraph. It is this patronizing and off-handed temperament of the District Commissioner that we see in the filmic adaption of Edger Wallace’s novel.

Sanders of the River is a classic imperial epic which unabashedly espouses the colonialist perspective. Fastened with the master trope of empire novels, it presents history from “the-good-man’s” perspective where the District Commissioner is pitched in a Manichean battle against the monstrous and lascivious African political despot, king Mofalaba. Set in colonial Nigeria of the late 19th century, the narrative extols the redemptive role of Mr. Sanders (Leslie Banks), District Commissioner amongst the Acholi tribe, in quelling a local uprising. Chief Mofalaba is portrayed as a marauding African king, desperate for not just power and wealth [through his trade in slaves] but also beautiful African women. As a redemptive force that assumes a normalizing role within the

41

supposedly prototypical belligerent African political landscape,2 the District Commissioner becomes the imperial hero saving women and children from the megalomaniac claws of Mofalaba and hence he is framed as the agent of British philanthropy, civilizing mission, and the restorer of order amongst a dangerously lawless and cannibalistic power maniac. Mr. Sanders, then, like all District Commissioners, becomes in Ukadike’s words “the embodiment of civilization,” symbolizing what Oliver Barlet has aptly phrased as “the white man, endowed with the power of reason, with a real burden: the duty to civilize.” It is perhaps no wonder that the film is dedicated to the “sailors, soldiers and merchant adventurers…who laid the foundation of the British Empire [and whose] work is carried on by the civil servant --the keepers of the King’s Peace.”3

Told solely from its own perspective, and logically sustained by what Conrad had described in Heart of Darkness as colonialism’s redeeming “ideas,” Mr. Sanders’ character is visually phrased as an indomitable stabilizing imperative without whose presence the politically charged domain of the tribes’ people will explode. The festering animosity and pervasive rivalry between the tribal hierarchies is rationalized as tethering on the edge of collapse. The only normalizing force that keeps the domain peaceful is that of Sanders’; take him away and everything, including the colonial chancellery, falls apart. This master trope of the benign and indispensable imperial agent excludes its own complicity in inaugurating the intra-tribal rivalry that it presents to us. For instance, we are not privy to the pre-existing monarchical traditions around the Acholi people. We know, for example, from Britain’s own royal history, that the Queen of England is not crowned

2 A good example here is Hallmark’s recent adaptation of Rider

Haggard’s King Solomon’s Mines, where the supposed devious exploits of a local king, Twala, are stopped, and seeming law and civilized governance is restored through the colonial force.

3 See Shohat and Stamp, p.111.

42

arbitrarily. There are laid down rules spanning over fifteen centuries which govern the English royal tradition. But the District Commissioner, as a direct representative of the Queen, is indifferent to these rules when he finds himself within the colonized enclave of the Acholi people. Simply because Chief Bosambo (Paul Robeson), a Liberian settler Negro, has warmed himself to the colonial chancellery, Sanders unilaterally appoints him King over the Acholis and arms him with both dangerous munitions and wealth to serve as the imperial stooge for British interests. It is this very illegitimacy of Chief Bosambo that breeds much of the recurrent uprising we see within the universe of the film, yet it is rhetorically traced to the so-called evil King, Mofalaba.

Thus, in reality, rather than the stabilizing force that the film frames the District Commissioner to be, he is in fact the initiator and source of the rancor that unravels within the narrative template of the film. By appointing, endorsing, arming and protecting Bosambo as the imperial stooge, the District Commissioner ignites envy and unprecedented rivalry between the two kings, creating an artificial tribal restlessness which naturally legitimizes his presence as a stabilizing force. This narrative rhetoric is recurrent in most empire novels. In Haggard’s King Solomon’s Mines, for example, Imbopa, a British stooge, is forcefully installed king by Allan Quarterman (Late Patrick Swayze) in Kakuana land against the substantive King, Twala. Textualized here therefore is the archetypal imperial mindset in which the British always saw themselves as the tour de force of modernity and civilization wherein the empire must mobilize its military valor to install supposedly harmless and already beaten-to-line leaders all over the empire, especially those that favored the imperial interest.

This self-commissioned duty of ensuring the freedom of peoples everywhere in the world, both then and now, derived from Britain’s conceptualization of the self as the fathers or patriarch of the infantile and rowdy colonial “black children.” As Anne McClintock has amply demonstrated with her study of race, gender

43

and sexuality in colonial South Africa, the colonies always provided a phantasmal domain in which almost all colonial agents played out their “anachronistic phantasms of paterfamilial class power” (235). Mr. Sanders then is the typical white man who intervenes in the very crisis of autochthonous childish governance and arrogates to himself “the powers of the white patria potestas” which gives him the right to appoint what he considers to be a suitable black monarch especially “on terms favorable to the colonial state” (McClintock 249). As the colonial administrator of state, he also doubles as the superintendent of the colonized children of the empire. In fact, the appointed monarch, Bosambo, recognizes Sanders as “the father and mother to the people of the river.” When Sanders is due to return home for his wedding, he enjoins the Acholi chiefs, some thrice his age, to “obey” Sir Ferguson, the new District Commissioner, “as if you were his own children.” Of course they do not and what we see is the swift degeneration of state requiring the urgent recall of Sanders, sole restorer of peace and the father figure whom the colonial children along the proverbial river of dark ages fear and adore.

Clearly, then, it is apparent how the film initiates a dubious dichotomizing visual rhetoric which privileges Michael de Montaigne’s memorable declaration of the “amazing distance” between colonized Others and the Europeans and thus sub-textually hints at the very “alterity” of the colonial subjects, that is, “the idea that certain kinds of interactions tell people who they are and who most certainly they are not” (Landau 1). This “wondrous difference,” which cinema entrenches (Griffith 2002), animates a discourse that commercial mainstream Euro-American cinema often takes in “the form of teratology -the study of monstrosity…” (Rony 160). This invocation of the primitive other invested with Mephistophelean qualities in chief Mofalaba is a rhetorical maneuver which authorizes and puts a stamp of legitimacy on the activities of the colonial agent because it visually suggests a disconnect in what Georges Canguilhem (2002) has described as the

44

distinction between the “normal and the pathological.” By creating a “pathological” local potentate, on the one hand, and the “normal” beneficent District Commissioner, on the other, the film installs a supposedly superior moral order over a rancorous colonial citizenry preyed upon by a local political psychopath. Of course in the typically melodramatic mode in which most colonial narratives were framed, good triumphs over evil; hence, Mofalaba is exterminated by Sanders for daring to touch the children of the empire. Playing out here clearly is what Edward Said had rationalized as an “orientalist canon,” which works essentially on “distortion and inaccuracy” (8) and often de-contextualizes the narrative for the purposes of furthering its own self-anointed imperial agenda.

This master trope that privileges the liberationist energies of the imperial force has been reproduced over and again and now forms the very core of mainstream cinema in places like the United States. Indeed, now the heroes do not only come from the empire, the actors also come from Hollywood, the American empire. It is here that we address the continuities of the interventionist capacities of imperial heroes in current Euro-American cinema. The danger is that this inherited rhetorical figure that cinema borrowed from the 19th-century novel, and the supposed chaotic political landscape which he often seeks to reorder, has continuously been repackaged and re-circulated over time such that these scenarios have now been naturalized, becoming normalized in such a way that we do not even stop to reflect “critically about their accuracy, authenticity, or causes” (Cordell 214). According to Cordell, they have become so “interwoven within cultural assumptions that we [often] assume unquestioningly that they are ‘true’” (214).

The danger with these kinds of spooky assumptions derived from images of the empire is that the psyche of the average new First World Empire still primes itself in the image of the colonial father playing the patria to the Others all over the world. This is the same argument Said has made with the empire novels in Culture

and Imperialism where he argues that:

45

Much of the rhetoric of the “New World Order” promulgated by the American government since the end of the Cold War -with its redolent self-congratulations, its unconcealed triumphalism, its grave proclamation of responsibility- might have been scripted by Conrad’s Holroyd: we are number one, we are bound to lead, we stand for freedom and order, and so on. (xvii)

This is undeniably the quintessential mindset displayed by the District Commissioner in Sanders of the River. The entire narrative sub-textually embodies and is embodied by this rhetoric of the very sacredness of the British imperial duty of leading the world’s Others on account of its self-anointed leadership of civilizing the world.

In the current international political world order, especially between the West and others, we see this recurring, particularly in the Middle East -the reckless American war in Iraq and Afghanistan being classical examples. Iraq, led by the Late Saddam Hussein, became the stereotypical neo-colonial “axis of evil” posing a threat to not just America, but the whole of the civilized West. To rationalize his ouster, Saddam was framed as the quintessential postcolonial megalomaniac decimating his own people and stockpiling lethal munitions to annihilate the civilized West. To titillate the sensibilities of a Western public obsessed with the feminine figure, especially the ways in which her age-old domination symbolizes Capitalist ownership, Saddam was ideologically framed as the power monster, raping the [female] land and its precious interiority -crude oil. It did not take long before the biblical cry of “Crucify him!” was heard all over the West. But years after, we know that what animated and sustained that invasion, like the old idea of civilization in Conrad’s Heart of Darkness, was just the “idea,” for once again, the American foray into Iraq was a selfish imperial adventure couched in the age-old rhetoric of redeeming locals from a savage king.

Stuart Hall anatomizes the underlying discursive patterns in mass communication processes that underwrite the dangers of the rhetorical sutures we have deconstructed in a film like Sanders of

46

the River. In his deconstruction of the very politics of signification in visual culture, he unravels how the procedure of encoding and decoding messages is itself a “struggle in discourse” with huge socio-historical consequences. Using television as the primary basis for his arguments, Hall anatomizes how the production and distribution of messages is itself embedded in a “complex structure of dominance” wherein each stage of the message transmission process is impacted by the social and cultural power relations. In other words, messaging and its reception take place within the context of relational dominance. The entire communicative chain also proceeds using what Hall calls “symbolic vehicles,” codes of meanings that embody social and cultural discourses. For Hall, then, it is mostly “in the discursive form that the circulation of the product takes place, as well as its distribution to different audiences” (508). He argues, however, that “once accomplished, the discourse must then be translated -transformed, again- into social practices if the circuit is to be both completed and effective” (508). And this precisely is the point of this presentation: the figure of the District Commissioner and the rhetorical manipulations that have sustained him for decades have somehow keyed into the psyche of first world cinema audiences such that till today the bygone history of colonial novels still replays itself all over the world. The current American misadventure in Iraq and Afghanistan, as a project aimed at ridding the world of monstrous political figures like Saddam and the Taliban is, itself, a new national translation of the redemptive power of the imperial force symbolized in the District Commissioner.

It is probably for this reason that Shohat and Stamp argue that “[a]lthough the Gulf war took place in the revised political context of the post-cold war period, many of the tropes, imagery, and narratives deployed were drawn from the colonial/imperial discourse” (128). What we are dealing with here is what Gaggi has rationalized as the shift from the text to the hypertext. We come head on with Stuart Hall’s theorization about how audiences “detotalize the message in the preferred code in order to retotalize

47

the message within some alternative framework of reference” (517). The continued adaptation of the empire novel into film is not so much a matter of recreating new texts from old ones as it is essentially about what Francesco Cassetti terms the “reappearance of discourse,” but one which adapts itself into a new historical moment. In our particular historical instance, it is one in which a monumental Euro-American paranoia has set off new imperial anxieties and hence new interventionist and liberationist agenda that seek to relieve the world from supposedly monstrous dictators who, in the first place, are created by the Empire itself. But all those redemptive misadventures are drawn from nowhere but the colonial discourses of the power of figures like the District Commissioner.

Perhaps it was this contemporary political dynamic that Leslie Banks, the lead actor playing the District Commissioner in Sanders

of the River, prophetically hinted at in his review of the film. Writing for the illustrated magazine, Film Pictorial in April of 1935, he declared that “[u]nderlying the grandeur of the spectacle and swiftly moving events that go to make up the story … is a spirit of quiet heroism” intrinsic to “Britain’s Empire builders.” And for him, that “quiet heroism,” was left for Hollywood to “immortalize on screen” (quoted in Borradaile 67). The idea here is that much of what constituted the imperial comfort of British middle class life such as “brick and mortar houses, with central heating and other modern conveniences,” was made possible by the “help of Sanders and his colleagues in other parts of the empire.”4 Though Osmond Borradaile, the Canadian cameraman in Sanders, has rightly noted in his autobiography that the Africa they experienced when they went to shoot footages for the film “no longer exist” (66) and that “Edger Wallace’s story of the trials and tribulations of a colonial administrator is dated and politically suspect” (54), the idea of the empire itself still exists, shifting now from Britain to the United

4 Qtd. in Borradaile pp. 67.

48

States. And the immortalization of the likes of Sanders has continued to provide an ideological grid for the so-called civilizing missions of the new American Empire in places like Iraq and Afghanistan and almost everywhere in Africa. We only need to hear de-mobilized and wounded American and British soldiers from Iraq and Afghanistan brag about their “quiet heroism” to save these places from political monsters and terrorist threats to the new empire to know that narratives such as Sanders of the River are not innocent; they have been re-appropriated to psychologize a Western public imaginary obsessed with its self-anointed role of civilizing the supposed backward quarters of the world, places far flung from the national frontiers of the empire itself. And it is here that we see a re-invention of the colonial patriarchy but in a different imperial moment of late Capitalism and Neo-Liberalism. Works Cited Armes, Roy. Postcolonial Images: Studies in North African Film.

Bloomington and Indianapolis: Indiana University Press, 2005. Print.

Barlet, Oliver. African Cinema: Decolonizing the Gaze. London and New York: Zed Books, 2000. Print.

Borradaile, Osmond. Life through a Lens: Memoirs of a

Cinematographer. Montreal and Kingston: McGill-Queen’s University Press, 2001. Print.

Canguilhem, Goerges. The Normal and the Pathological. Trans. Carolyn R. Fawcett. New York: Zone Books, 1991. Print.

Casetti, Francesco. “Adaptations and Mis-adaptations: Film, Literature, and Social Discourse.” A Companion to Literature and Film. Eds. Robert Stam and Alexandra Raengo. Malden, USA: Blackwell Publishing, 2004. Print.

Castriota, David. “Introduction: Political Arts and the Rhetoric of Power in the Historical Continuum.” Artistic Strategy and the

Rhetoric of Power: Political Uses of Art from Antiquity to the

Present. Ed. David Castriota. Illinois: Southern Illinois University Press, 1986. Print.

Conrad, Joseph. Heart of Darkness (4th Ed). New York and London:

49

Norton, 2006. Print. Cordell, Julie (Ed.) Genre, Gender, Race and World Cinema: An

Anthology. Malden, MA: Blackwell, 2007. Print. Gaggi, Silvio. From Text to Hyper Text: Decentering the Subject in

Fiction, Film, the Visual Art, and Electronic Media. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1997. Print.

Griffith, Alison. Wondrous Difference: Cinema, Anthropology, and

Turn-of-the-Century Visual Culture. New York: Columbia University Press, 2002. Print.

Hall, Stuart. “Encoding and decoding in the Television Discourse.” The

Cultural Studies Reader (2nd Ed). Ed. Simon During. London and New York: Routledge, 1993. Print.

Hardt, Michael and Antonio Negri. Empire. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2000. Print.

Landau, Paul. “Introduction: An Amazing Distance: Pictures and Peoples in Africa.” Images and the Empire: Visuality in Colonial

and Postcolonial Africa. Eds. Paul Landau and Deborah Kaspin. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2002. Print.

McClintock, Anne. Imperial Leather: Race, Gender and Sexuality in

the Colonial Discourse. New York and London: Routledge, 1995. Print.

Marsh, Joss and Kamilla Elliott. “The Victorian Novel in Film and On Television.” A Companion to The Victorian Novel. Eds. Patrick Brantlinger and William B. Thesing. Malden, USA: Blackwell Publishing, 2002. Print.

Rony, Tobing Fatimah. The Third Eye: Race, Cinema and

Ethnographic Spectacle. Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 1996. Print.

Said, Edward. Culture and Imperialism. New York: Vintage Books, 1994. Print.

---. Orientalism. New York: Vintage Books, 1978. Print. Ukadike, Frank. Black African Cinema. Berkeley: University of

California Press, 1994. Print.

51

Émigré et Immigrant Intertextualité: une Correspondance de Vision entre Textes Sociologiques et Romans Postcoloniaux Contemporains

Emmanuelle Recoing

DES sociologues de l’émigration ont, ces dernières décennies,

remarqué, soit explicitement comme Abdelmalek Sayad dans La

double absence: Des illusions de l’émigré aux souffrances de

l’immigré 1, soit plus implicitement comme Alain Anselin dans L’émigration antillaise en France 2, que toute étude des phénomènes migratoires doit nécessairement prendre en compte les conditions d’origine des émigrés. Le chercheur qui reconnaît cette exigence évite d’adopter une position à la fois partielle et ethnocentrique en retenant pour unique problématique l’adaptation à la société d’accueil. Parallèlement, des romans postcoloniaux publiés concomitamment paraissent vouloir illustrer cette demande des sociologues de prendre en compte les deux attributs qui caractérisent le personnage en situation de déplacement, à la fois émigré et immigrant. De telles œuvres fictionnelles permettent ainsi de saisir l’expérience du sujet migrant non plus seulement en fonction de son arrivée dans un espace donné mais aussi en fonction d’histoires plus larges. Bleu-Blanc-Rouge d’Alain Mabanckou, L’Impasse de Daniel Biyaoula et La colonie du nouveau monde de Maryse Condé sont à cet égard paradigmatiques. Notre article porte sur ces trois ouvrages.

1 Abdelmalek Sayad, La double absence : Des illusions de l’émigré aux

souffrances de l’immigré, Paris, éditions du Seuil, 1999. 2 Alain Anselin, L’émigration antillaise en France. La troisième île,

Paris, Karthala, 1990.

52

L’interdisciplinarité s’avère indispensable pour intégrer dans l’analyse les deux dimensions de ces textes. D’une part, l’étude littéraire indique par quel travail sur le langage, par quels symboles et fantasmes ces romans considèrent conjointement deux espaces, le pays où se forme le mythe de l’Ailleurs et le lieu d’arrivée. D’autre part, l’approche sociologique définit la manière dont les auteurs suivent l’injonction de Sayad selon laquelle il est nécessaire de « réintroduire des trajectoires complètes 3 ». Dans une contribution organisée selon trois axes, nous examinerons d’abord les rapports des textes du corpus avec les propositions de Sayad, puis nous montrerons comment ces propositions reviennent à créer une nouvelle spatialité, et enfin nous chercherons à définir la manière dont cette vision neuve du monde se traduit dans et par l’écriture.

Bleu-Blanc-Rouge se donne comme une fiction de la migration à deux niveaux. Au niveau générique, le roman participe d’une catégorie que Paul Aron a appelée dans Le Dictionnaire du littéraire « littérature migrante » et qui « comprend les auteurs et les thèmes qui traduisent les vastes déplacements de population encouragés par le développement du capitalisme occidental […] [et] développe une interrogation identitaire spécifique produite par les migrants eux-mêmes 4 ». Au niveau de l’intrigue romanesque, Bleu-Blanc-Rouge est marqué par la capacité des personnages de migrants à mobiliser, comme l’auteur lui-même, les ressources de la fiction. Dans l’univers romanesque de Bleu-Blanc-Rouge, la production et l’exploitation par les migrants d’un dispositif sémiotique particulier, destiné à créer de l’identité, constituent des modalités essentielles du processus de sociabilisation des personnages. De telles modalités expriment parfaitement les termes et enjeux de ce que Sayad nomme

3 Abdelmalek Sayad, La double absence : Des illusions de l’émigré aux

souffrances de l’immigré, op. cit., p. 58. 4 Paul Aron, rubrique « Littérature migrante », Paul Aron, Denis Saint-

Jacques et Alain Viala, Le Dictionnaire du littéraire, 2ème éd. revue et augmentée, Paris, Presses Universitaires de France, 2004, p. 372.

53

« série d’illusions, simulations et dissimulations qui sont au principe de l’engendrement et de la perpétuation du phénomène migratoire 5 ».

Ce texte met donc en relief la dimension fictionnelle inhérente à l’expérience migratoire, dans les deux acceptions du mot « fictionnelle » : mythique et/ou propre à l’univers romanesque. Bleu-Blanc-Rouge montre comment et pourquoi le mythe de la France imprègne l’imaginaire du sujet africain avant même son départ du pays natal. Le roman met en scène un voyage qui s’inscrit dans une continuité de migrations réelles (appartenant au monde que nous connaissons) et fictives (effectuées par des personnages romanesques) depuis les années 1930. L’existence d’une histoire de la migration en tant que fait sociologique coïncide avec la multiplication des récits fictionnels. L’un des aspects les plus novateurs de Bleu-Blanc-Rouge consiste précisément à rendre compte des processus à la fois de réactivation du mythe de l’Occident et de perfectionnement de la fiction de la migration au fil des générations d’écrivains.

Dans les premiers romans de la migration, le principal protagoniste était littéralement projeté dans l’univers occidental, et devait alors inventer des stratégies de comportement inédites et adaptées à un monde dont il ignore presque tout. Ainsi dans Chemin

d’Europe de Ferdinand Oyono, quoique le narrateur éprouve une irrésistible attirance envers l’Europe, ses connaissances interculturelles sur l’Autre occidental se limitent à ce que lui ont appris la lecture assidue du canon littéraire français et la fréquentation des cercles coloniaux. Dans Les Mirages de Paris d’Ousmane Socé, si le héros reconnaît bien au détour des rues parisiennes les noms célèbres et les monuments historiques rendus familiers par l’école coloniale, il n’a en revanche aucune idée de la manière dont il doit s’orienter dans cet espace urbain. A l’encontre,

5 Abdelmalek Sayad, La double absence : des illusions de l’émigré aux

souffrances de l’immigré, op. cit., p. 114.

54

les migrants de Bleu-Blanc-Rouge possèdent, sur un double plan symbolique et littéral, un sens de l’orientation. Moki, un des principaux personnages de ce roman, explique à ses compatriotes le rapport à l’espace que doit avoir un vrai parisien et montre qu’il en a été conscient dès ses premiers moments à Paris :

Vous savez, un Parisien doit bouger. Il ne doit pas rester inerte. Il doit connaître Paris, le métro, le RER, les bus, les rues, les avenues, les places, les monuments ; tout ça ne doit pas lui poser de problèmes. […] J’ai été reçu en France par mon fidèle ami Préfet. Il n’était pas venu m’attendre à l’aéroport. Je connaissais Paris avant même de prendre l’avion pour la première fois à Luanda. Tous les Aristocrates connaissaient Paris. Dès que je suis sorti de l’avion, j’ai pris avec assurance un taxi et j’ai indiqué au chauffeur l’itinéraire à suivre. Il était éberlué. Pour lui, je n’étais pas un étranger. J’étais chez moi 6.

Le caractère averti du migrant ici montré informe toute la représentation de la migration dans Bleu-Blanc-Rouge qui met toujours en scène des sujets déterminés à déployer quantité de stratégies pragmatiques afin de mener à bien leur conquête de l’espace parisien et de stratégies narratives destinées à éblouir leur auditoire. Ces deux formes de stratégies s’appuient essentiellement sur la parade. Ainsi, Bleu-Blanc-Rouge évoque une pratique propre aux migrations africaines contemporaines, et plus particulièrement congolaises : la sape. Assimilée par le sociologue Justin-Daniel Gandoulou dans deux études publiées en 1989 chez L’Harmattan 7 à une sous-culture dotée d’un ensemble de comportements, de modèles et de codes bien précis, la sape se situe à la convergence de

6 Alain Mabanckou, Bleu-Blanc-Rouge, Paris, éditions Présence

Africaine, 1998, pp. 83-85. Désormais, les références à cet ouvrage seront indiquées par le sigle BR.

7 Justin-Daniel Gandoulou, Au cœur de la sape. Mœurs et aventures du Congolais à Paris, Paris, L’Harmattan, 1989, et Dandies à Bacongo. Le culte de l’élégance dans la société congolaise contemporaine, Paris, L’Harmattan, 1989.

55

deux fantasmes. En premier lieu, elle renvoie au fantasme de l’Ailleurs et de la migration, avec Paris comme lieu référentiel et, en second lieu, elle renvoie au fantasme de l’apparence qui érige le corps et, partant, le vêtement en signes privilégiés de l’identité. Le phénomène de la sape est donc à lire comme l’histoire d’une double focalisation : focalisation géographique sur la capitale mythique et focalisation symbolique de l’identité migrante sur le corps.

Alors que les romans africains des décennies précédentes insistaient sur la métamorphose psychologique et/ou statutaire de l’Africain émigré qui revient au pays natal, Bleu-Blanc-Rouge désigne le corps du migrant comme lieu d’un langage destiné à confirmer le mythe de l’accession à un statut social supérieur. Le corps atteste par des transfigurations visibles le passage d’Africain immigré à émigré accompli. La première partie de Bleu-Blanc-

Rouge intitulée « Le pays » expose les parades du migrant lors de ses retours annuels au pays natal. L’enjeu est de faire passer pour conséquence naturelle de la migration la métamorphose corporelle exhibée. Avec le personnage de Moki, Bleu-Blanc-Rouge met en relief le rôle du corps dans la capacité qu’a le migrant revenu au pays d’inviter à de nouveaux départs. A l’arrivée de Moki, le narrateur fasciné constate que : « Ce pays de Blancs avait changé son existence. Il y avait une mutation, une métamorphose indéniables. […] Ce n’était plus le même Moki. […] La France l’avait transfiguré » (BR 40).

L’image de Moki permet au narrateur de proposer une définition du Parisien, c’est-à-dire de celui qui a réussi à Paris, à partir de critères physiques : les Parisiens, « les vrais », sont « des hommes joufflus à la peau claire et à l’allure élégante » (39). Cette définition rassemble trois éléments du mythe de la transformation statutaire du migrant décrit par Sayad. Le premier terme, « joufflu », oppose à la maigreur du narrateur resté au pays l’embonpoint du Parisien, qui signifie l’abondance matérielle. Le second terme, l’éclaircissement de la peau, suggère qu’il existerait une acclimatation de l’épiderme à la température du Nord et, partant,

56

renvoie symboliquement à la thématique de l’assimilation à la société d’accueil. Le troisième terme, « à l’allure élégante », indique qu’au-delà de l’abondance matérielle le migrant aurait acquis un capital intellectuel et culturel que reflète le « chic » de sa vesture.

A propos de l’image de l’émigré algérien de retour au pays, Sayad insiste sur le fait que « l’émigré modèle » doit constamment rappeler son statut de citadin, ce qui revient à souligner « la distance que l’émigration lui a permis de prendre à l’égard de son groupe et à l’égard de la condition commune des paysans 8 ». Dans le contexte congolais de Bleu-Blanc-Rouge, le migrant qui joue le rôle de l’Autre au regard du Parisien porte le nom significatif de « Paysan » et se caractérise par son refus de la parade qui l’oppose radicalement au Parisien :

Les vrais Parisiens […] nous conseillaient de nous méfier des faux prophètes qui parleraient en leur nom. […] A cette occasion, ils nous dressaient le portrait-robot du Paysan : un aigri, un austère étudiant en doctorat. Il fait son retour au pays en marge de l’actualité. […] On ne se rendait pas compte de son arrivée. Personne, en dehors de sa famille, ne lui rend visite. Il n’est pas élégant. Il ne sait pas ce que c’est que l’élégance. Il ignore comment nouer une cravate en quelques secondes. Il a la peau très foncée. […] Si son retour coïncide avec celui d’un Parisien, on les compare. […] Le Paysan n’a aucune considération pour le Parisien. Celui-ci change de vêtements trois fois par jour. Celui-là retourne au pays avec trois jeans et quelques tee-shirts. A la limite il prévoit une veste étriquée au cas où il devrait errer dans les ministères à la quête d’un document pour la rédaction de sa thèse. […] Le Paysan est un solitaire. Il se fond facilement dans la foule. Il écrit, griffonne tous les jours. Il ne fréquente pas les buvettes. Les filles ne courent pas après lui. […] Le Paysan mange du manioc et du foufou. Il mange par terre avec ses frères. […] Il aide ses parents à faire leurs courses au Grand Marché. On l’entend se lamenter que la vie est difficile en France. (89-90)

8 Abdelmalek Sayad, La double absence : Des illusions de l’émigré aux

souffrances de l’immigré, op. cit., p. 83.

57

Cette confrontation des portraits antagonistes du Parisien et du

Paysan (qui ne correspond à aucun personnage précis dans Bleu-

Blanc-Rouge) se constitue dans un discours où l’emploi du style indirect libre, par lequel le narrateur introduit à l’intérieur du texte les propos de son guide, Charles Moki, sans les distinguer au moyen de guillemets, indique la parfaite intériorisation qu’a fait le narrateur de ces affirmations. Ce narrateur adolescent est évidemment représentatif de l’ensemble du groupe qui a intériorisé les déclarations suscitées par le désir de parade. Les mises en garde du Paysan ne sont donc rapportées que pour être immédiatement rejetées : « On l’entend se lamenter que la vie est difficile en France. Menteur ! Toujours des mensonges. Il ment comme il respire. […] Le Paysan ment. C’est un grand menteur. Il ne changera pas. Sa frustration est la même » (90). La répétition dans ces phrases du verbe mentir et du mot mensonge prouve la parfaite conviction avec laquelle tous associent l’idée de fausseté aux paroles du Paysan. Paradoxalement, alors que celui-ci consomme des nourritures africaines en adoptant une attitude traditionnelle et s’applique à maintenir les liens avec sa famille, il demeure éloigné sur un certain plan de l’authenticité (dans le sens d’« africanité ») qu’il paraît revendiquer par son comportement.

L’écart entre ce que le Paysan croit incarner et ce qu’il représente réellement est dû à la nature déjà ancienne (par rapport au moment de la narration de Bleu-Blanc-Rouge) des valeurs africaines auxquelles il se réfère. A la période décrite dans le roman, la parade s’est désormais imposée comme trait essentiel d’une identité africaine. Ainsi que le souligne Lydie Moudileno, « la fiction de la migration s’impose grâce à un habile renversement dans lequel le vrai passe pour de l’affabulation et la fiction pour la réalité 9 ». La parade parvient d’autant plus à s’imposer qu’elle s’appuie sur une

9 Lydie Moudileno, Parades postcoloniales. La fabrication des identités

dans le roman congolais, Paris, Karthala, 2006, p. 124.

58

caractéristique préexistante de la culture africaine, l’importance apportée à la parole et à la capacité d’entretenir des relations avec l’ensemble de la communauté du village. C’est à quoi réussit le Parisien qui rallie la foule autour de la buvette, tandis que le Paysan est occupé à rédiger sa thèse dans la solitude.

Lydie Moudileno note cette opposition de la parole et de l’écriture au détriment de la seconde : « Parole et écriture s’affrontent ainsi quant à la véridicité du récit de la condition d’immigré en France. […] la parole du conteur postcolonial l’emporte sur l’écriture. […] Le Parisien, conteur postcolonial d’une fiction à laquelle adhère un public enthousiaste, renvoie aux oubliettes d’une réalité que personne ne veut reconnaître les avertissements […] du Paysan 10 ». Parade et authenticité s’entremêlent donc dans un chassé-croisé où il devient désormais impossible de les distinguer l’une de l’autre. C’est bien ce que souligne à la fin du roman le narrateur, Massala-Massala, dont le nom signifie « ce qui demeure demeurera », lorsqu’il proclame son droit à se réclamer simultanément de toutes les identités d’emprunt qui ont successivement jalonné les étapes de son séjour parisien :

Je suis Marcel Bonaventure, ça, je m’en souviendrai. Quoi qu’il m’advienne. Je ne peux plus le rayer de ma mémoire, ce nom. Je le porte comme je porte le nom de Massala-Massala. […] Quelqu’un prononcerait dans la rue le nom de Marcel Bonaventure ? Je me retournerais. Comment gommer ce nom-là ? Il est en moi. C’est une question de dédoublement. Je ne parle même pas de l’autre nom, Eric Jocelyn-George. […] C’est encore moi. Moi. Massala-Massala. Chaque nom a son histoire. Chaque nom est une période, un fait de mon existence. (127-128)

Dans l’univers brouillé de la parade où Massala-Massala,

« raccompagné à la frontière » en charter par les autorités françaises affirme encore « Oui, je repartirai pour la France… » (222), c’est

10 Ibid., p. 124.

59

pour reconnaître aussitôt ensuite : « Repartir, ai-je dit ? Suis-je endormi ou éveillé ? Qu’importe. Le rêve et la réalité ici n’ont plus de frontière » (222). Le corps devient alors le seul lieu qui, au-delà de la parade porte l’image de la réalité de l’échec. En prison, juste avant son expulsion, Massala-Massala découvre en regardant son reflet dans une cuvette remplie d’eau « un homme étrange, un homme qui me rebutait. Le visage osseux, la barbe hirsute, les cheveux coupés court par un codétenu » (202). Lorsque le corps ne peut plus se prêter au système des illusions propres à la parade, les histoires culminent toutes vers l’image de l’enfermement en dépit de leur diversité : « Nous sommes pris dans un cercle. Nous sommes des serpents qui mordent leur queue. […] Notre cercle est une sorte d’engrenage sans retour. Chacun de nous a sa petite histoire. Toutes se recoupent à la fin » (216).

La représentation des parades du corps est également omniprésente dans L’Impasse de Daniel Biyaoula, par l’opposition authenticité/artifice qui traverse tout le roman. Le narrateur est obsédé en particulier par deux opérations cosmétiques, le défrisage des cheveux et la décoloration de la peau. Dans L’Impasse, c’est Fania, une femme noire décrite comme « un vrai crapaud à tête de clown […] avec sa figure barbouillée de peinture, ses cheveux raides mi-longs 11 » qui incarne une identité qui serait selon le narrateur « contrefaite, frelatée » (LI 181). Ainsi que le remarque Bernard Mouralis dans l’article « Regards croisés sur L’Impasse de Daniel Biyaoula » publié en 1998 dans Notre Librairie, l’idée de race informe tout le roman en devenant une catégorie à travers laquelle le narrateur « perçoit le monde et son rapport aux autres 12 ». Cette notion est à la base du conflit qui existe entre le

11 Daniel Biyaoula, L’Impasse, Paris, éditions Présence Africaine, 1996,

p. 239. Désormais, les références à cet ouvrage seront indiquées par le sigle LI.

12 Ambroise Kom et Bernard Mouralis, « Regards croisés sur L’Impasse de Daniel Biyaoula », Notre Librairie, n° 135, septembre-décembre 1998,

60

narrateur et certaines femmes noires dont il désapprouve l’apparence. Le conflit est dû au décalage entre l’affiliation théorique du narrateur à ces femmes et le désaveu qu’elles en font par le port de « masques de carnaval » et/ou de postiches.

L’importance donnée à la mise en cause des corps débouche sur la création d’une nouvelle spatialité. L’Impasse est régi par une vision binaire de l’espace qui oppose surtout, sur le plan symbolique, Paris et l’ensemble des pays africains tous confondus. C’est ce que montre la scène d’ouverture du roman qui se situe à Roissy où le narrateur s’apprête à effectuer un bref retour à son pays natal, le Congo-Brazzaville : « Il est tout plein de bruit et de monde l’aéroport de Roissy Charles de Gaulle. Il y a surtout des Noirs, des Africains. Costumes de toutes sortes, plus clinquants les uns que les autres. Cravates en soie. Robes de satin. Gants blancs. Parfois manteau en laine, en cuir ou fourrure sous le bras. […] Par moments, c’est à un défilé de mode que j’ai l’impression d’assister » (14). A l’arrivée du vol de Paris à l’aéroport de Brazzaville, le narrateur commente de nouveau les vêtements et attitudes de la foule : « Ils virevoltent. Ils s’arrêtent. Ils crânent. […] Et ceux du balcon, ils ne cessent d’applaudir, de pousser des cris d’admiration, de faire des tas de commentaires sur les habits qu’ils se sont mis. […] Ça me fait penser à un défilé de gens fêlés qui se seraient endimanchés, à une comédie acide » (31).

Ces deux scènes de la représentation de la foule africaine dans les capitales française puis congolaise sont caractérisées, en premier lieu, par la position d’observateur qu’a choisi d’adopter le narrateur. Cet observateur se démarque du groupe de ses (supposés) compatriotes en les désignant par des pronoms de la troisième personne du pluriel : « des Noirs, des Africains », « Ils », « de[s] gens ». En second lieu, les mouvements de cette foule placée sous les regards critiques du narrateur sont interprétés par celui-ci en

p. 24.

61

termes de théâtralité et de carnavalesque. La manière ostentatoire de se vêtir de ces Africains incite le spectateur à les ranger sous le registre de la parade, mais d’une parade qui serait à la fois grotesque et révélatrice d’une psychée perturbée. Le style virulent et familier traduit la réaction de rejet quasiment viscérale du témoin : « Tout ça se croise sans discontinuer » (14), « un défilé de gens fêlés qui se seraient endimanchés, […] une comédie acide, de dernière zone, qui devrait plutôt faire hurler et pleurer de rire » (31).

La formulation de la première scène « des Noirs, des Africains » donne la race comme l’élément essentiel d’identification d’un individu, l’appartenance à un continent, l’Afrique, devenant une simple précision. Cette précision n’en implique aucune concernant la nationalité des Noirs décrits par le narrateur. A la dualité composée de Paris et du continent africain se juxtapose la dualité acteurs/spectateurs basée sur la différence existant entre les Africains qui défilent et ceux qui les regardent du balcon. L'ensemble du monde se voit donc perçu à travers l’image métaphorique de la représentation théâtrale. Paris figure la scène du théâtre et le continent africain les coulisses, et cette division de l’espace entraîne la séparation des individus entre ceux qui regardent et ceux qui sont regardés. Le caractère acide de la comédie naît d’abord de l’absence de prise de distance de ceux qui y participent, les Africains paradant et le narrateur.

Lorsque le narrateur de L’Impasse est projeté sur la scène du monde en devenant à son tour un dandy grotesque, cela provoque une distanciation au regard de la notion de race, comme si seule la parade était en mesure de répondre au rêve de transformation sociale des migrants. La parade apporte une résolution aux conflits internes suscités par les difficultés à réaliser le rêve en déplaçant la signification de la dualité réussite/échec, transformée sur le plan spatial en la dualité scène/coulisses. C’est ce que marquait aussi la fin de Bleu-Blanc-Rouge en présentant essentiellement le drame du rapatriement français de Massala-Massala et de ceux qui l’entourent comme le point-limite de la parade :

62

Je découvre des visages d’autres Africains dans la cour. […] Le dépit se lit clairement sur leurs traits. […] Ce n’est pas tant le besoin de rester qui les tenaille, mais la crainte d’affronter toute une grande famille qui les attend. Comme moi. […] Cette autre réalité à laquelle on ne peut se dérober. Ces mains tendues vers vous. […] C’est un courage que d’arriver d’un long voyage sans un présent pour sa mère, pour son père, pour ses frères et sœurs. Cette angoisse habite l’intérieur de la gorge. Elle ôte les raisons de vivre (BR, p. 219).

La structure narrative de Bleu-Blanc-Rouge met en œuvre le

même mode de répartition binaire de l’espace que la structure de L’Impasse. C’est ce qu’indique la séparation du récit de Bleu-Blanc-

Rouge en deux parties respectivement intitulées « Le pays » et « Paris ». A l’encontre, La colonie du nouveau monde propose au premier abord une vision de l’espace plus complexe, par les errements réels ou rêvés des membres de la secte recréant l’ancienne religion égyptienne entre divers lieux : leur île natale, la Guadeloupe, Paris où ils échouent dans leurs études et/ou leurs vies professionnelles, l’Egypte qu’ils ne parviennent jamais à atteindre et la Colombie où ils sont finalement arrivés. Mais c’est Paris qui s’affirme encore comme le lieu de cristallisation du mythe de la transformation sociale et statutaire du migrant. Paris permet aux désirs de valorisation sociale d’émerger, sous une forme ou une autre, en dépit des humiliations liées à la race.

C’est ce qui apparaît dans la rencontre des deux principaux personnages, Tanya qui commence à voir se perdre son rêve de réussir au théâtre, rêve contre lequel l’avait prévenue sa famille de la petite-bourgeoisie guadeloupéenne, et Jean-Bienvenu, surnommé Aton, Guadeloupéen d’origine plus modeste qui vient d’abandonner ses études d’histoire amorcées dans une université parisienne. De façon significative, les deux héros font la connaissance l’un de l’autre dans la salle d’attente du service psychiatrique d’un hôpital de Paris et ont pour premier sujet d’entretien une forme de délire de grandeur: « Il lui parla très vite de ses prétentions à être le dieu

63

Soleil renouvelé, mais elle prit cela pour une douce folie, pas plus dangereuse en vérité que celle de vouloir jouer La Mouette quand on est une négresse 13 ».

Ainsi que dans Bleu-Blanc-Rouge, la structure narrative du récit dessine cette image de Paris comme point de référence central des rêves de l’Ailleurs. Le roman part du présent colombien avec quelques retours mémoriels des personnages dans le passé (sur trois chapitres) avant de consacrer le quatrième chapitre à la rencontre à Paris de Tanya et Jean-Bienvenu, rebaptisés par eux-mêmes Tiyi et Aton lorsqu’ils fondent le groupe des adorateurs du dieu Soleil. Les chapitres postérieurs suivent un déroulement linéaire, avec des visions de moments divers du passé des uns ou des autres personnages. Le quatrième chapitre a donc pour objet d’annoncer, peu après le début du roman, les événements explicatifs du déroulement de l’intrigue. La dépression que provoque chez Tanya ses insuccès en tant que comédienne préfigure la série de drames de la fin du roman :

Tiyi se rappelait l’humiliation des dossiers de photographies inutilisés, des auditions refusées, des castings connus d’avance, des figurations que l’on est bien forcé d’accepter pour ne pas mourir de faim. […] Ah oui ! Elle était mûre à point pour rencontrer Aton. Sa dépression nerveuse n’en finissait pas. Une fois par semaine, elle se rendait à l’hôpital Saint-Louis où elle tentait de se confier au Dr Timon […] C’est là, dans la salle d’attente, qu’elle s’était assise à côté de ce nègre, carré, jeune, assis sur un banc, très raide, le dos droit […] Comme elle retraversait la cour de l’hôpital, en possession de l’ordonnance qui lui assurait les comprimés indispensables à sa vie, elle l’avait trouvé qui la guettait. […] Bientôt, elle avait quitté le boulevard Voltaire pour s'installer avec Aton à Montreuil, dans un immeuble oublié par les démolisseurs où n’habitaient que des bicots et des nègres.

13 Maryse Condé, La colonie du nouveau monde, Paris, éditions Robert

Laffont, 1993, p. 47. Désormais, les références à cet ouvrage seront indiquées par le sigle CM.

64

Devant les vide-ordures bouchés et les ascenseurs en panne, elle savourait sa déchéance. (CM 45-47). Le Soleil l’[Aton] avait abandonné et lui avait enlevé Tiyi. […] Selon Enrique Sabogal […] les médecins avaient eu très peur. A plusieurs reprises, son [Tiyi] esprit avait quitté son corps pour voyager dans des régions de tourmentes et de ténèbres. […] Aton savait qu’il ne la reverrait jamais de ses yeux de mortel et qu’elle céderait sûrement aux pressions amoureuses d’Enrique. […] Il avait aussi pensé à ses enfants. Méritaton qu’on lui avait enlevée et qui allait vivre dans le monde, ce monde qui ne sait que blesser, détruire. […] Mais le regret le prenait surtout en songeant à Néfertiti, sa première-née […] Il avait appris qu’on l’avait trouvée noyée dans la baie de Tagenga. On disait qu’elle avait été probablement assassinée et un mystère entourait cette mort. […] Furtif, léger […] Aton se glissa dans la cuisine et prit sous l’évier un bidon d’essence aux trois quarts plein. […] sa main ne trembla pas quand il arrosa soigneusement le plancher de la pièce, les calebasses de colliers posées par terre, les tabourets de bois sculpté, les tentures suspendues aux cloisons, la paillasse et la couverture couleur de soufre qu’il avait tissée lui-même. […] Il sortit à nouveau et alla décrocher le chaltouné qui fumait dans le vent de la nuit. Alors, tenant le chaltouné

d’une main, il s’allongea sur la paillasse mouillée, bien droit […]. Son cœur battit plus fort quand, fermement, il jeta la torche au loin. Le feu ne se fit pas prier et dans un grand balan, la pièce s’embrasa. (237-244).

La décision d’Aton de s’immoler par le feu en compagnie des deux autres occupants de la maison parachève, en plusieurs points, le choix qu’avait fait Tanya à Paris de s’abandonner pleinement à une chute dans l’échelle sociale, afin d’assouvir la « haine féroce pour sa mère, pour sa famille [qui] ravageait son cœur » (47). Le droit que s’arroge Tanya de rendre les siens « responsables de tout : du ratage de ses espoirs, de sa maladie » (47) repose, au premier abord, sur la mauvaise foi, dans la mesure où, pour prendre « le chemin de l’école d’art dramatique de la rue Blanche à Paris » (44), elle avait dû au préalable résister « aux pleurs et aux tentatives de chantage » (44) de sa mère Alexis ainsi qu’« à la fureur des oncles et des tantes et aux supplications des grands-mères » (44).

65

Le ressentiment s’explique cependant par le fait que, si la famille de Tanya n’avait nullement souhaité la voir entreprendre une carrière de comédienne, ce rejet ne s’appuyait pas sur une lucidité relative au maintien, à l’époque moderne, de l’importance de la notion de race. Tanya attribue ses échecs professionnels à un rejet qu’éprouverait le monde du spectacle envers les comédiens noirs et, partant, perçoit l’ignorance de cette idée de race en laquelle l’avait tenue sa famille comme un élément malsain, fondé, avant tout, sur la vanité de « Ces Lameynard tellement pleins d’eux-mêmes qu’ils n’avaient pas su lui faire comprendre que certains rêves ne devaient pas entrer dans la tête des filles de sa couleur » (47). La position de Tanya est profondément ambiguë, puisqu’elle est apparemment bâtie sur le désir de prendre une distance par rapport à l’orgueil supposé des Lameynard, alors même que la prétention d’être « l’épouse du Soleil, une mortelle illuminée par son éclat » (13) représente une autre forme de cette vanité. Ainsi, après une première phase de déchéance sociale à Paris en compagnie d’Aton, Tanya, devenue Tiyi, connaît ensuite à la Guadeloupe une existence assez agréable pour lui inspirer dans sa vie colombienne un certain regret :

Autrefois, en Guadeloupe, c’était une autre vie. Après quelques mois durs, tout était devenu souriant. Il [Aton] s’était retiré avec les siens là-haut dans les bois, à Maltapas. La colonie comptait alors cinquante hommes et femmes, tous dans la pleine force de leur âge, sans parler des enfants qui naissaient […]. Au moment de la prière du matin, c’est tout un peuple qui se prosternait devant le Soleil […]. Ensuite, ce peuple se mettait au travail. Les uns demandaient à la terre ses richesses et ses secrets. D’autres élevaient de la volaille. D’autres trayaient le pis des chèvres. D’autres coupaient des fibres de carata. D’autres les assemblaient et les tressaient. Aton, lui, régnait sans partage. (51)

L’attirance qu’exerce Aton sur Tiyi s’avère complexe, puisque cette attirance naît d’une quête tripartite et constituée de désirs apparemment à la fois opposés et vraisemblablement séparés, au niveau psychique, par les frontières du conscient et de l’inconscient.

66

La régression psychologique qui conduit Tiyi à estimer Aton « aussi indispensable à sa vie que les comprimés du Dr Timon » (CM, p. 47) est justifiée, sur le plan conscient, par le fait « qu’il [Aton] était l’antithèse des Lameynard » (CM, p. 47). Toutefois, Tiyi paraît rechercher inconsciemment deux formes de réconfort : d’une part, cette forme marginale de valorisation sociale qu’Aton et elle-même rencontreront plus tard, en Guadeloupe, auprès des adorateurs du Soleil et, d’autre part, un retour à la sécurité psychologique de la petite enfance.

Cette sorte de sécurité procède essentiellement d’une réduction de tous les désirs psychiques (en particulier les désirs génitaux) aux besoins oraux, lesquels se voient corrélés à des valeurs affectives. Dans le quatrième chapitre de La colonie du nouveau monde, chapitre centré sur la focalisation interne du personnage de Tiyi, la description qui est donnée d’Aton et des premiers moments de la vie commune des deux héros témoigne de la régression psychologique de la jeune femme : « Aton […] avait commencé, puis abandonné ses études d’histoire et vendait sur le marché de petits objets de bois qu’il fabriquait lui-même. […] Il ne manquait pas d’acheteurs et l’on ne mourait pas de faim avec lui. Au début, ils ne faisaient pas l’amour. […] Il l’enserrait de ses grands bras comme sa mère l’enserrait autrefois les soirs de grands vents et d’ondes tropicales » (CM, pp. 47-48).

Parallèlement à la complexité des aspirations conscientes ou inconscientes de Tiyi, Aton fait preuve d’une ambivalence similaire lorsqu’il se suicide en causant la mort de deux autres adorateurs du Soleil. Aton justifie intérieurement cette destruction par le feu du fait de son désir de supprimer toute possibilité de renaissance dans un au-delà correspondant aux anciennes croyances égyptiennes : « Il savait ce qu’il voulait : en finir pour de bon. […] Il ne voulait pas que sa barque navigue sur les eaux souterraines jusqu’au rivage planté de lotus, de bleuets et de papyrus géants. […] Pour cela, il allait détruire son corps. Privée de son support terrestre, son âme ne pourrait pas se réveiller » (CM, p. 240). La volonté de mort

67

définitive se fonde sur le souhait d’éviter désormais les souffrances qui ont jalonné son existence : « il ne vivrait jamais plus le drame de l’angoisse et de la solitude qu’il n’avait que trop connu. Il ne serait plus choisi sans savoir pourquoi, abandonné de même. Par un dieu comme par une femme » (CM, pp. 240-241).

La technique stylistique développée par Maryse Condé dans La

colonie du nouveau monde, c’est-à-dire la focalisation interne de chaque chapitre ou partie de chapitre du roman sur un personnage différent permet de rendre compte de la subjectivité de tous ces points de vue hétérogènes des divers personnages. Cette technique permet, de surcroît, de rendre compte en même temps des pathologies dont souffrent les protagonistes. Cette subjectivité et ces pathologies apparaissent en pleine lumière grâce à la comparaison qu’effectue nécessairement le lecteur entre les positions divergentes des figures romanesques évoquées. De cette comparaison se dégage une forme d’objectivité qui révèle la nature pathologique de telle ou telle manière de penser d’un personnage particulier. Ainsi, le calvaire physique et psychologique de la fille aînée d’Aton et de Tiyi, Néfertiti, âgée de douze ans et demi, devant les relations sexuelles qu’elle a librement commencé à entretenir puis continuées sous la contrainte avec Rudolf, le jeune Allemand pédophile qui a rejoint les adorateurs du Soleil, fait ressortir le caractère délirant de la réaction du jeune homme face au suicide de l’adolescente : « […] elle [Néfertiti] avait choisi de le quitter. […] Pourtant, il avait beau s’interroger, il lui semblait n’avoir rien fait pour mériter cette peine » (CM, p. 233).

Les réflexions d’Aton qui estime avoir été, successivement, choisi sans savoir pourquoi puis abandonné sans raison apparente par le dieu Soleil et par Tiyi semblent également pathologiques, d’après les révélations apportées dans les chapitres proposant les points de vue d’autres protagonistes du roman. Aton, qui se ressent lui-même et se voit ressenti par Tiyi comme un homme portant peu d’intérêt aux relations amoureuses charnelles, a paradoxalement élu pour compagne une femme nantie d’une « haute taille svelte » (CM,

68

p. 228) et d’un « corps de déesse africaine » (CM, p. 228). A ces caractéristiques de Tiyi s’ajoute un penchant marqué pour les plaisirs sexuels, ce dont témoignent Aton lui-même, Néfertiti et un disciple d’Aton nommé Mesketet. Le choix conjugal d’Aton révèle ainsi deux traits demeurés chez lui inconscients, dont le premier est une certaine forme d’entrée dans la « rivalité mimétique » girardienne : la possession d’une compagne séduisante revient à donner Aton comme la figure gagnante de la rivalité mimétique. Le second trait inconscient s’avère une aspiration à vivre par procuration une sexualité restée latente dans le psychisme d’Aton.

Ce souci de triompher auprès des autres hommes admirateurs de la beauté de Tiyi et cette marque d’une sexualité vécue par l’intermédiaire de celle qui partage sa vie dévoilent une volonté secrète de pouvoir. Un tel goût qui aboutit à l’immolation de la fin du roman est suggéré, dès la dernière page du premier chapitre, à travers le prêche adressé par Aton aux nouveaux disciples venus d’Allemagne : « Les humains se sont détournés de leur Créateur dont la partie visible est le Globe solaire. Il faut à présent qu’ils abandonnent les vaines idoles que leur cupidité a bâties et qu’ils se remettent à L’adorer, Lui, qui seul en entretient la vie universelle et dont tout dépend » (21). La religion créée par Aton n’est donc pas une simple variante du christianisme et/ou de la doctrine naguère propagée en Egypte par le pharaon Akhenaton : la position de dépendance extrême où, selon Aton, se trouvent les hommes au regard du Soleil témoigne d’une relation pathologique avec l’idée de pouvoir.

La subtilité du texte réside dans un défaut de précision quant aux raisons de la genèse de cette relation pathologique d’Aton avec la notion de pouvoir. Les quelques indications relatives à l’absence de son père biologique et à la maltraitance de son beau-père, alors qu’Aton était encore enfant, ne suffisent pas à retirer à la figure de cet Antillais qui croit être l’incarnation du Soleil un caractère symbolique. L’autodestruction finale d’Aton et la mort qu’il inflige à deux autres personnes possèdent une valeur emblématique de la

69

fascination des personnages dominés envers l’image d’une puissance illimitée. Lors de la tragédie de l’avant-dernier chapitre de La colonie du nouveau monde, Aton joue doublement le rôle de ce Soleil par qui il estime avoir été abandonné. Il devient une forme de puissance destructrice en décidant de la consommation non seulement de son propre corps mais aussi de ceux de Mandjet (une ancienne et fidèle disciple qui lui tient lieu de servante depuis une dizaine d’années) et de Rudolf dont il ignore la responsabilité par rapport à la mort de Néfertiti. De surcroît, Aton se transforme pour ces deux personnes en un représentation physique du Soleil brûlant.

L’énumération des objets qui sont successivement inondés d’essence, calebasses de colliers, tabourets de bois sculpté et tentures pourrait laisser croire à un désir d’Aton de renoncer à tous les éléments de ses croyances religieuses. Toutefois, l’ambiguïté naît de ce que le suicide d’Aton implique un rejet des angoisses issues des croyances chrétiennes : « Pourquoi avait-il [Aton] tardé si longtemps ? C’est qu’aux derniers moments, l’esprit […] questionne : « Et si les terrifiants mensonges appris et répétés en tremblant dans l’enfance étaient la vérité ? Le feu qui rôtit, la géhenne ? » Il avait enfin vaincu toutes ses peurs » (CM, p. 240). L’organisation narrative parvient à retracer, comme dans Bleu-

Blanc-Rouge, la pérennité d’un mythe. Paradoxalement, le geste destructeur d’Aton ne correspond pas à la disparition du culte qu’il avait institué et ce phénomène se traduit dans et par l’écriture.

Le même chapitre rassemble l’annonce du souhait d’Aton que sa mort ne soit « point passagère » (CM, p. 240) et les réactions de Mandjet puis de Rudolf face à l’incendie, des réactions qui infirment l’idée d’une perte des croyances instaurées par Aton. Mandjet se résigne à un anéantissement qu’a voulu ce dieu Soleil dont l’homme appelé Aton affirme être l’incarnation. Partant, elle accepte le choix du protagoniste nommé Aton, en tant que porteur d’un pouvoir divin qu’elle croît pouvoir lui prêter. Le paragraphe retraçant les dernières pensées de Mandjet joue habilement de la double signification du nom d’Aton qui renvoie, dans La colonie du nouveau monde, à la

70

fois à un homme et à un dieu : Mandjet se souvient des enseignements de l’homme répondant au nom d’Aton pour admettre la volonté du dieu Aton. Parallèlement, la joie de Rudolf devant une annihilation qui apaise son esprit en proie au remords renouvelle la vision du Soleil comme énergie bénéfique :

Joyeuses, les hautes flammes orangées dansaient vers elle […] Mandjet se sentit les yeux en eau, car, déraisonnable, l’amour de la vie s’accroche au cœur de chacun d’entre nous. Et puis elle se rappela les enseignements d’Aton et redit tout bas la profession de foi : Ré de l’horizon qui se réjouit dans l’horizon en son nom de Ré le Père qui se manifeste dans Aton. Qu’est-ce que mourir ? Ce n’est que se préparer à revenir au jour. Elle s’agenouilla et, tête baissée, elle attendit le bon vouloir du feu. Comme chaque nuit, Rudolf revoyait l’image de Néfertiti à sa première visite à la colonie. […]. Les cris des chauves-souris pressant dans l’effroi leurs corps velus au-dessus de sa tête attirèrent son attention. En même temps, ses narines respirèrent l’odeur de poivre du feu. Puis, il entendit le bruit de son grand galop dans la maison […]. Il ouvrit les yeux et autour de lui, il vit le galetas tout festonné de rouge. Alors, son cœur bondit de reconnaissance dans sa poitrine. Quelle main bienfaisante avait allumé l’incendie ? (244-247)

De même, la prétention de Jean-Bienvenu à être l’incarnation du dieu Soleil donne sens à l’image de la mort de Méritaton, la fille cadette d’Aton et de Tiyi, à la dernière page du roman, dans un accident de l’avion qui la ramène de Colombie en Guadeloupe, alors qu’il est interdit aux adorateurs du Soleil de monter dans un avion : « D’autres nuages se pressèrent soudain contre le hublot. Méritaton se rencogna dans son siège tandis que des vagues d’une blancheur cotonneuse et tourmentée semblaient se précipiter à l’assaut de l’ovale vitré qui donnait sur l’empire du Soleil. En même temps, l’appareil fut agité dans tous les sens comme s’il était secoué par une main furieuse. […] Était-ce la colère du double d’Aton qui éclatait contre elle ? » (CM, pp. 256-257). La dernière place que

71

cette phrase occupe dans le récit permet de garder une incertitude quant au basculement du texte dans le fantastique ou à l’autre basculement de Méritaton dans la folie. En s’achevant sur un chapitre centré sur une focalisation interne de Méritaton, La colonie

du nouveau monde tend à effacer la frontière entre vérité et folie, réalité et imaginaire. Les derniers paragraphes rendant compte de la relation fusionnelle qui s’établit entre Méritaton et Néfertiti, après la mort de cette dernière, donne à voir une forme d’imaginaire bien plus socialement acceptable que les croyances d’Aton. Ce nouvel imaginaire est fondé sur les théories antillaises traditionnelles des rapports entre les vivants et les morts, comme si l’univers culturel non occidental représentait ce qui perdure après l’écrasement des individus par les violences conjuguées de l’Occident et des mythes postcoloniaux d’origine récente.

Pour conclure, nous voudrions insister sur la nécessité de prendre en compte dans l’analyse les dimensions sociologique et anthropologique des aspects tragiques que présentent tous les textes évoqués. Ainsi, La colonie du nouveau monde s’achève sur les désastres que subissent les adorateurs du Soleil : quatre se suicident ou sont tués, un autre injustement emprisonné, Tiyi est enfermée dans un hôpital psychiatrique et Méritaton semble être victime d’un accident qui ajoute au tragique un registre fantastique. Le tragique se voit annoncé dans L’Impasse par le titre même et il imprègne également la fin de Bleu-Blanc-Rouge lorsque le narrateur est expulsé de France. Ce tragique se construit toujours à partir d’un réseau de déterminations historiques, socio-économiques et géographiques qui ancrent l’écriture dans le réel dont elle prend la mesure pour s’imposer à son tour.

Les personnages de ces trois romans se heurtent à des difficultés qui les poussent à adhérer à des mythes et/ou à en créer. Ces difficultés telles que la misère du narrateur de Bleu-Blanc-

Rouge, l’horreur soulevée par la vision des corps altérés chez le narrateur de L’Impasse et les échecs de comédienne de Tiyi dans La

colonie du nouveau monde sont essentiellement d’origine sociale,

72

même si elles s’établissent parallèlement à partir de données individuelles de sujets nantis de caractéristiques bien précises. Dans ce sens, les mythes auxquels croient les protagonistes de ces trois romans ne passent pas le réel mais, paradoxalement, en sont l’expression. Les travaux ont Cité Anselin, Alain, L’émigration antillaise en France. La troisième île,

Paris, Éditions Karthala, 1990. L'empreinte. Aron, Paul, rubrique « Littérature migrante », Paul ARON, Denis

SAINT-JACQUES et Alain VIALA, Le Dictionnaire du littéraire, 2ème éd. revue et augmentée, Paris, Presses Universitaires de France, 2004. L'empreinte.

Biyaoula, Daniel, L’Impasse, Paris, Éditions Présence Africaine, 1996. L'empreinte.

Condé, Maryse, La colonie du nouveau monde, Paris, Éditions Robert Laffont, 1993. L'empreinte.

Dandies à Bacongo. Le culte de l’élégance dans la société congolaise

contemporaine, Paris, Éditions L’Harmattan, 1989. L'empreinte. Gandoulou, Justin-Daniel, Au cœur de la sape. Mœurs et aventures du

Congolais à Paris, Paris, Éditions L’Harmattan, 1989. L'empreinte.

Kom, Ambroise et Bernard MOURALIS, « Regards croisés sur L’Impasse de Daniel Biyaoula », Notre Librairie, no 135, septembre-décembre 1998, pp. 18-24. L'empreinte.

Mabanckou, Alain, Bleu-Blanc-Rouge, Paris, Éditions Présence Africaine, 1998. L'empreinte.

Moudileno, Lydie, Parades postcoloniales. La fabrication des identités dans le roman congolais, Paris, Éditions Karthala, 2006. L'empreinte.

Sayad, Abdelmalek, La double absence : Des illusions de l’émigré aux souffrances de l’immigré, Paris, Éditions du Seuil, 1999. L'empreinte.

73

English Translation Emigrant and Immigrant Intertextualities: Between

Sociological Texts and Contemporary Postcolonial Novels THESE last decades, some sociologists of emigration have

shown, either explicitly such as Abdelmalek Sayad in La double

absence: Des illusions de l’émigré aux souffrances de l’immigré, or more implicitly such as Alain Anselin in L’émigration antillaise en

France that all study of migratory phenomenon must necessarily take into account the emigrant’s original situations. The researcher who recognizes this demand avoids adopting a partial, as well as ethnocentric, stance in studying the emigrant’s problematic capacities for adaptation to the welcoming society. At the same time as sociologists take into account the two attributes, emigrants as well as immigrants, which characterize displacement, some postcolonial fictional works enable us to understand the migrant subject’s experience, not exclusively according to his arrival in a given place but also according to more comprehensive stories of his displacement from his original space. Bleu-Blanc-Rouge (Blue-

White-Red) by Alain Mabanckou, L’Impasse (The Deadlock) by Daniel Biyaoula and La colonie du nouveau monde (The colony of

the new world) by Maryse Condé are in this respect paradigmatic texts of study in this article.

In two respects, this interdisciplinary study proves to be essential for analysis of these texts. Firstly, the artistic study dwells on the language, the symbols and fantasies with which the novel considers jointly two spaces, the country where the Other myth is formed, and the place of arrival. Secondly, the sociological approach defines the way in which the authors correspond to Sayad’s injunction that it is necessary to « reintroduce complete paths ». This study will be organized in three axes. We will examine first the connections of the texts with Sayad’s theories, then secondly we

74

will show how these theories amount to inventing a new spatialization, and lastly we will try to define the way in which a new vision finds expression in and by means of writing.

Bleu-Blanc-Rouge is presented as a fiction of migration at two levels. At the generic level, the novel draws on the category that Paul Aron has called in Le Dictionnaire du littéraire (The

Dictionary of literature) « migrant literature » and which « comprises the authors and the themes which convey the vast movement encouraged by the development of Western capitalism […] [and] develops a specific questioning about their identity produced by the migrants themselves ». At the level of the novelistic plot, Bleu-Blanc-Rouge is marked by the fact that the migrant characters are, like the author himself, the resources of the fiction. In the novelistic universe of Bleu-Blanc-Rouge, the production and exploitation of the migrants through a particular semiotic device, intended to design identity, constitute essential modalities of characters’ process of socialization. Such modalities express perfectly the terms and likes of what Sayad names «set of illusions, simulations and dissimulations which are at the principle of generating and perpetuating the migratory phenomenon ».

This text presents graphically the fictional dimension inherent in the migratory experience, in the two meanings of the word « fictional »: mythical and/or proper to novelistic universe. Bleu-

Blanc-Rouge shows how and why French myth imbues the African subject’s imaginative world with the events in his native country before his departure. The novel puts on stage a trip which is in line with a continuity of real migrations (belonging to the world which we know) and fictitious (completed by novelistic characters) since the 1930s. The experience of the story of migration as sociological fact coincides with the increase in the number of novelistic narratives on the subject. One of the most innovative aspects of Bleu-Blanc-Rouge consists precisely in giving an account of the process of perpetuation of Western myth as well of the perfection of the fiction of migration over many generations of writing.

75

In the initial novels of migration, the principal protagonist was literally thrown in the Western universe and he had then to invent original strategies of behaviour which would adapt him to a world about which he hardly knows anything of. Like in Chemin d’Europe by Ferdinand Oyono, although the narrator feels a compelling attraction for Europe, his intercultural knowledge on the Western Other are limited to what assiduous reading of the French literary canon and frequent contact with colonial circles have lent to him. In Les Mirages de Paris by Ousmane Socé, whereas the hero recognizes indeed at the bend of Paris streets the celebrated names and the historic buildings that the colonial school makes known to him, he has not, on the other hand, any idea about his bearing on the urban space. In contrast, Bleu-Blanc-Rouge’s migrants have, on a double plane which is symbolic as well as literal, the sense of positioning. Moki, one of the main characters of this novel, explains to his compatriots the connection with the space that a real Parisian must have and shows that he had been conscious of that from his first moments in Paris:

You are acquainted with that, a Parisian must move. He must not remain inert. He must be familiar with Paris, the underground, the RER, the bus, the streets, the avenues, the squares, the ancient monuments; all that must not confront him with problems. […] I was received in France by my faithful friend Prefet. He was not to await me at the airport. I knew Paris before even while I caught the plane for the first time at Luanda. All the Aristocrats knew Paris. As soon as I left the plane, I caught with self-confidence a taxi and I told the driver whatever itinerary he must follow. He was been dumbfounded. In his opinion, I was not a foreigner. I was in my country.

The migrant’s well-informed nature gives form to all the

representation of the migration in Bleu-Blanc-Rouge which always presents subjects determined to display quantities of pragmatic strategies for carrying out the conquest of Paris space through to a successful conclusion, and with quantities of narrative strategies

76

intended to dazzle their audience. Those two forms of strategies lean on the parade. In this manner, Bleu-Blanc-Rouge evokes a practice which is particular to contemporary African migrations, and yet more specific to Congolese migrations: the gaze. Compared by the sociologist Justin-Daniel Gandoulou, in two studies published in 1989 by L’Harmattan, with an inland culture which is endowed with a set of the behaviours, models and very clear codes, the gear is at the convergence of two fantasies: Firstly, it parallels the Other fantasy with Paris as referential place and, secondly, it the illusion of the appearance which sets the body and, hence the garment, as a privileged mark of identity. The phenomenon of the gaze shall so be read as the story of double focusing: geographical focusing on the mythical capital city and symbolical focusing of the migrant identity on the body.

Whereas the previous decades’ African novels stressed the emigrant African’s psychological and/or statutory metamorphosis when he comes back to his native country, Bleu-Blanc-Rouge marks out the migrant’s body to conform to the myth of accession to upper social status. The body attests by visible transformations the passage from immigrant African to accomplished emigrant. Bleu-Blanc-

Rouge’s first part called « The country » exposes the migrant’s parades at the time of his annual returns to his own country. The stake is to mark out the exhibited bodily metamorphosis to be a natural consequence of the migration. Through Moki’s character, Bleu-Blanc-Rouge paints the body’s role in a migrant’s ability for new departures when he returns to one’s country. On Moki’s arrival, the enchanted narrator notes: «The White country had changed his existence. There was a modification, an undeniable metamorphosis. […] It isn’t the same Moki. […] France had transfigured him » (BR 40).

Moki’s picture permits the narrator to propose in Parisian’s definition, that is to say a definition of the African man who has succeeded in Paris, physical criterions: the real Parisians are « chubby-cheeked men with a light skin and an elegant

77

appearance » (39). This definition gathers three elements of the myth of the migrant’s statutory shift that Sayad has described. The first term, «chubby-cheeked», contrasts the thinness that afflicts the suffering hero narrator who remains in his country with the Parisian’s stoutness which means material abundance. The second term, skin lightness, suggests the acclimatization of the epidermis to Northern temperature and, therefore, cross-refers symbolically to the theme of assimilation into the welcoming society. The third term, «elegant appearance», indicates that beyond the material abundance, the migrant seems to have acquired intellectual and cultural wealth that reflect upon the stylishness of his clothes.

On the subject of the Algerian emigrant’s picture at the time where this one returned to one’s country, Sayad stresses the fact that the «model emigrant » must constantly recall the city dweller’s status, that which amounts to underlining « the distance that the emigration has allowed him to take with regard to his group and with regard to the common condition of his countrymen ». In Bleu-

Blanc-Rouge’s Congolese context, the migrant who plays the part of the Other in comparison with the Parisian carries the revealing name of «Peasant» and he is characterized by his refusal of the parade which places him opposite the Parisian:

The real Parisians […] advise us to be on our guard against false

prophets who will talk in their name. […] On that occasion they draw up for us a profile of the Peasant: an embittered man, a dry Ph. D. student. He makes his return to our country on the fringe of topicality. No one realizes his arrival. Nobody, apart from his family, does visit. He is not elegant. He does not understand what is elegance. He knows not how to knot a tie in a few seconds. He has a very dark skin. […] If his return coincides with a Parisian’s return, people compare them. […] The Peasant has no respect for the Parisian. This one changes his clothes three times a day. That one goes back to our country with three jeans and a few tee-shirts. Ultimately, he allows a skimpy jacket in case he should roam the departments in quest of a document for the writing of his thesis. […] The Peasant is solitary. He merges eerily into the throng. He writes, scribbles every day. He does not frequent the refreshment rooms. The girls do not chase

78

after him. […] The Peasant eats manioc and foufou. He eats on the bare ground with his brothers. […] He helps his parents to do their shopping in Big Market. One hears him bemoaning that life is difficult in France. (89-90)

This confrontation of two antagonistic portraits, the Parisian’s

and the Peasant’s (this Peasant who does not correspond to any precise character in Bleu-Blanc-Rouge) is constituted in a discourse whereby the use of indirect free speech with which the narrator introduces into the text his guide’s words without putting them in quotation marks indicates the perfect interiorizing that the narrator has toed of his guide’s assertions. This adolescent narrator is obviously representative of the whole group who has interiorized the declarations prevalent in the desire of the parade. The Peasant’s repeated warning against the guide, Charles Moki, is reported only to be immediately rejected: « One hears him bemoaning that life is difficult in France. Liar! Always a pack of lies! He lies through his teeth. […] The Peasant lies. He is a compulsive liar. He will not change. His frustration is the same » (BR 90). The repetition in those phrases of the verb « to lie » and the word « liar » proves the perfect conviction with which all combine the idea of falseness on the Peasant’s words. Paradoxically, whereas this one consumes African foods, adopts a traditional attitude and applies himself to maintain the ties with his family, he remains removed from a certain plane of authenticity (in the meaning of « Africanity ») that he appears to claim by his behaviour.

The divergence between what the Peasant believes and what he really embodies is aroused by the already ancient nature (in comparison with Bleu-Blanc-Rouge’s moment of the narration) of the African values to which he refers. At the period which is described in the novel, the parade emerges from now on an essential trait of African identity. Like Lydie Moudileno underlines it, «the fiction of migration emerges thanks to a skilful reversal in which the truth is thought to be pure fabrication and the fiction is thought to be reality ». The parade manages to emerge all the more since it leans

79

on pre-existent characteristic of African culture, the importance which is provided to the word and to the ability to keep alive relations with the village’s whole community. That is what impels the Parisian who rallies the throng around the refreshment room whereas the Peasant is left alone to compose his thesis in solitude.

Lydie Moudileno notices this opposition between the word and the writing which is concluded to the detriment of the second: «Word and writing confront each other in this manner as regards the veracity of the account of the emigrant’s station in France. […] the postcolonial storyteller’s word gains over the writing […] The Parisian, postcolonial storyteller of a fiction who adheres with an enthusiastic audience, is oblivious of the reality that nobody wants to recognize the Peasant’s warning ». Word and authenticity become intermingled in a to-ing and fro-ing where it becomes henceforth impossible to distinguish the one from the other. It is indeed what to stress at the end of the novel the narrator, Massala-Massala, whose the name signifies «that which remains will remain» when he proclaims his right to call on simultaneously of all the assumed identities which are successively marked from stages of his Paris sojourn:

I am Marcel Bovaventure, that, I will remember. However that may be I cannot cross off my memory, this name. I carry it as I carry the name of Massala-Massala […] Somebody would pronounce in the street the name of Marcel Bonaventure? I will turn about. How to erase that name? It is in me. It is a question of the dividing. I speak not even of the other name, Eric-Jocelyn George. […] It is still me. Me. Massala-Massala. Every name has its story. Every name is a period, a fact of my existence. (127-128)

In the confused universe of the parade, where Massala-Massala, who is «taken back to the frontier» in a chartered plane by the French authorities asserts still: «Yes, I will start off again to France …» (222), this is to acknowledge straight away: «To start off again, have I said ? Am I sleeping or wide awake? What does it matter? The dream and the reality here are not frontiers any more »

80

(222). So the body becomes the only place which, beyond the parade, carries the image of the reality of failure. In jail, just before his expulsion, Massala-Massala sees by looking at his reflection in the filled water bowl «a strange man, a man who repels me. The osseous face, the shaggy beard, the hair cut short by another prisoner » (202). When the body cannot correspond to the system of illusions which is peculiar to the parade, the stories reaches to the image of imprisonment in spite of their diversity: «We are caught in a circle. We are snakes which bite their tail. […] Our circle is a sort of chain without return. Every one of us has his little story. All match up to the end» (216).

The representation of the parade of the body is as well omnipresent in L’Impasse by Daniel Biyaoula through the opposition between authenticity and device which goes all through the novel. The narrator is obsessed in particular by two cosmetic operations, the fact of straightening his/her own hair and the discoloration of his/her own skin. In L’Impasse, it is Fania, the black woman who is described as «a real toad, with a head of a clown […] with her face covered in painting, her half-long straight hair » who incarnates an identity which would be, according to the narrator, « deformed, slightly corrupt » (181). Just as Bernard Mouralis remarks in the article «Regards croisés sur L’Impasse de Daniel Biyaoula » («Crossed looks on L’Impasse by Daniel Biyaoula ») published in 1998 in Notre Librairie, the idea of race gives form to the whole novel by becoming a category through which the narrator «perceives the world and his relations with people ». That notion is at the origin of the conflict which exists between the narrator and some black women whom he disapproves of their appearance. The conflict is produced by the gap between the theoretical affiliation of the narrator to that women and the disavowal that they do it by the wearing of «masks» and/or false faces.

The importance which is given to the question of bodies is leading up to the creation of a new spatialization. L’Impasse is governed by the binary vision of space which places above all, on

81

the symbolical plane, Paris against the whole of all confused African countries. That is what is shown at the opening scene of the novel which takes place in Roissy when the narrator gets ready to carry out a brief return to his native country, Congo-Brazzaville: «It is all full of noise and people, the airport of Roissy-Charles de Gaulle. There are above all Blacks, Africans. All sorts of costumes the ones more flashy than the other ones. Silkties. Satin dresses. Whites gloves. Sometimes wool coats, leathes or fur under the arm. […] At times, that is a fashion parade that I have the impression of being at» (14). At the arrival to Brazzaville airport, the narrator comments again on the throng of clothes and attitudes : «They move around. They stop. They swank. […] And those in the dress circle, they never cease applauding, shouting cries of admiration, doing lots of comments on the clothes that they wear. […] Methinks of a procession of cracked people who would put on their Sunday dresses of acid comedy» (31).

Those two scenes of representation of the African throng in French and Congolese capitals are characterized, firstly, by the observer’s narrative point of view. That observer distinguishes himself from the group of his (supposed) compatriots by designating them with the third person plural: «Blacks, Africans», «They» «people». Secondly, the movement of this crowd which is set under the narrator’s critical looks is interpreted by this one in terms of theatrical and carnivalesque attitudes. The ostentatious way with which these Africans dress themselves incites the spectator to dismiss them under the register of the parade, but a parade which would be grotesque as well as revealing a perturbed psyche. The virulent and familiar style expresses the witness’s reaction of being almost visceral: «All that cut across each other without ending» (14), «a procession of cracked people who would put on their Sunday dress, […] an acid comedy, of the last order, which should rather make the road shed tears of laughter» (31).

The formulation of the first scene « Blacks, Africans » presents the race as an individual’s essential element of identification, the

82

belonging to a continent with Africa, becoming a simple precision. This precision does not imply any other concerning Black nationality described by the narrator. At the duality of Paris and the African continent is juxtaposed the duality of actor and spectator based on the difference existing between the Africans who march and those who regard them in the dress circle. The whole world is thus perceived through the metaphorical image of the theatrical representation. Paris represents the stage and the African continent the wings, and this division of space carries along the individual’s separation between those who look and those who are looked upon. The acid character of the comedy at first sight is stricken with the distance of all those who take part in the comedy, the Africans strutting about, and the narrator.

When the narrator of L’Impasse is thrown on the world stage by becoming himself a grotesque dandy, this provokes a distance in the eyes of the notion of race, as if only the parade was able to answer the dream of the migrant’s social transformation. The parade brings a solution to inner conflicts aroused by the difficulty in realizing the dream, by shifting the meaning of the duality of success and failure, which becomes on the spatial level the duality of stage and wings. That marked the Bleu-Blanc-Rouge’s end, by presenting essentially Massala-Massala’s French repatriation drama as the point limit of the parade:

I discover some other African faces in the yard. […] Great vexation is clearly readable on their features […] It is not so much the need to remain that work than the fear of confronting a large family who await them. Like me. […] Those other reality with which one cannot conceal oneself. Those hands outstretched towards you. […] It takes courage to arrive from a long trip without a present for his mother, for his father, for his brothers and sisters. This anguish lives in the interior of the throat. It takes away the reason to live. (BR 219)

Bleu-Blanc-Rouge’s narrative structure makes use of the same mode of the binary distribution of space that L’Impasse is structured. It is what indicates the separation of Bleu-Blanc-Rouge

83

in two parts respectively called «The country» and «Paris». Contrary to that, La colonie du nouveau monde proposes at first sight the vision of a more complex space by the real or dreamed roaming of the members of the sect recreating the ancient Egyptian religion among diverse places: their native isle, the Guadeloupe, Paris where they fail in their studies and/or their professional lives, the Egypt that they manage never to reach and the Colombia where they finally arrive. But it is Paris which is asserting itself still as the place of crystallization of the myth of the migrant’s social transformation. Paris allows desires of social self-actualization to emerge on one form or another, despite the humiliations tied to the race.

That is what it seems in the two leading characters’ meeting. Tanya who begins to see the disappearance of her dream of success in theatre, a dream against which was pitched her Guadeloupian middle-class family, and Jean-Bienvenu, nicknamed Aton, a native of Guadeloupe of more modest origin who comes to desert his studies of history initiated in a Parisian University. In significant ways, the two heroes make the acquaintance of one another in the psychiatric department’s waiting room of a Paris hospital and have their first subject of conversation in form of delusions of grandeur: «He tells her very quickly of his pretension to be the Sun God borrowed from Antiquity, but she takes that as a gentle madness, not more dangerous really that to want act La Mouette when one is a Negress».

Like in Bleu-Blanc-Rouge, the narrative structure of the story places Paris as the central point of reference of the Other’s dreams. The novel starts at Colombian present with a few returns from the characters’ memory in the past (in three chapters) before devoting the fourth chapter to Tanya and Jean-Bienvenu’s meeting in Paris; all two re-baptized themselves, Tiyi and Aton, when they found the group of Sun God worshippers. The later chapters follow a linear progression, with diverse visions of one another’s pasts. The fourth chapter opens a short time after the beginning of the novel, the

84

explanatory events of the development of the plot. The depression that provokes in Tanya her failures as actress prefigures the series of events at the end of the novel:

Tiyi remembered the humiliation of the unused dossier of photographys, refused auditions, castings known in advance, playing walk-parts that one is indeed forced to accept so as not to die of hunger. […] Oh yes! She was ready to meet Aton. Her nervous depression had not finished. One time a week, she went to hospital Saint-Louis when she tried to unburden her heart to Dr Timon. […] It is there, in a waiting room, that she sat herself down next to that Negro, square, young, sitting on a seat, very stiff, the back straight. […] As she crossed back to the hospital yard, in possession of prescription which secured the tablets indispensable for her life, she had found him who had watched out for her. […] Soon, she had left the boulevard Voltaire to settle in Montreuil with Aton, in a building that the demolition contractors had forgotten and where lived only wogs and niggers. Before the blocked up emptied-dirt and broken down elevators, she savoured her decay. (CM 45-47) The Sun had abandoned him [Aton] and had robbed him of Tiyi. […] According to Enrique Sabogal […] the doctors had felt a great fear. On several times, her mind had left her body to travel in regions of storms and darkness. […] Aton knew that he saw again her mortal eyes and that she will yield certainly to Enrique’s amorous pressures. […] He too had thought about his children. Méritaton, who had removed from his care and who went to live in the world, this world which knows solely to injure, to destroy. But the regret caught him especially reflecting upon Néfertiti, his first-born. […] He had heard that someone had found her drowned in Tagenga Bay. They said that she had been probably murdered and a mystery surrounded the death. […] Furtively, lightly, […] Aton slipped into the kitchen and took under the sink a can of petrol full at three quarters. […] his hand never trembled when he watered carefully the floor of the room, the calabash of necklaces put down on the ground, the stools in carved wood, the hangings on the partitions, the straw mattress and the blanket that he had woven himself. […] He went out again to take down the chaltouné which smoked in the wind of the night. Then, holding the chaltouné in one hand, he lay down on the wet straw mattress, very straight […] His heart beat harder when, firmly, he flung the torch afar.

85

The fire did not need persuading and, in a bid balan, the room blazed up. (237-244)

Aton’s decision to sacrifice himself by the fire in company of two other occupants of the house consummates, in several ways, the choice that had driven Tanya in Paris to give herself up fully to a fall in the social scale in order to assuage the « ferocious hatred for her mother, for her family [which] ravaged her heart» (47). The right that Tanya assumes to make one’s family «responsible for all: for her lost hopes, for her illness» (47) rests, at first sight, on bad faith, inasmuch as it takes « the way of the school of dramatic art in Paris» (44). She had vowed, beforehand, to resist not so much the « tears and endeavours of blackmail » of her mother Alexis as «the fury of uncles and aunts and to grandmothers’s pleas» (44).

The resentment is explained nevertheless by the fact that Tanya’s family had not the least hope to see her set about a career of actress. Tanya attributes her occupational failures to an upbringing that is sensitive towards black actors in the entertainment world and, hence, perceives as ignorant and unhealthy this idea of race in which her family had kept her. «This Lameynards so much full of themselves that they had not known to make her understand that some dreams must not enter in the head of a girl of colour» (47). Tanya’s position is profoundly ambiguous, seeing that it is apparently constructed on the desire to distance herself against the Lameynards’s supposed pride; then even that the pretension «to be Sun goddess, a mortal who is illuminated by his brightness» (13) represents another form of that vanity. In this way, after a first phase of social decline in Paris in company of Aton, Tanya, becoming Tiyi, knows next in Guadeloupe enough pleasant existence to inspire in her Colombian life a certain regret:

In bygone days, in Guadeloupe, it is another life. After a few harsh months, all had become benign. He retired with one group high in the woods, in Maltapas. The colony had in those days fifty men and women, all in the full strength of their age, without speaking of children who were born […]. At the time of

86

the prayer of morning, all the people prostrate before the Sun […]. Then, the people went into work. Some pray to the land for its wealth and its secrets. Others reared of the fowl. Others milked the udder of the she-goats. Others cut of carata fibres. The others gathered together them and plaited them. Aton, himself, reigned without discrimination. (51)

The attraction that Aton exercises over Tiyi turns out to be

complex, since that attitude is born of a tripartite quest which is constituted of desires apparently opposing as well as probably separated, at psychical levels, by the frontiers between the conscious and unconscious. The psychological regression which takes Tiyi to appraise Aton « also essential for her life that Dr Timon’s tablets » (47) is justified, on the conscious plane, by the fact « that he [Aton] was the opposite of the Lameynards» (47). However, Tiyi appears to seek unconsciously two forms of comfort: firstly, this marginal form of social self-actualization that Aton and herself will find more later, in Guadeloupe, with the Sun worshippers and, secondly, a return to the psychological safety of her first childhood.

This sort of security proceeds essentially from a reduction of all the psychical wishes (in particular the genital desires) to oral needs, which were correlated to the affective values. In La colonie du

nouveau monde’s fourth chapter, a chapter which is focused on Tiyi’s character, the description which is given of Aton and the first moments of the two heroes’ common life reveals the young woman’s psychological regression : «Aton […] had begun, then abandoned his stories of history and sold on the market little wooden things that he made himself. […] He never lacked as to buyers and none died of hunger with him. At the beginning, they never made love. […] He held her in his big arms as her mother held her in the past the evenings of great winds and tropical waves » (47-48).

In the same way of the complexity of Tiyi’s conscious or unconscious aspirations, Aton shows a similar ambivalence when he commits suicide causing the death of two other Sun worshippers.

87

Aton justifies inwardly that destruction by fire by the fact of his desire to remove all possibility of rebirth corresponding to ancient Egyptian beliefs: «He knew what he wanted: have done with his life one last time. […] He wanted never to allow that his small boat sails on the underground waters as far as the shore planted of lotus, blueberries and giant papyruses. […] For that, he went to destroy his body. Deprived of its terrestrial support, his soul could not awaken» (240). The will of definite death is founded on the wish to avoid henceforth the sufferings which had marked out his existence: « he never lived any more the drama of anguish and solitude that he had so much known. He was not chosen anymore without knowing why, abandoned in the same way. By God and by a woman » (240-241).

The stylistic technique developed by Maryse Condé in La

colonie du nouveau monde, that is to say the fact that every chapter or part of a chapter is focused on a different character helps to give account of the subjectivity of all these heterogeneous points of view of the diverse characters. What is more, this technique at the same time allows an account of the pathologies from which the protagonists suffer. This subjectivity, and these pathologies, appear to full light, thanks to the comparison that the reader necessarily makes between the divergent positions of the evoked novelistic figures. From of this comparison emerges a form of objectivity which discloses the pathological nature of one particular character’s such-or-such way of thinking. In this manner, the physical and psychological suffering of Aton and Tiyi’s older twelve and a half-year-old daughter, Néfertiti, before the sexual relations that she freely began to have then under the constraint of Rudolf, the pedophile young German who joined the group of Sun worshippers, brings out the wild nature of the young man’s reaction in front of the adolescent’s suicide: « […] she [Néfertiti] had chosen to leave him. […] Nevertheless, whatever he had questioned himself, it seems to him have not made anything to merit this sorrow » (233).

Aton’s thoughts, considering that he had been successively chosen without knowing why, and then abandoned without apparent

88

reason by the Sun God, and by Tiyi, seem equally pathological, according to the revelations in the previous chapters which offer the points of view of the other protagonists of the novel. Aton, who sees himself, and is seen by Tiyi, as a man feeling not much interested in carnal amorous relations, has paradoxically chosen for companion a woman possessing a «high svelte height » and an «African goddess body » (228). To Tiyi’s characteristics adds a marked fondness for sexual pleasures, of which Aton himself testifies about Néfertiti and Aton’s follower named Mesketet. Aton’s conjugal choice thereby reveals two traits in his subconscious, of which the first is a certain form of entry in «mimetic rivalry». As defined by René Girard: the ownership of a seductive companion comes down to present Aton as the winning figure of the mimetic rivalry. The second unconscious trait turns out to be an aspiration after life by proxy, a sexuality latent in Aton’s psyche.

This concern for triumph over the other men who are admirers of Tiyi’s beauty, and that mark of sexuality which is lived through the intermediary of this one who shares his life, disclose a secret wish for power. Such a taste which leads to immolation of the end of the novel is suggested after the last page of the first chapter through the sermon addressed by Aton to the new disciples from Germany: «The human beings have turned away from their Creator whose visible past is the solar Globe. They have to abandon the vain idols that their cupidity has built and start worshiping him again. He, who only keeps the universal life and on whom all is dependent » (21). The religion which is created by Aton is thus not a simple variant of Christianity and/or of the doctrine formerly propagated in Egypt by the Pharaoh Akhenaton: it is the position of extreme dependence where, according to Aton humans find themselves in the sight of the Sun God, attests to pathological relations, which is the idea of power.

The subtlety of the text lies in its lack of precision as to reasons of the genesis of Aton’s pathological relations with the notion of power. The few pieces of information relative to his biological

89

father’s absence and his stepfather’s ill-treatment while Aton was still a child are not sufficient to deny the symbolism of this West Indian figure who thinks he is the Sun God’s incarnation. Aton’s final self-destruction and the death that he inflicts on two other people possess an emblematic value of the dominant character’s fascination with the idea of unlimited power. At the time of the tragedy of La colonie du nouveau monde’s penultimate chapter, Aton plays doubly the part of this Sun God whom the judges have been abandoned. He becomes a form of destructive power by bringing about the consumption not solely of his own body but also of Mandjet’s and Rudolf’s, even though in a first place Mandjet is a loyal disciple who has been with him. In a second place, he is unaware of Rudolf’s responsibility in relation to Néfertiti’s death. What is more, Aton is transformed into physical representation of the scorching Sun for those two people.

The enumeration of the things which are successively inundated with petrol, calabash of necklaces, stools in carved wood and hangings could let us believe in Aton’s desire to renounce all the elements of his religious beliefs. However, the ambiguity arises from what Aton’s suicide implies: a bringing of the anguish stemming from the Christian beliefs: «Why had he [Aton] delayed for such a long time? It is that on dying moments, the mind questions: «And if the terrifying lies learnt and repeated from childhood were the truth? The fire which roasts, the Gehenna?» He had at last defeated all his fears» (CM 240). The narrative organization manages to relate, as in Bleu-Blanc-Rouge, the durability of a myth. Paradoxically, Aton’s destructive deed does not correspond to the disappearance of the cult that he had instituted and this phenomenon finds expression through the writing.

The same chapter assembles the announcement of Aton’s wish that his death be «not temporary» (240) and Mandjet’s then Rudolf’s reactions in the face of the conflagration, reactions which invalidate the idea of a loss of the beliefs instituted by Aton. Mandjet resigns herself to an annihilation that was decreed by the

90

Sun God of whom the man called Aton asserts is the incarnation. Hence she accepts Aton’s, the protagonist’s, choice, as holder of a divine power that she believes is attributed to him. The paragraph recounting Mandjet’s last thoughts plays skilfully with the double meaning of Aton’s name, a name which cross-refers, in La colonie

du nouveau monde, to a man as well as to a God: Mandjet remembers the man responding to Aton’s lessons to accept Lord Aton’s will. In the same way, Rudolf’s joy in face of annihilation which soothes his mind, a prey to remorse, renews the vision of the Sun as beneficial energy:

Joyful, the high flames dances towards her […] Mandjet felt the eyes in tears, because, unreasonably, the love of life hangs on the heart of every one of us. And then she recalled Aton’s lessons and repeated in a very low voice her profession of faith: Ré of the Horizon who is delighted in the horizon in his name of Ré the Father who shows himself in Aton. What does it matter to die? This is that to get ready to come back today. She knelt and, lowered her head; she awaited the will of the fire. As every night, Rudolf saw again Néfertiti’s image at the time of his first visit to the colony. […] The bats’ cries squeezing in terror their hairy bodies above his head drew his attention. At the same time, his nostrils breathed the smell of pepper in the fire. Then, he heard the noise of its big gallop in the house […]. He opened his eyes and around him, he saw the garret all festooned in red. At that moment, his heart jumped for gratitude in his breast. What beneficent hand had lighted the blaze? (244-247)

In the same way, Jean Bienvenu’s claim to be the Sun God’s

incarnation gives meaning to the idea of Méritaton’s death, at the last page of the novel, in the crash of the airplane bringing her back from Colombia to Guadeloupe, whereas it is forbidden for worshippers of the Sun to climb into an airplane: «The clouds squeezed suddenly against the window. Méritaton huddled up in her seat … at the attack of the glass oval which opened on to the empire of the Sun. At the same time, the aircraft was roughed in all the

91

directions as if it was tossed by a furious hand. […] Was this Aton’s double’s wrath which broke against her? » (256-257). The last place that this phrase occupies in the story permits us an uncertainty as regards the swing of the text in Méritaton’s madness. By coming to an end with a chapter focused to Méritaton’s interiority, La colonie

du nouveau monde aims to obliterate the frontier between truth and inanity, reality and make-believe. The last paragraph giving an account of the relationship of fusion which becomes customary between Méritaton and Néfertiti, sees a form of make-believe really more acceptable socially than Aton’s beliefs. This new make-believe is based on traditional West-Indian theory of the connections between the living and the dead, as if the cultural non Western universe represented that which endures after the individual’s crushing by the combined violence of the West and of the postcolonial myths of recent origin.

In conclusion, we would stress on the necessity of taking into account in this study the sociological as well as anthropological dimensions of the tragic appearances of the evoked texts. In this way, La colonie du nouveau monde ends on the disasters that afflict all the Sun worshippers: four commit suicide or are killed, another unjustly imprisoned. Tiyi is shut in a psychiatric hospital and Méritaton seems to be victim of an accident which adds to the tragedy a fantastic register. The tragedy has been heralded in L’Impasse by the very title, and it penetrates also Bleu-Blanc-

Rouge’s end when the narrator is expelled from France. That tragedy constructs itself always from a network of historical, socio-economic and geographical meaning which is rooted in the reality of which it takes the measure to be essential in its turn.

The characters of those three novels come up against difficulties which press them to adhere to myths and/or to create it. These difficulties like Bleu-Blanc-Rouge’s narrator’s misfortunes, the horror which is aroused by the view of the debased bodies in L’Impasse’s narrator and Tiyi’s failures of an actress in La colonie

du nouveau monde are essentially of social origin, even if it

92

becomes customary from the individual subjects who are affluent in really precise features. In this sense, the myths about which the protagonists believe in those three novels do not pass for reality but, paradoxically, are the expression of this reality.

Works Cited Anselin, Alain. L’émigration antillaise en France. La troisième île.

Paris: Karthala, 1990. Print. Aron, Paul Rubric « Littérature migrante ». Eds., Revised and

Enlarged, Aron Paul, Denis Saint-Jacques, and Alain Viala. Le

Dictionnaire du littéraire, 2ème Paris: Presses Universitaires de France, 2004. Print.

Biyaoula, Daniel. L’Impasse. Paris: Présence Africaine, 1996. Print. Condé, Maryse. La colonie du nouveau monde. Paris: Robert Laffont,

1993. Print. Gandoulou, Justin-Daniel. Au cœur de la sape. Mœurs et aventures du

Congolais à Paris. Paris: L’Harmattan, 1989. Print. Dandies à Bacongo. Le culte de l’élégance dans la société congolaise

contemporaine. Paris: L’Harmattan, 1989. Print. Kom, Ambroise, and Bernard Mouralis. «Regards croisés sur

L’Impasse de Daniel Biyaoula». Notre Librairie No. 135 September-December 1998: 18-24. Print.

Mabanckou, Alain. Bleu-Blanc-Rouge. Paris : Présence Africaine, 1998. Print.

Moudileno, Lydie. Parades postcoloniales. La fabrication des identités dans le roman congolais. Paris : Karthala, 2006. Print.

Sayad, Abdelmalek. La double absence : Des illusions de l’émigré aux souffrances de l’immigré. Paris : Le Seuil, 1999. Print.

93

Female Subjectivities

95

‘Silencing their Abusers’: Marriage and Death in African Women’s Writing

Dianne Shober

For decades the issue of silencing has been interrogated within

African writing particularly as it addresses the muting and marginalization of black women by male African writers and the script of patriarchy which they follow.

Chinua Achebe, heralded as the father of African literature and renowned for his historical African novels as well as his textual and discursive criticisms of colonialism was earlier taken to task by female critics such as Rosa Ure Mezu and Andrea Powell for his de-centralization of women as portrayed as portrayed within the African tribal community. Powell argues that Achebe’s “historical novels consistently side-line the place of the postcolonial woman in order to focus on postcolonial manhood” (167). Achebe explores the hierarchy of gendered positions and the potency of African masculinity through Okonkwo the male protagonist of Things Fall

Apart who affirms that “[no] matter how prosperous a man [is], if he [is] unable to rule his women and his children (and especially his woman) he [is] not really a man” (53). In many instances this control is exerted by physical violence resulting in his three wives living “in perpetual fear of his fiery temper” (13). Nor are the women in his two historical texts Things Fall Apart or Arrow of

God ever able to find to relief or release from the aggressive subjugation under which they live. Yet in his fifth novel Anthills of

the Savannah, Achebe does create a transformed female character. Beatrice is an empowered individual whose voice is that of prophetess and her role likened to a goddess (105). As Emezue underscores: “Of all the characters in the novel she understands at the end the importance of living a purposeful life” (250) and

96

“recognizes the real meaning of human existence” (251), her voice radiates strength and vision to her ravaged community. But not all male African writers create such substantial, autonomous female characters.

Christine Obbo writes that “the need to control women has always been an important part of male success in African societies” (4), and literature, ever mimetic of reality has authentically captured this. Over the years, many black African women writers have been creatively correcting this notion of black African permissible aggressive dominance. Their narrative resistance to patriarchal subjugation and silencing has enabled them to craft female characters who voice their own autonomous, self-governing destiny.

Susan Arndt in her book The Dynamics of African Feminism notes that “African feminists hope to sensitize men to the discrimination which women experience due to the patriarchal structures of their societies as well as the behavior of individual men … [and] count on men’s fundamental ability … to free themselves from discriminatory behavior ” (73). But she warns that “men who disappoint this trust and are impervious to the emancipator endeavors of the women or even stand in their way are regarded as enemies against whom war must be declared” (73).

Ogundipe-Leslie articulated at the first Women In Nigeria conference that “men become enemies when they seek to retard, even block, these necessary historical changes for selfish interests in power, when they claim ‘culture and heritage’ as if human societies are not constructed by human beings, when they plead and laugh about the ‘natural and enduring inferiority of women’” (82). Ama Ata Aidoo declares that “[u]nless a particular writer commits his or her energies, actively, to exposing the sexist tragedy of women’s history; protesting the ongoing degradation of women; celebrating their physical and intellectual capabilities, and above all, unfolding a revolutionary vision of the role [of women],’ he or she cannot be pronounced a feminist” (33).

The question may be asked how black African men have

97

blocked or denied black women a significant place within, at least, literary representation. As at a least some of their novels reflect, seminal black African male writers have stereotyped at best or silenced at worst their female characters. Sindiwe Magona challenges this silencing and misrepresentation in her appeal to other black women writers:

“My beloved sisters, our men have not loved us enough, they have not honoured us enough; they have not respected us enough to make us equal partners. Thus, we have no voice. In the New Millennium, let us wait no more for their benevolence - it does not exist”. (“Freedom” 21)

Almost in response such a manifesto, African American writer Audre Lorde recommends that women need to “transform silence into language and action” (40). Magona shares this view advising that a “revoicing” by black women writers is necessary “to fight our perceived insignificance – force our countries, our nations and the whole wide world, to take notice of us” (“Freedom” 22).

Although for decades it has been offered by such professionals as James P. Corner (“Stresses” 35) that black women have always been liberated (see also the research of Ladner, Stratton, and Lamon), others, such as the African male academic at the 2011 English Academy conference where this paper was delivered, sniped that black women need to stop talking about silencing and do something about it. And black women writers have been doing just that in a powerful and almost predatory way. As Weiss avers, women are no longer simply reacting or writing back, rather they are “taking action” (“Shades” 14), and although she may have intimated this in a discursive sense, some black African women writers empower their female characters to fight back against their unfaithful spouses who have attempted to silence them through psychological or physical violence. This narrative strategy is reminiscent of the South African advertisement against rape televised in 2009 in which the women were ripping off the duck tape covering their mouths. It was a dramatic visual promoting not

98

only the voicing of the assault, but aggressive action against it. African-feminist literature, according to Arndt, has taken action

in three different ways, classified as reformative, transformative and radical. Whereas the reformative literature offers that men and women potentially remain united in a stand against oppression and criticizes men as individuals not as part of the degenerate male pack (83), transformative literature, on the other hand, is more focused in its criticism and questions whether men in general have the capacity or interest to transform (84). Arndt explains that “Radical African-feminist texts argue that men (as a social group) inevitably and in principle discriminate against, oppress, and mistreat women” (85). These male characters are portrayed as “hopelessly sexist and usually deeply immoral” and are written out of the story through their premature death (85).

Four decades of black women writers have aggressively ripped off the silencing duck tape of literary representation. Bessie Head’s “Collector of Treasures”, Mariama Ba’s So Long a Letter, Yvonne Vera’s Under the Tongue, Neshani Andreas’ The Purple Violet of

Ashaantu, and Sindiwe Magona’s Beauty’s Gift have inverted the paradigm of female silencing drastically, and in the process, voiced their rage at the black partner’s psychological cruelty or sexual violence. They hush the spouse in the most dramatic way possible - through death.

Head’s “Collector of Treasures” (1977) In Bessie Head’s short story “The Collector of Treasures” the

reader is presented with a dedicated and long suffering wife and mother Dikeledi, whose husband’s abuse and subsequent abandonment forces her to raise their three young children alone. After years of blatant, dog-like infidelity, her husband decides to return home expecting a hearty meal and a healthy marriage bed. Dikeledi, having successfully negotiated her life and that of her children beyond the oppressive bestiality of her husband, determines

99

to liberate herself of her tormentor and the instrument of his perverse manhood. The story opens with Dikeledi’s traumatic journey to prison where she will serve a life sentence for murder. “So you have killed your husband, have you?’ the wardress remarked, with a flicker of humour. “You’ll be in good company. We have four other women here for the same crime. It’s becoming the fashion these days” (Collector 88). Dikeledi, when asked by her new jailmate how she killed her husband, voices her act in its simplest terms: “I cut off all his special parts with a knife” (89). Kebonye responds, “I did it with a razor” stating “Our men do not think that we need tenderness and care. You know, my husband used to kick me between the legs when he wanted that” (89). Kebonye reasons that she was doing her community a service by murdering her school-teacher husband. Repeatedly she had been forced to endure countless humiliations of him impregnating young girls. Finally, when another set of parents came to her to complain, she resolutely replied, “You leave it to me. I have seen enough.”

Head, the narrator, intervenes at this point and instructs the reader on the men of the world: “There were really only two kinds of men in the society. The one kind created such misery and chaos that he could be broadly damned as evil” (91). Head graphically compares him to a dog who is driven by his libido, and blames him for the “breakdown of family life” (91). Dikeledi’s husband, Garesego, was such a man. When he commands her to silently acquiesce to his return, she knows what awaits her and her family. In his absence “[she] had filled her life with treasures of kindness and love she had gathered from others and it was all this that she wanted to protect from defilement from this evil man” (101). Thus Head, who had carefully described Dikeledi’s hands as instruments of gentleness and creativity that nurtured her family and her community, empowers those same hands to excise from society the cancerous boil her husband had become. Head’s and Dikeledi’s silencing is forceful and conclusive.

100

Mariama Ba’s So Long a Letter (1980) Mariama Ba’s So Long a Letter records the emotional torment

of Ramatoulaye, a woman who after twenty-five years of marriage and twelve children is abandoned by her husband when he silently and secretly takes a second, much younger wife. Although theirs is a Muslim marriage where polygyny is permissible, his absolute and open rejection and desertion of his first wife and their children defies their religious tradition.

After an extravagant and clandestine courtship, Modou continues to lavish his beautiful, young wife with baubles, bangles and banknotes and provides a sumptuous home for both his new bride and new mother-in-law while emotionally and financially starving his first wife and their twelve children. Yet in Modou’s pathetic struggle to keep up with his energetic and virile wife and her night clubbing friends, he is stricken with a heart attack and dies suddenly. Because Modou has “morally and materially” abandoned and humiliated his wife, Ba interjects with the power of the pen, stops his heart and ends his life. There is a cost for marital infidelity no matter how permissible within the polygamous culture. Ba prevents Modou from further acts of betrayal and then works from there to empower his discarded wife Ramatoulaye.

From the onset of the novel, Ba enables Ramatoulaye to voice her heartache. To her friend Assitou she pens her grief as if the written word provides a buffer and a bridge to express her pain.

“And to think that I loved this man passionately, to think that I gave him thirty years of my life, to think that twelve times over I carried his child,. The addition of a rival to my life was not enough for him. In loving someone else, he burned his past, both morally and materially. He dared to commit such an act of disavowal”. (So Long 12)

Although Ramatoulaye silently bears the sword of her

husband’s betrayal, not confronting him or demanding his attention,

101

explanation or financial restitution, after his death, she is speechless no more. When Tamsir, Modou’s brother approaches her and demands: “When you have “come out” I shall marry you” (57), she responds vehemently:

“My voice has known thirty years of silence, thirty years of harassment. It bursts out, violent, sometimes sarcastic, sometimes contemptuous… You forget that I have a heart, a mind, that I am not an object to be passed from hand to hand.” (58)

Although Tamsir commands her to stop, she refuses: “Purge yourself of your dreams of conquest. They have lasted forty days. I shall never be your wife” (58).

Ramatoulaye proceeds to decline a host of suitors, refusing to humiliate a first wife as she had been or subjugate herself martially or materially to another man. Her actions communicate her independence and self-determination. She is silent no more. She has become what she heralded of Assitou, her divorced friend’s victorious liberation: “There you were an innocent victim of an unjust cause and the courageous pioneer of a new life” (34). Yet it is unmistakably clear that it is only after Ba silences Moudou that Ramatoulaye is given the strength and the voice to speak.

Yvonne Vera’s Under the Tongue (1997) Vera interrogates the horror of incest, a taboo subject within

African culture. Young Zhizha, during her mother’s enforced absence, endures the repeated rape by her father, events so traumatic that she is rendered mute. Kopf writes: “Right from the beginning, Zhizha’s first person narrative is abundant with images that show her tongue as an immobile, frozen and alienated part of her body”, but later the reader learns that this is not just a metaphorical representation of silence but an actual one (6). When her mother Runyararo learns of the rape she murders her husband, silencing him

102

forever and permanently preventing further attacks. Weiss, in her article “Shades of Uttering,” writes: “the unspeakable is made public in an unspoken performance, in an act of murder and her subsequent imprisonment. She remains silent as the act of rape is too horrible to speak of, and can only be answered by another taboo: a wife killing her husband” (22).

In multiple ways it is her mother that gives Zhizha the ability to vocalize:

Mother calls to me in a voice just like mine, she grows from inside of me […]. I change into me, and I say a e i o u. I remember all my letters. I tell my mother and she repeats after me and I laugh then I repeat after mother who repeats after me and I after her … I have turned into mother, and she laughs because she has become me. The letters flow from me to mother. My mother’s voice is resonant and searching. She says we live with our voices rich with remembrance. We live with words. (81 – 82)

Vera empowers the two women to speak through their actions.

Runyararo voices her contempt at her husband, a father who would dare violate the trust of his child by stealing her virginity; her daughter Zhizha by hiding words within. Both have given to one another and the reader the gift of speech to discourse such a tragedy, but only after the abuser’s voice is permanently terminated.

Neshani Andreas’ Purple Violet of Oshaantu (2001) In Andreas’ novel The Purple Violet of Oshaantu the female

protagonist Kauna suffers physical violence and sexual betrayal from her husband and is afforded insufficient support from her village and best friend Ali. Kauna bemoans her repression and the feeble guidance offered by the village matriarch:

What I most dislike about her is that she does either little or nothing for the women and widows who are mistreated by their husbands and in-laws, despite her position. She believes that

103

marriage should be one miserable, lifelong experience. Husband and wife should fight every day, he should abuse her and the children, he should go after other women, otherwise ‘okwa tulwa mo’. It is the way of the world. She never has anything good to say about marriage. (Purple 4)

Yet one village woman does speak against the abuse and her

bold vocalization garners notable respect and produces fruitful results. “Mukwankala is well known for fearlessly speaking her mind. As a result she is popular among women, especially young women, and in no time women had gathered around her like bees around an exotic flower” (147). Mukwankala’s candor is well respected by the village women and, as seen in the case of Shange, she even de-tongues the men. After Shange severely beats Kauna, Mukwankala vigorously and publicly rebukes him, stunning Shange into silence and compliance. He never beats Kauna again. Nevertheless he audaciously consorts with a mistress, even building her a house -something he had taken years to complete for his shamed and maltreated wife Kauna.

Andreas, after painstakingly revealing the years of cruelty and neglect that Kauna suffers, brings Shange’s life to an abrupt and early end. He has just returned from his mistress’ house, and enters his own home where he mysteriously collapses and dies. Initially, Kauna is blamed for poisoning her traitorous husband, but she forcefully denies culpability, courageously voicing her innocence. However, when asked to select someone to praise her husband at his funeral, she refuses. She chooses silence as an instrument of communicating her rage and disgust at his betrayal and vicious abuse. The family and villagers are shocked, and even her best friend, who has long witnessed her suffering, urges her to speak; yet Kauna responds unequivocally: “I don’t care” (50). Kauna’s reply indicates her advancement to autonomy. After years of abuse from an unfaithful husband, and a village that failed to intervene, she maintains her silence throughout the wake, refusing to mourn the deceased, saying:

104

I cannot pretend. I cannot lie to myself and to everybody else in this village. They all know how I was treated in my marriage. Why should I cry? For what? For my broken ribs? For my baby, the one he killed inside me while beating me? For cheating on me so publically? (49)

Kauna’s independence stirs her best friend Ali to say with awe:

“[T]here was something admirable in her behavior, some new strength that I recognized, and it was surprisingly heart-warming” (143).

In The Purple Violet of Oshantuu, Neshani Andreas not only silences the abusive spousal antagonist by abruptly killing him, she empowers her downtrodden female protagonist using the same device, slamming her lips closed and refusing speech as a form of voicing her resistance to his oppression.

Sindiwe Magona’s Beauty’s Gift (2008) In this novel, Sindiwe Magona centralizes “the sociological and

psychological aspect of black womanhood in South Africa” through her analysis of the sexual subjugation and suffering of black African women, especially as it relates to the AIDS pandemic (Chiavetta 172). The story turns on the fulcrum of trust and how lack of male fidelity is the deadly scourge of African women. The novel’s title takes its name from one of the characters who is fatally infected with the AIDS virus by her wayward husband. Initially Beauty is silenced by her overbearing husband, Hamilton, who chases her concerned friends from their bedroom just as she is about to divulge the nature and extent of her illness. Through flashbacks the reader witnesses Beauty’s deterioration, from the swollen lips to the skeletal frame housing blind eyes, as her emaciated remains ooze with angry, painful sores. Yet Beauty’s love for her friends supersedes her pain and shame and, with the passionate fires of an evangelist, she delivers a final deathbed warning to her best friend

105

Amanda:

Don’t die a stupid death, like I am doing! Live!” she says. “Live till every hair on your head turns grey. Earn your wrinkles and, damn you, enjoy them! Enjoy every wrinkle and every grey hair on your head. Tell yourself you have survived! Sur-vived!” Her voice drops. “Live!” she says. “Don’t die … like this… (Beauty’s 74)

This is the foundation of Magona’s novel. Women die because

of men’s unfaithfulness. Traditional cultural polygamy or the hegemonic controls of patriarchy can no longer be acceptable in a society beset with a deadly sexually contracted virus, and African men’s resistance to behavioral change is killing African women. Cordelia, one of Beauty’s five firm friends, violently attacks the men at one of the AIDS funerals: “African mothers, faithfully married women, are killed by men who will not stop sleeping around!” (70).

The men feel the heat of Cordelia’s accusation and one weakly retorts that she must hate African men, a shocking indictment against an African woman who should live, breathe and sleep by the light of the African male. With this statement, Cordelia lobs her final volley: “I hate my black brothers, you say? You’re damn right I do!” … Only a fool goes to bed with the enemy – an armed enemy, at that. What do you think the black man’s penis is? I’ll tell you what it is. It is a deadly weapon!” (71). Stunned at her accusation that their instrument of manhood and insatiable sensations could be deemed a weapon, the men abruptly leave for a shebeen (African township bar). That is their domain, their location of power, where conversation and behavior is ruled by their desire and level of intoxication. The women present in that environment would not challenge their hegemony or diminish their masculinity with ridiculous moral requirements or social responsibilities.

According to Beauty’s Gift, rare is the African man who practices sexual responsibility. When the women deny their

106

partners’ conjugal rights until they obtain an AIDS test, the male reaction is one of violence and rage. Cordelia’s husband gives her a black eye and openly flaunts his infidelity. Edith’s husband Luvo takes her by force, while Amanda’s Zakes ignores her. Only Doris’ fiancée Selby agrees to testing, but only because the bank requires a test for their house loan.

Magona’s novel portrays husbands in various unpleasant forms: Hamilton sports a string of mistresses; Vuyo is openly adulterous; Luvo rapes his wife; Selby cheats on his fiancé; and Zakes, besides his two illegitimate children, is a drunken coward. In all these instances, husbands pretend monogamy while practicing polygamy. They expect their partners to remain faithful to them while they fornicate freely without repercussions. They expect to say “I love you” and all to be forgiven and forgotten. They believe a bauble of jewelry and crocodile tears will remove the stain of their infidelity. They represent the hard reality of the culturally endowed African man, as Yvette Abrahams warns: “black men are sexist and the violent emanations of that sexism could well succeed in destroying the Black community” (424).

Magona ends her novel with death. At the beginning of the novel, Beauty dies through the unfaithfulness of her promiscuous husband; at the end Zakes dies by his own pusillanimous hand. Drinking himself into oblivion in order to dull the shame of his extramarital disgrace, he drunkenly staggers into the path of a car and to his doom.

In various ways throughout the novel, men had attempted to silence women against voicing the flaws in their relationship, their unhappiness with men’s serial polygamy. But women resisted in numerous ways. Beauty’s body, through her physical degeneration, screamed of the marital abuse. Finally, just before her death, her voice was loosed to utter a warning to her female friends: “Don’t die a stupid death -like me”.

Before Zakes death it was Amanda that utilized the tool of de-tonguing her husband by refusing to allow him to speak to her about

107

forgiveness and reconciliation. Although she could not silence her elders, Amanda nonetheless refuses to listen to their counsel about marital restoration. Similarly when the drunken Zakes is killed, she not only refuses to listen to their accusations that her stubbornness caused his death, she actually shouted them down, utilizing her voice and her limbs by walking out the door. Even at the Zakes’ funeral, she refuses her traditional place on the family dais, choosing instead to sit with her five firm friends. Through her actions, she loudly voices her discontent: “She could not honour his memory – or the memory of what they had had, which he had betrayed” (Beauty’s 166).

In a brilliant narrational move, Magona chooses to silence Zakes rather than allow him to voice flimsy excuses for his repeated child-bearing affairs. His hit and run pedestrian death further underscores Magona’s recurring theme: sexual irresponsibility begets death. Thirteen years before writing Beauty’s Gift, Magona voiced her desire to champion black women’s autonomy:

Let’s say a woman is wondering whether it is a good thing or not to try to change this or that in her marriage or in her relationship to a man, and she finds a book that I have written where I say: “If you were good enough for him to come to you, you are good enough for him to treat you well. If he doesn’t treat you well, you should take yourself back! (qtd. in Solberg 91)

The five works discussed: Head’s “Collector of Treasures,” Ba’s So Long a Letter, Vera’s Under the Tongue, Andreas’ The

Purple Violet of Oshanttu, and Magona’s Beauty’s Gift each offer readers the radical form of silencing the African feminist may take in muting the psychologically and sexually exploitive African male. Having discovered that efforts to be heard appear to have fallen on deaf ears, African women writers are taking their pen and erasing the perpetrators of humiliation and violence altogether, thereby vigorously voicing their resistance by silencing their abusers once and for all.

108

Works Cited Achebe, Chinua. Things Fall Apart. London: Heinemann, 1962. Print. -- -- --. Anthills of the Savannah. London: Heinemann, 1988. Print. Abrahams, Yvette. “Ambiguity Is My Middle Name: A Research

Diary.” Women in South African History. Ed. Nomboniso Gasa. Cape Town: HSRC Press, 2007. 421-452. Print.

Aidoo, Ama Ata. “Unwelcome Pals and Decorative Slaves – or Glimpses of Women as Writers and Characters in Contemporary African Literature.” Medium and Message: Proceedings of the

International Conference on African Literature and the English

Language (Calabar, Nigeria: University of Calabar, 1981) 1:17-37. Print.

Andreas, Neshani. The Purple Violet of Oshaantu. Oxford: Heinemann, 2001. Print.

Arndt, Susan. The Dynamics of African Feminism. Trenton, NJ: Africa World Press, Inc., 2002. Print.

Bâ, Mariama. So Long A Letter. Oxford: Heinemann, 1989. Print. Chiavetta, Eleonora. “A Modern Storyteller.” Sindiwe Magona: The

First Decade. Ed. Siphokazi Koyana. Scottsville: The University of Kwazulu-Natal Press, 2004. 167-173. Print.

Emezue, GMT. “Achebe, Ce.” New Black and African Writing, Vol 1. Eds. C. Smith and GMT Emezue. Gardena, CA: African Books Network, 2009. 237-260. Print.

Head, Bessie. The Collector of Treasures. Oxford: Heinemann, 1977. Print.

Kopf, Martina. “Writing Sexual Violence: Words and Silences in Yvonne Vera’s Under the Tongue.” Body, Sexuality, and Gender:

Versions and Subversions in African Literatures 1. Ed. Flora Veit-Wild and dirk Naguschewski. Amsterdam: Rodopi, 2005. 243-253. Print.

Ladner, Joyce A. Tomorrow’s Tomorrow: The Black Woman. Garden City, NY: Doubleday, 1971. Print.

Lamont, Michèle. The Cultural Territories of Race: Black and White

Boundaries. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1999. Lorde, Audre. “The Transformation of Silence into Language and

Action.” Sister Outsider. Ed. Audre Lorde. Freedom, CA: The Crossing P, 1984:40 – 44. Print.

109

Magona, Sindiwe. Beauty’s Gift. Cape Town: Kwela Books, 2008. Print.

Magona, Sindiwe. “Freedom of Expression for Women: Myth or Reality.” Women and Activism: Women’s Writer’s Conference. 29 – 30 July, 1999. Harare: Zimbabwe International Book Fair, 2000. 19-22. Print.

Obbo, Christine. African Women: The Struggle for Economic Independence. London: Zed Press, 1980. Print.

Ogundipe-Leslie, Molara. Re-creating Ourselves: African Women and

Critical Transformation. Trenton, NJ: Africa World Press, 1994. Print.

Powell, Andrea. “Problematizing Polygyny in the Historical Novels of Chinua Achebe: The Role of the Western Feminist Scholar.” Research in African Literatures, 39.1 (Spring 2008): 166-185. Print.

Sidikou, Aissata. Recreating Words, Reshaping Worlds. The Verbal Art of Women from Niger, Mali, and Senegal. Trenton, NJ: Africa World Press, 2001. Print.

Solberg, Rolf. “Interview with Sindiwe Magona.” Reflections:

Perspectives on Writing in Post Apartheid South Africa. Eds. Rolf Solberg and Malcolm and Hacksley. Grahamstown: NELM, 1996: 82-99. Print.

Stratton, Florence. Contemporary African Literature and the Politics of Gender. London: Routledge, 1994. Print.

“Stresses and Strains on Black Women.” Ebony. June, 1974: 33-40. Print.

Vera, Yvonne. Under the Tongue. Harare: Baobab Books, 1997. Print. Weiss, Bettina. “Shades of Utter(ing) Silences in The Purple Violet of

Oshaantu, Maru and Under the Tongue.” Journal of African Literature and Culture. 4 (2007):13-32. Print.

Weiss, Bettina. Tangible voice-throwing: Empowering Corporeal Discourses in African Women's Writing of Southern Africa. Frankfurt: Peter Lang, 2004. Print.

111

The Search for Female Subjectivity in Toni Morrison's Bluest Eye

Soheila Poorali

Introduction ALTHOUGH widespread studies and cultural surveys have

been done by psychologists, psychoanalysts and cultural researchers to demonstrate the close relationships in the construction of gender and identity, little has been asked, using psychoanalysis, about the delicate, intertwining and deep connections between race and identity construction. The initial desire to write psychoanalytically on The Bluest Eye evolved from the need to question what it would mean to revise Feminist psychoanalysis in a discourse on the subjectivity of women of colour. Because the psychoanalysis process has been practised almost exclusively with white subjects, and racial difference only an intermittent and peripheral focus of attention, the question inevitably arises as to matters black female subjectivity in a white-dominant milieu. Through the history of psychoanalysis little has been asked about what might obtain if gendered subjectivity were considered in terms of assumptions about whiteness and blackness since people tend to distinguish one another by gender (Abel 226). In gendered subjectivity ‘race’ and ‘blackness’ seemed to have nothing to do with the civilized white human subject (225). Freud’s and Lacan’s male dominated theories of sexual development, which could equally apply to women, reeks with the charge that it was narrowly focused on the subjectivity of White Europeans (Abel 223). It is necessary to note from the onset that Lacan believes that race and sexuality are inseparable. It means that by displacing the absolute and displaying the difference between men and women, they recode race as gender. Lacan also

112

used ‘The other’ and ‘The Same’ between existing conflicts. But it is a glaring point that Lacan's ‘L'Aute’ or ‘big Other’ has no obvious relation to colour, or rather, the ‘Other has no ‘colour’ in his view. As pointed out before, race plays a trivial role in Lacan’s discourse, but his notions are nevertheless applicable in a study of black subjectivity. The process of construction of self, in the assumption of Lacan, is initiated in the Mirror stage and comes to fulfilment in the Symbolic order. In fact Lacan introduces ‘Imaginary ‘and ‘Symbolic’ to the concept of child identity. For Lacan, pre-Oedipal child lives in what he calls the imaginary (quoted in Bertons 161). This stage as he stresses predates language and ‘the child can not yet speak, it is subject to impression and fantasies’ (161). So in the mirror stage, the child comes into the ‘image which that world gives to us’, not a complete one, but fragmented, distorted image, which leads us to ‘misrecognition’ (161). For Lacan, we need the response and recognition of others and the Other to arrive at what we experience as our identity. This ‘identity which we acquire from the Other is a form of fantasy and misrecognition. It is by interaction with others that our identity constructs’ (161). So we become ourselves by way of others’ perspectives and others’ view of how we are. We are also become ourselves under ‘the gaze of the other or Great other’ (161). This Other may be embodied in one's father or mother or, maybe, is not a ‘concrete individual’, but everything it is ‘stands for larger social order’ (161). The main part which Lacan always emphasizes is that this ‘identity not only is subject to constant change, it can also never be coherent’ (162). This unstable identity, however, emerges as the ideal only with entering into language in the symbolic where the child learns to confirm its identity, for example, by answering to its name.

Subjectivity and Identity in Bluest Eye. The bluest eye depicts the tragic life of a young black girl,

Pecola Breedlove, who wants nothing more than to be loved by her

113

family and her schoolmates. She surmises that the reason she is despised and ridiculed is that she is black (even blacker than most people), therefore, ugly. Consequently, Pecola sublimates her desire to be loved into a desire to have blue eyes and blond hair; in other words, to basically look like Shirely Temple who Pecola thinks is adored by all. Pecola soon after entering young womanhood is raped and impregnated by her father, Cholly. Her mother, Pauline finds haven, hope, life and meaning as a servant to the white, blond blue-eyed, clean and rich family to which he dedicated her love and her respect for an orderly life that poverty not afford. Unable to endure the brutality toward her frail self-image, Pecola goes quietly insane and withdraws into a fantasy world in which she is the most beloved little girl because she ends up having the bluest eyes of all.

At this point, one can pose a few hypothetical questions as to how race plays a role in determining subjective psychological identity. Do theories from psychology and psychoanalysis provide valid assumptions for black identity construction or re-construction? How much of the theory of Lacan can stand in a psychoanalytical reading of Morrison’s novel under study?

The Imaginary Other: The stage of mirroring others As the process of construction of self as social identity is

initiated at the Mirror stage and brought to fulfilment only with the resolution of the Oedipal crisis, Lacan introduces the Imaginary and Symbolic to the conception of child identity. For Lacan the pre-Odipal child ‘lives in what he sees --‘The Imaginary’. This stage, as he stresses, predates language and ‘The child can yet speak, it is subject to impression and fantasies’ (quoted in Bertons 161). So what he does experience here is a set of unified image of its body, a ‘Gestalt or organized pattern’ (161). In the mirror stage, which is a forbidden realm for real image, we come into an ‘image’ which that world gives to us; not a complete one, but fragmented, distorted image, which leads us to ‘misrecognition’ (161). According to

114

Lacan, a normal subject must eventually move from the mirror phase (The Imaginary) to an acceptance of the function and power of the symbolic. So Lacan uses the term 'imaginary' to designate the other of the subject's experience that is dominated by identification and duality. The imaginary is thus best exemplified by the mirror stage. Considering the statement that

I is an other, this other is encountered as the symbolic order, the organization of signifiers that surround me. This I, that the subject might project in Lacan's term as ideal ego, goes out the object and identifies with it. In this condition ideal ego appears at that point at which he desires to gratify himself to himself, or the point from which the subject will see himself, as others see him, or the subject internalizes and introjects the object into himself. (Easthope 49)

Let's elaborate this imaginary self this way: ‘In the prelinguistic

mirror phase’, according to Lacan, ‘the child from within I state of being, starts to project a certain unity into the fragmented self-image in the mirror’ (62-5). For Lacan, ‘we need the response and recognition of others and of the other to arrive at what we experience as our identity’ (161). This ‘identity which we acquire from the other is a form of fantasy and misrecognition. So we become ourselves by way of others’ perspectives and others’ view of who we are; ‘we also become ourselves under the gaze of Other or Great Other’ (161). This perspective explains why Pecola, recognizing her lack, attempts to fill it by identifying with the image of the Other. Thus Pecola relates, through desire, to all identificatory Others. Claudia, on the other hand, tries to understand her ‘lack’, as by encountering Maureen Peel, she asks herself, ‘Why was it important? And so what?’ (Morrison 74). She manifests attitudes of jealousy and hatred toward the ‘completed’, ‘unified’ image of the Other and, ultimately, acknowledges her difference from the Other (74). The contrasting attitudes toward the other between Pecola and Claudia actually result from their different relationships with their mothers. According to Lacan, the mother is the first significant

115

Other with whom the child is united in the pre-mirror stage. In the Imaginary, the child recognizes the absence of the mother, and then transfers its desire for union with its mother to the object around it. In Pecola's case desiring a presumptive unity with the m(other) is lost forever. Lacan believes the crucial stage at which the child gives up the mother as love object and attaches to father marks his exit from what he terms ‘the imaginary’ and entrance into ‘the symbolic order’, the time which

the child is less aware of any consistent distinctions between himself and others, has no language, has no sense of loss, and thus has no sense of desire. It is only through acquiring language and passing into the symbolic order that identity can be assumed and this process goes hand in hand with the creation of the unconscious through the repression of these experiences, such as sense of oneness with the mother, which form part of the imaginary. (quoted in Watkins 99)

Like other feminist psychoanalysts who have drawn on object-

relations theory, Nancy Chodorow sees gender as produced item, and maintained through cultural arrangements, rather than anatomical ones. In spite of Freud who establishes gender identity around the fact of having or not having a penis, she places emphasis on the pre-Oedipal attachments between mother and daughter and through this conception introduces ‘the primary identification’ in which ‘gender identity’ is retained through continued connection to ‘pre-Oedipal mother’. She believes girls do, however, ‘retain a stronger core gender identity than boys’ because of the mentioned reason, but their ‘secondary identity’ psychologically is produced ‘through culture and social positions’ (quoted in Waugh 47). She illustrates that ‘the mother while treating her son as an autonomous individual from a relatively early age, tends to cultivate a symbiotic bond with her daughter since she seeks unconsciously to re-create the intimate bonds she enjoyed with her own mother’(Palmer 31). According to Chodorow's notion, gender is produced through the earliest construction of a sense of self in identification, so the pre-

116

Oedipal and Oedipal periods and the different ways in which boys and girls experience them, are crucial in reproducing the status of woman as the primary nurtures, because girls are parented by someone of the same gender or sameness. It is through this institution, rather than through ‘anatomical difference that ability to the mother will be reproduced in the little girls’ (Waugh 45). Throughout this phase, father is increasingly absent or is a peripheral figure that appears much more centrally in oedipal moment. Helen Moglen analyses this stage in Redeeming History and adds a new object to the pre-Oedipal mother-daughter relationship. She believes on the presence of ‘the fetish object that is unveiled as fundamental and it is not the phallus as Lacan and Freud would have it, ‘but the lost signifier that is the breast: the milk-filled breast of women’ (Abel 207-208). Clinical findings also seem to support Palmer’s, Chodorow’s, and Moglen's assertion that daughters tend to remain in a much longer pre-Oedipal symbiotic relationship with the mother than do sons and refute Freud's view that girls must renounce the mother in order to resolve their Oedipal complex.

Thus in accordance with stated subjects about mother-daughter relationships, Toni Morrison’s Pecola continues her maintenance in pre-Oedipal moment, which results in lack of voice and nourishment to grow up. In other words, this occurs because of absence of the mother, who according to Lacan is a more elusive figure, ‘one who enables the child's entry into a world of language in which she herself must always be silent’ (209). Pecola's fixation in the pre-Oedipal imaginary is maintained, and her entry into and resolution of the oedipal complex prevented by her intense relationship with her mother. This is emphasized by Elizabeth Abel who says Morrison ‘provides a version of psychoanalytic narrative that represents the mother as the irreducible matrix of the child's development, the unachievable object of a desire that cannot know but must forever seek its origin’ (208). So the fact that Morrison does not designate Mrs. Breedlove as ‘mother’ implies the

117

permanent existence of void, the absence of a m(other) in Pecola's psychic life. Indeed Pecola and Mrs. Breedlove have never had a normal mother-daughter relationship. Pauline spends all her energy on her employer's home and leaves her own home a cruel, black and ugly place. Throughout the novel, she never shows Pecola her maternal love. Instead she imposes a potential force and violence on Pecola. The main and manifest example is when Pecola enters inadvertently to a White home and frightens ‘little pink and yellow girl’ who spills blueberry pan on the floor in her white employer's kitchen. Mrs. Breedlove intensely reacts against her daughter, Pecola, and embraces the little white girl. As White girl gets the benefit of magically soothing language, ‘Hush, don't worry none’, Pecola shuffles away in abject humility (108-9). The theme the void of maternal self-sacrifice and its unhappy consequences is especially relevant to the episodes depicting Pecola's relation to her mother. A memorable episode in this novel which at some point explores the relations between mothers and daughters presents Pecola’s and Pauline's strict relationship. In a heated argument involving her father and mother, as Morrison's narrator tells us, Pecola reacts by telling ‘Don't, Mrs. Breedlove, Don't’ (43). The narrator reveals us that Pecola like Sammy and Cholly, always called her mother Mrs. Breedlove. Superficially this mother contradicts the ideal mother in motherhood. This fact is also obvious in the selection of narratives in which every chapter opens with the explanation about Pauline which is juxtaposed with the explanation about White nice mother:

SEEMOTHERMOTHERISVERYNICEMO THERWILLYOUPLAYWITHJANEMOTH ERLAUGHSLAUGHMOTHERLAUGHLA

This extract, as Linden Peach explains in her book Toni

Morrison ‘is a way in which the white myths create an inner dislocation within Pauline that causes her to be less than nice to her own daughter. …in the white home in which she becomes a servant finds an order and beauty that causes to deny her own family and

118

kids’ (21). As a result, Pecola never adequately resolves her relationship with her mother, a situation which Juliet Mitchel states in ‘Psychoanalysis and Feminism’ creates potential psychosis (288). Morrison's refusal to portray Mrs. Breedlove as a loving maternal figure, therefore, anticipates Pecola's crazed desire for love and satisfaction in the identificatory other. Her pathetic desire for satisfaction is resolved in her significant image of Imaginary identification -Shirley Temple, the icon of the ideal beauty. Demanding love and gratification, Pecola, sees the images of white as objects of imaginary identification. Pecola, the most delicate member of society; a child, the most vulnerable member; a female, and the other of the Other; a black, assumed her black subjectivity in subjectivity construction in relation to a white imago that reflects her to herself. ‘She desires some milk in blue-and-white Shirely Tempel cup. Pecola was a long time with the milk, and gazed fondly at the silhouette of Shirely Tempel's dimpled face’ (Morrison 19). And then: ‘She took every opportunity to drink milk out of it just to handle and see sweet Shirely's face’ (23).

Pecola’s reaction in psychoanalytic terms signifies her desire for Shirely Tempel, the racial other. Lacan believes that ‘desire, in human being is the desire of the Other’ (Lane 101). This Other, as Lacan asserts, is ‘the locus in which is constituted, the speaking subject, which is linked to the symbolic orther’ (101). For Lacan ‘the object is the cause of desire, of that which is lacking.’(101). Identification thus occurs in terms of what is absent. By desire, Lacan means ‘a striving for completion in that which is not wanted in any simple way. Thus where there is a lack, there is also a desire and a subject’ (Lane 101). So Pecola metonymically shifts her desire for the mother, not to the image of the breast (milk-filled breast), but to the image of Shirely Tempel. By drinking milk out of the Shirely Tempel cup, Pecola evokes in hallucinated form the feeling of contentment even in the absence of mother. Shirely Tempel, thus, assumes a maternal image to Pecola. This contentment is ultimately insufficient for Pecola who wants to be truly loved. Because ‘need is

119

governed by the interplay of satisfaction, and is the domain of real and demand yearns for the plenitude, which appears in the realm of the imaginary’, thereafter ‘desire is never brought to a close’, because it fails to satisfy. Thus where there is a lack, there is also a desire and a subject’ (Lane 101). Pecola's desire to be loved doesn't get satisfaction, so being loved by others was her ultimate desire. As, earlier in the novel, Morrison underscores Pecola's lack of love, she lets her ask a crucial question from Claudia about being loved: ‘She asked a question that had never entered my mind. How do you do that? I mean, how do you get somebody to love you?’ (32). The answer to her frequent question comes to her after she looks at herself in the mirror: ‘It had occurred to Pecola some time ago that if her eyes, those eyes that held the pictures, and knew the sights if those eyes of hers were different, that is to say, beautiful, she herself would be different’ (46).

She decides that a pair of blue eyes would make her beautiful and change even her parents’ attitude toward her. Her insatiable desire for blue eyes is manifest in her overusing of milk from Shirely Temple cup. She has this rationalization that with blue eyes, she will be beautiful and her family will be transformed miraculously into a loving one:

If she looked different, beautiful, maybe Cholly would be different, and Mrs. Breedlove too. And maybe they 'd say, ‘Why, look at pretty-eyed Pecola. We must not do bad things in front of those pretty eyes. Pretty eyes, pretty blue eyes. Big blue pretty eyes. (47)

But her childish self-objectification fails, as the narrator says:

‘She would see only that there was to see, the eyes of other people’ (47). She only manages to see and objectify herself by the gaze of the look. She then finds the second object of identification, Mary Jane. Mary Jane, another indentificatory object for Pecola, accords with Lacan’s assertion that ‘desire is never for the same but always, is desire for something else’ (Easthopoe 97). Pecola sacrifices much

120

of her pride to buy candy for the blue eyes of the little girl depicted on the package because, she believes, ‘To eat the candy is somehow to eat the eyes, eat Mary Jane, love Mary Jane, be Mary Jane’ (50). Lacan repeatedly states that ‘desire is the desire of the other’. This desire is an unconscious search for a lost object, lost not because it is in front of desire waiting to be refound, but because it is already behind desire and producing it in the first desire (97). Clearly, Pecola's desire to be Mary Jane is driven by desire to be the other. The same desire which equals to Lacan's desire, which is a metonymy of the ‘want-to-be’, the same unspecific but ‘deep-self longing’ (97). Recognizing that desire is without end and one can never get satisfaction which helps to keep him at a distance from himself. Pecola enacts an illusion of fusing with the other and thereby achieving an impossible plenitude-jouissance. The experience of Jouissance is usually sexual and orgasmic. Jouissance is a word which is translated into an ‘orgasm’ but in French it has stronger meaning altogether since it includes the idea of possessing something (Lane 102). In precise sense, the term here is ‘proof of the other's existence’, in Lacan's view ‘the jouissance is of the other’ (Lane 167). Therefore one can conclude that without the real jouissance, ‘the other remains ultimately a fiction, a purely symbolic object of strategic reasoning exemplified in the rational choice theory’ (168). Since the narrator tells, ‘three pennies had bought her nine lovely orgasms with Mary Jane. Lovely Mary Jane, for whom a candy is named’ (50). This desire I mean eating something like candy and getting pleasure of it has another meaning for her, if one accept Freud's view which, as Waugh states, ‘can turn into an expression of tenderness as easily as into a wish for someone. … like a derivative of the first, oral phase of organization of the libido, in which the object which we long for and desire, is assimilated by eating’ (58).

It can thus be surmised that Pecola finds herself driven by a desire to eat Mary Jane candy and experience an illusory sense of Jouissance. Also Barbara Rigney has already indicated her objective

121

elaboration on Morrison's novels that ‘in Morrison's texts, food like everything else in her world is metaphoric, diffusely erotic, expressive of jouissance’ (Mackay 88). Pecola feverishly desires this identification with Mary Jane, because according in identification of love: ‘love is something, giving what you don't have’ (Easthope 66). For Lacan, ‘love involves a series of fantasy identification in which the object is taken up into the self’ (67). ‘First, the other as a whole is misrecognized and appointed as a single point. This is further misrecognized as the eyes of the beloved. These are treated like a mirror in the Mirror stage’ (87). So the love to Mary Jane, here, based on Lacan's view, treats like a mirror in the Mirror stage, and reflects the lover in a more perfect form. The eyes of Mary Jane, which Pecola wished for, are imagined ‘not as a passive mirror but as a person with an adoring gaze wholly occupied in looking at the viewer; in this look the lover is seen not as they are but as they want to imagine themselves to be. The perfect lover, the perfect self’ (67-68).

A further step in Pecola's fall into the Imaginary realm occurs in her inability to differentiate herself from the other. For example, Pecola in the picture show, ‘Imitation of Life’, when she introduces herself to Maureen Peal, learns that the name of a young female character in the show is also ‘Pecola’, who is ‘Pretty’. Although we do not know Pecola’s conscious reaction toward this other in the Picture Show but one finds that Pecola implicitly identifies with the girl. Note that when Maureen Peal told about the girl on the show ‘where this mulatto girl hates her mother because she is black and ugly’ (67), Pecola responds with an ‘Oh’. Claudia describes Pecola's voice as ‘no more than a sigh’ (67). Pecola in the Picture Show might be seen as her alter-ego. Or one could argue further that Pecola is eventually not able to distinguish herself from the other after she has maintained such an obsessive relation to the previous identificatory others. So she is already caught in the identificatory web of the imaginary. Pecola cannot get the suitable self-image in the imaginary because of her inability to differentiate or distinguish

122

herself from the others. By assigning these blue eyes to Lacan's conception of Mirror stage, one can understand that Pecola Breedlove is always looking into the mirror held up to her by the White society. This mirror inculcates into her that she is ugly, black and poor, and the only acceptable figure for this mirror is one with white skin and beautiful blue eyes. This image, as she assents, is ‘the ideal image’. Here she is not exhibiting stunning self-love and narcissism, but self-hatred, and this is her main problem in identification. Her looking at the mirror and seeing herself ugly promotes a sign of despair, self-hatred and lack of self-respect in her. Thus in the mirror stage she fails to identify herself. In other words, in Mirror stage she internalizes the dominant ideology of ideal beauty. In Lacanian term, it is The Law of the White Father, or the deep difference between her and objectified image that obliterates those trifling self-assertiveness in her. Consequently entrance to the Symbolic order causes her mental, psychological and physical destruction.

Claudia's case is different. The relationship of the two little girls in community, and their different reactions to involvement in the imaginary, counterpoints to Claudia's maturity in this phase. She gets self-image from the Mirror stage. According to Lacan's theory in the Imaginary, when self is able to differentiate himself from the Other, he can get the self-image. Claudia gets self-image in the Imaginary, because she is able to differentiate herself from the other. The major factor to her success and privilege in this realm is her mother. In contrast with Pecola, Morrison establishes a strong mother-daughter bond between Claudia and her mother, Mrs. MacTeer. ‘The harsh condition of life, marked by poverty and a bitter climate, shapes Mrs. MacTeer's sometimes rough and cruel treatment of her children, yet in spite of her ‘painful rebuffs’ and ‘unjust punishment’ of her children, Mrs. Mc Teer ‘is capable of soft music, warm laughter and an abiding love’ (67). Although the same class of Pecola's family, her family works hard to keep themselves indoors. Unlike Pecola's house, MacTeer's house

123

resembles what bell hooks terms: ‘home place’, the site of self-discovery (68). Mrs. MacTeer's unselfish maternal love is the very opposite of the barenness and self-righteousness of Pauline.

The novel opens with the story of Claudia vomiting in her bed. Her sickness during the autumn is oxymoronically ‘a productive and fructifying pain’ (12). While Mrs. MacTeer scolds her sickness, she also remembers her mother's ‘thick and dark’ love in the medicine that helps her daughter to fight her health: ‘Love thick and dark as Alga syrup, eased up into that cracked window. I could smell it, taste it, sweet, musty, with an edge of wintergreen in it base everywhere in that house’ (12).

Claudia, unlike Pecola, experiences a moment of reunion with her mother. This moment is crucial during the development of Claudia's subjectivity, for it will enable her to distinguish the other from the mother. Rather than embrace the racial Other as Pecola does, Claudia consciously rejects it in language and behavior full of bitterness and hatred. She admits, ‘younger than both Frieda and Pecola, I had not yet arrived at the turning point in unsullied hatred’ (19). Claudia’s hatred toward the other is born of a painful recognition that the other cannot replace the mother; therefore, Claudia in the domain of the Imaginary, converts her desire for the mother into a hatred toward the other. The turning point in development, as Marco Portales suggests, ‘is the point when we mature, when we accept the reality of us and so learn to adjust to our physical and mental surrounding with the world ground’ (quoted in Feng 8). This juncture, perhaps, is when Claudia wants to enter the realm of the Symbolic. Until she moves into it, Claudia will never learn to accept the other. Claudia's hatred toward the other is intensified when the adults force her to love the doll baby, a mirror image that reflects her own unworthiness. Claudia escapes victimization by resistance to racial ideology and doesn't internalize it into herself. ‘Her hatred to mass media icon Shirely Temple and desire to dismember the doll, manifests this resistance which takes a destructive channel’ (Feng 70). Since Claudia cannot understand the

124

universal allure of the white baby doll, she is possessed with an aggressive desire. As she says: ‘I had only one desire to dismember it. To see what it was made to discover the darkness, to find the beauty, the desirability that has escaped me, but apparently only me’ (20).

Yet Morrison is aware that the ‘difference between Self and the Other is not only psychologically constituted but socially constructed’ (Feng 71). As Claudia notes, ‘Adults, old girls, shops, magazines, newspapers, window signs…all the world has agreed that a blue eyed, yellow-haired, pink-skinned doll was that every girl treasured’(20). Nevertheless, Claudia refuses to accept the value that resides in the baby doll until she understands how it is produced. Although no one tells her the origin of the belief system, Claudia generally realizes it as she journeys through mirror stage. As elaborated, these two girls’ race and class are more important than their gender. On a literal level Claudia's obsessive hatred for the white and her attempt to dismantle the doll, the symbol of whiteness, is motivated by envy of their social and economic privileges.

In spite of Pecola, Claudia is still in love with her self-image and feels comfort with her skin, as the narrator informs us, when she encounters Maureen Peal, ‘colored’ embodiment of the white doll, she is just curious about her skin which makes Maureen beautiful. She says: ‘All the time we know that Maureen Peal was the energy and not worthy of such hatred. The thing to fear was the thing that made her beautiful, and not us’ (74). Metaphorically, Morrison implies that the ‘thing’ is the phallus, The-Name-Of-The-Father, the ruling other, the same symbol which represents in patriarchal society, As observed of Lacan's notion of Symbolic world of differences, ‘the phallus’ is the privileged signifier which helps all signifiers achieve a unity with their signified (Easthopoe 102). In the symbolic domain’, ‘phallus is here king’(101). Claudia is educated by this sense of racial ‘lack’ through a mirror stage, the racial inferiority in unconditional admiration of white beauty, and so

125

reaches the turning point in the development of her psyche. In order to survive as a normal subject, she learns to differentiate herself from the other, and accepts the social construction of the difference. As an adult Claudia records the account for the subjectivity:

Thus the conversation from pristine sadism to fabricated hatred, to fraudulent love. It was a small step to Shireley Tempel. I learned much later to worship her, just as I learned to delight in cleanliness, knowing, ever as I learned, that the change was adjustment without improvement. (23)

Claudia's small step to Shirely Tempel indicates her small step

toward the realm of the Symbolic. For her psychic evolution to occur, Claudia knows that she must ultimately move into the register of the symbolic.

The Symbolic Other One thing that forces Pecola and Claudia to enter the Symbolic

order is the appearance of their fathers. Yet both of them fail to take up their symbolic function. Instead, a third agency represents the symbolic father to them. As Elizabeth Grosz elaborates, the dual imaginary relation needs to be symbolically regulated or mediated: ‘This occurs with the help of a term outside third dual structure, a third position beyond the mother-child dyad. This third term is the father, not the real, but the imaginary father who takes on the symbolic function of law’ (47). In Pecola's case, Cholly Breedlove, her father, fails to take up the symbolic function, because he is deprived of phallic power by White culture, the ruling Other in youth, and thus psychologically castrated. Since Cholly cannot remain in his proper place as the paternal agent to Pecola, he ironically violates his proper role and becomes merely a brutal, imaginary Other whom Pecola undoubtedly will reject. Pin-Chia Feng tells in his essay on Morrison's novel, ‘The Gaze Of The Bluest Eye’ that ‘Without positive paternal role models and

126

sufficient contact with the healthy influence of his agrarian community, Cholly is ill prepared for his paternal role, his migration and emotional tumult with Pauline contribute to Cholly's inability to keep his family indoors’ (62-63).

Pecola 's father literally and metaphorically is absent from her childhood. With his rather ineffectual role as a parent, he is never a sufficient authority figure to wrench Pecola through Oedipal stage. Since Cholly cannot take up the symbolic function in Pecola's post-mirror subjectivity, Soaphead Church appears as a representation of the symbolic father, performing the law of the father.

Soaphead Church is the character who seems a function, appearing only at the end of the novel. Although the apparent role of Soaphead Church is that of ‘psychic reader’, his actual role is like that of symbolic father. When Soaphead Church faces Pecola's request for the blue eyes, he senses his own powerlessness: ‘For the first time he honestly wished he could work miracles. Never before had he really wanted the true and holy power’ (174). His powerlessness in Lacanian terms suggests his lack of the phallic power. This fact contradicts Lacan's ‘having and lacking’ the phallus which is accentuated by Jean Walton and Judith Butler who precisely emphasize ‘women or feminine position to be the phallus’, to signify their ‘lack and absence’ of something which is ‘dialectical’ for the ‘confirmation of their identity’ (Butler 230). In fact, despite Church’s masculine identity, he is the dispossessed phallic. So with knowledge of this lack, with anger and frustration, Soaphead Church decides to play the role of God, the ultimate Father. In his letter to God, he attempts to justify his ‘giving’ blue eyes to Pecola. He writes: ‘I gave her those blue eyes she wanted. Not for pleasure, and not for money. I did what you did not, couldn't, would not do: I look at the ugly little black girl, and I loved her. I played you’ (182).

Consequently, Soaphead Church assumes the Name-of-the-Father and gains the power of signification. He validates Pecola's wish for blue eyes, offering her an illusion of totality. Unfortunately,

127

as a falsified father, Soaphead Church registers Pecola in the domain of the Imaginary rather than the Symbolic. As a psychic subject, Pecola ultimately remains in the Imaginary. She keeps looking at her ‘blue’ eyes in the mirror, and worries that her eyes are not ‘the bluest’. Pecola, as Claudia describes, looks like ‘a winged but grounded bird, intent on the blue void it could not reach’ (204). In schizophrenic state, the final scene demonstrates complete breakdown; she is unable to distinguish reality and fantasy:

The schizophrenic, indeed, is one who, unable to organize, has no stable sense of identity, times or memory and experiences isolated, disconnected, discontinuous material signifiers which fail to link up into a coherent sequence. There is no persistence of ‘I’ and ‘Me’ overtime, only an undifferentiated vision of the world in the present. (Waugh 31)

Indeed, the void in Pecola's psychic life can never be fulfilled

in the domain of the symbolic. So, what Pecola can do, is to take the imaginary for the real. Pecola's madness shows both how she has experienced to be a ‘normal feminine’ woman in patriarchal society and also expresses the dominating authority of the ruling Other, the White culture. Pecola's attempt to deny authority of the ruling other devours her, and thus drives her into a wretched isolation and abandonment of self-worth through the other's neglect.

In Claudia's case, her father, Mr. MacTeer, also lacks power of signification, and is unable to register his daughter in the realm of the Symbolic. Unlike Cholly who only inflicts pain on the helpless, Claudia's father functions as his family's guardian. She portrays her father as a person who tries to keep his family warm. Besides her mother's warm hands, Mr. MacTeer battles to keep his family from harm. Although he acts as a protector of his family, ‘Wolf killer turned hawk fighter’, Mr. MacTeer has to spend most of his energy ‘to keep one from the door and the other from under the windowsill’ (61). Under such a threatening and harsh reality, Mr.MacTeer is, at best, a paternal agent in his quiet way, smiling when the family

128

boarder admires his daughters as ‘Greta Garb and Ginger Rogers’ (61). Instead, it is the ruling Other who instills in Claudia the sense of lawfulness and willing submission to social rules. Claudia finally learns to accept the register of the symbolic.

The signifiers of that register constantly appear in aspects of what Lacan calls the gaze, along with the metonymic imagery associated with it such as the eye, the look, and the stare throughout the novel. As adult Claudia herself notes:

It was though some mysterious all-knowing master had given each one a cloak of ugliness to wear, and they had each accepted it without question. The master had said, ‘you are ugly people’. They had looked about themselves and saw nothing to contradict statement saw, in fact, support for it learning at them from every billboard, every movie, every glance. (39)

Apparently, ‘the master’ is the ruling Other who is the locus of

law, language, and the symbolic. Claudia recognizes that the phallus lies only in the ruling Other, and that she comes at last under its authority in order to survive as a normal subject. Thus, Claudia like the rest of the community, is subordinate to the ruling Other. Aware of her own submission to the law of the symbolic, Claudia says, ‘we were not free, merely licensed: we were not compassionate, we are polite: not good, but well behaved’ (205). Yet, Claudia does not accept her socially designated identity easily and makes a gesture of transgressing the law by telling Pecola's story. Stephanie Demetrakopolous points out in ‘The Gaze of the Bluest Eye’ that ‘Claudia does do the sisterly act of avenging Pecola by telling what she can of the story’ (quoted in Feng 71). In some sense, Morrison under the dominance of the ruling Other uses Claudia and Pecola to develop their subjectivity in relation to those dominant images of which Lacan so frequently talks: the mother, images associated with her, identificatory object, and the symbolic presents of the father. As a speaking subject, Claudia represents a ‘normal’ as opposed to the pathological subject, Pecola. It is significant that Lacan provides no

129

words to represent women's relationship to the Symbolic order. They even couldn't achieve their identification with it through identification with the father, with the phallus, as boys, the male subjects, do. Pecola and Claudia couldn't achieve identification toward their fathers, because according to Lacan ‘for women no such identification is possible, they remain always marginalized within and by language’ (107). Susan Watkins tells about this issue in ‘Poststructuralist Feminism’ thus:

Lacan makes women something which does not exist in the symbolic order, but which, through repression of desire for the (m)Other, founds the creation of that order in the first place. In other words, it is the rejection of the maternal which allows the masculine subject to assume his privileged place in patriarchy, and the refusal of the awareness of linguistic play which, however temporarily, allows of the creation of apparently fixed meaning. (99)

Thus Pecola remains silent through the end. The only telling

‘tapestry are Claudia and the Creator Morrison’, narrating the story as a ‘counter-discourse to Pecola's story of silence victimization’ (quoted in Feng 71). Both haunted in the Symbolic order, Claudia transgress the law by ‘story telling (and she) presses on wisdom and consciously changes herself and her community’ (72). As Adrienne Rich observes in ‘On lies, Secrets, and Silence’, ‘for an oppressed woman of color, more than ever, her sanity and survival depend on speech’ (32). In other words, Pecola's experiences, according to Patricia Collins, is not ‘gender plus race plus class but as the product of cumulative oppressions in gender times race times class’ (quoted in Bryson 35).

Works Cited Abel, Elizabeth. Race. ‘Class and Psychoanalysis? Opening Questions’

Conflicts in Feminism. Ed. Marianne Hirsch and Evelyn Fox Keller. New York: Rutledge. 1990. Print.

130

Bertons, Hans. Literary Theory: The Basics. New York: Rutledge, 1970. Print.

Bouson, J. Brooks. Quiet as it’s kept: Shame and Trauma and Race in

the Novels of Toni Morrison. Albany: State University of New York, 1999.Print.

Bryson, Valery. Feminist Debates. Hong Kong: MacMillan, 1999. Print.

Demetrakopolous, Stephanie. ‘Remembering Our Foremothers: Older Black Women, Politics of Age Politics of Survival as Embodies in Novels of Toni Morrison.’ Women and Politics,1986.

Easthope, Antony. The Unconscious. London: Rutledge, 1999. Print. Feng, Pin-China. The Female Bildungsroman by Toni Morrison and

Maxine Hong Kinston.1998. Print. Grosz, Elizabeth. Jacques Lacan: A Feminist Introduction. New York

: Norton. 1990. Print. Lacan, Jacques. Ecrits: A Selection. Trans. Alan Sheridan. New York:

Norton, 1977. Print. Lane, Christopher. The Psychoanalysis of Race. New York: Columbia

UP.1998. Print. McKay, N. Critical Essays on Toni Morrison. Web. 08, 2011.

<www.newi.ac.uk/rdover/english/more/modern-a.html> Mitchell, Juliet. Psychoanalysis and Feminism. London: Penguin

Books. 1974. Print. Morris, Pam. Literature and Feminism. Cambridge: Blackwell, 1993.

Print. Morrison, Toni. The Bluest Eye. New York: Plum, 1970. Print. Palmer, Pauline. Contemporary Women's Fiction. New York: Harvester

Wheatshef, 1989. Print. Peach, Linden. Toni Morrin. New York: St. Martin's, 1998. Print. Portales, Marco. Toni Morrison's The Bluest Eye: Shirley Temple and

Cholly. The Centennial Review. 1986. Print. Watkins, Susan. Twentieth Century Women Novelists: Feminist Theory

into Practice. London: Palgrave. 2001. Print. Waugh, Patricia. Feminist Practice and Poststructuralist Theory.

Cambridge: Blackwell. 1987. Print.

131

Gender Issues in Ola Rotimi’s Drama

Omolara Kikelomo Owoeye I OLA Rotimi’s dramaturgy adapts Classical tragedy in order to

represent history and act as a commentary on issues of tragic import in society. Moreover, the plays have severally portrayed the notions of such matters as tradition and change, the metaphysical and the very controversial issue of destiny and predestination using “the historical perspective to explain the man-God interplay in matters of destiny” (Elegbeleye and Adeoti 258). Rotimi’s achievement in the treatment of destiny is patented in The gods are not to Blame, an adaptation of Sophocle’s Oedipus Rex and such other works as Kurunmi and Ovoramwen Nogbasi. It is not surprising that critical works on Rotimi’s plays have focused more on the above subject matter than women and gender issues in the stories. However, a close look at the works would expose the gender imbalance and patriarchal nature of the African societies in which the plays are set. The little significance of women in the plays may be due to authorial choice to adjust history for his artistic and thematic intentions. Adapting authors do not owe history the loyalty to historical facts and details and this enables Rotimi, for instance, to alter the type of death that Kurunmi meets at the end of the play, Kurunmi. Ashaolu comments that “although this historical tragedy derives directly from the 19th-century Ijaye Ibadan warfare, it casts a suggestive glance at contemporary socio-political events not only in Nigeria but also elsewhere in Africa”. (99)

Anita Kern talking specifically of the prose genre makes the observation that “female characters have figured more or less prominently in various novels or short stories according to the writers’ purpose or to their particular levels of consciousness

132

regarding women”. (157) Indeed in all the three traditional genres of literature, authorial perception has always been a vital factor in female character depiction. It then becomes obvious that the absence of female participation in the political process in Rotimi’s plays, for instance, is attributable to authorial intention especially since it is a trend in his three major historical tragedies. The playwright appears caught in a patriarchal hold that makes him overlook the significance of women in socio-political struggles and familial aspirations thereby prompting the question: what could have been the benefit of complimentary female involvement as the protagonists in all the plays daringly battle to safeguard their physical and ideological territories from colonial and territorial invasion?

II The gender situation in Rotimi’s tragedies recaptures the

African patriarchal attitude for which theorists of Feminism such as Buchi Emecheta and Carol Boyce Davies have carved a domesticated version of the feminist literary theory, tagged African feminism. African feminism is a contextual appropriation of the tenets of feminism to African female gender realities, challenges and values. Emecheta comments on the pragmatic nature of African Feminism and says “African Feminism is free of the shackles of Western romantic illusions and tends to be much more pragmatic” (554). Davies also summarises the concept of Feminism from an African perspective:

Firstly it recognizes a common struggle with African Men for the removal of the yokes of foreign domination and European/American exploitation. It is not antagonistic to African men but it challenges them to be aware of certain silent aspects of women’s subjugation which differ from the generalized oppression of all African peoples. (563)

One factor responsible for the evolution of African feminism and which will continue to affect any ideology on the depiction of

133

the lives of African women is the disparity between the family, social and professional experiences of the African women, both at home and in diaspora, and those of her Western counterpart. Yet African feminism still agrees with Harold Smith’s claim that “feminism as an ideology attempts to raise the status of women” (4). However, rather than “intellectualising monthly” (Obafemi 87) on ideological terms and contents, it is more productive, to agree with Emecheta, that “there should be more choices for women” (556) and that it is necessary “to discuss the needs of African women today …” (Ogundipe Leslie 550).

Just as African Feminism is an offshoot of Western Feminism, Womanism, Sexism among others have evolved to tackle the issues of female marginalization. Names, terms and tags are really not of much importance and, in this case, may become irrelevant unless the theory or concept takes a pragmatic approach to issues of women concern. This partially explains why some women opt for a more definitive and practical version of Feminism: Womanism. Womanism is concerned with the black woman who teams up with the man in a bid to fight a patriarchy that transcends gender boundaries yet tackling women problems in a way that makes it a kind of Feminism still.

Manifestations of Feminist allegations of inequality, discrimination and relegation of the female gender are seen in different aspects of human life but they are pronounced in literature where it has formed one of the theories of literacy criticism. According to Abrams, “a major interest of Feminist critics in English-speaking countries has been to reconstitute the way we deal with literature in order to do justice to female points of views, concerns and values” (95). The impression and picture of women given to the reading audience by writers of literature are of utmost concern to proponents and disciples of the various types of feminist movements. Various Feminist critics have tackled African authors for what they consider a misrepresentation or insensitive representation of women in their works. What has been projected by

134

Feminist voices all over is the issue of relegation and not an emphasis on the benefits that could accrue to society by giving recognition to female involvement in crucial aspects of life. The gap left by the nonappearance of women in political deliberations and governance is hardly pointed out as women only shout foul and sometimes muster sentimental support for their course. Such gap in the male-dominated world of Rotimi’s drama and the consequences, therefore, deserve a scholarly attention.

III Rotimi’s lead characters are often created with congenital

weaknesses which could have been doused by the natural instincts and other virtues of women had the opportunity been given them to participate in the process of governance. The silence over the role of women in the battle against domination especially in Kurunmi and Ovonranwen Nogbaisi are both historical and artistic, engendered by the refusal to give, in the words of Ajayi,

Recognition to the silent behind-the-scene roles that women have always played in national, social, political, or economic struggles but which remain unsung and are routinely ignored in historical accounts and other documents, under the guise of general or topic-oriented accounts, the gender specific contributions of women are glossed over while male individuals are singled out for their ‘manly deeds’ (97)

Apart from the refusal to recognise the contributions of women in a revolution, some women’s capacity is vitiated by the denial of the opportunity to perform. This is what obtains in the case of Princess Evbakhavbokun of Ovonramwen Nogbaisi whose pragmatic and sensitive approach to the political quandary ravaging the land of Benin at the beginning of the play is essentially feminine and result oriented. At a time when the king is threatened by external invasion and treachery within, the Ifa Priest from Ife is brought to foresee the general current of his regime. The divination

135

turns out so unfavorable that even the diviner is wary of saying the whole truth. Only the Princess, the female present there, has the boldness to prod the truth.

IFA PRIEST: (with a shrug of the shoulders). It is well then. (Re-arranges the ‘opele’ beads in the original formation). Oba Alaiyeluwa, Lord of Benin ….. the shadows I see over your empire are heavy. Too heavy. Heavy. . . and dark. UZAZAKPO: What does that mean? IFA PRIEST: His reign is full of danger EVBAKHAVBOKUN: Is it death? ifa priest: It is … death OVONRANWEN: (visibly shaken, rises and moves away a couple of paces) I shall be next victim of plotting then – my dead body following that of Uwangue Egiebo. ifa priest: Your Highness … the death I see here is not the death of one man. Bodies of men . . . Fire … and blood – bodies floating – UZAZAKPO: An epidemic. OVONRAMWEN: Civil war – the final curse of internal intrigues! IFA PRIEST: That is my story: what I saw, I have told you. To say more is to lie (Rising). EVBAKHAVBOKUN: What can we do to avoid this fire? ifa priest: Caution … that is the word – caution. (15)

In this conversation we see Evbakhaubokun displaying a combination of bravery and reasoning when the men folk have already been held by fear and anxiety over the prediction. Her pointed question makes the Ifa Priest drop his diplomatic cover to solve his own riddle and declare that what he really sees is death. While Ovonramwen and Uzazapo react poignantly to the development, Evbakhavbokun still summons the courage to ask for a way out before the Ifa Priest leaves. The news of looming tragedy on the empire affects everyone yet it is the Princess who remembers that it is not customary to allow a messenger of the gods go away empty handed hence she approaches her father on the issue.

136

EVBAKHAVBOKUN: Father, what shall we give him? It is not right to send him away to Ife without a gift.(Ovoranmuwen is lost in thought) UZAZAKPO: You go and find him anything you deem fit, woman. You are the Oba’s eldest daughter – your choice of gift would be just as noble. Go on. (16)

Apparently Evbakhavbokun takes charge of the situation and arranges something worthwhile for the Priest to take back to Ife, likely without the knowledge of her grief-ridden father. With this display of diplomatic acumen, Evbakhavbokun promises to be a great ally with the men, ready to work and squash the rebellion growing in Benin and outside. In spite of this immense potential in Evhakhavbokun, this scene here is the only place where she has such opportunity to express herself and contribute to the affairs of state. The next time the Princess appears on stage is when she is married to Ologbosere without prior notice in the attempt by Ovonramwen to assure Ologbosere of the king’s good intention and also secure Ologbosere’s loyalty. Henceforth nothing is heard of the Princess who is expected thereafter to settle into womanhood, motherhood and home keeping and no one takes up her role in the king’s court.

In effect, Evhakhavbokun’s ability to handle political stress and pressure with composure is unnoticed and the absence of anyone to pick up this role leads to the king’s inability to properly manage similar circumstances afterwards. Later when Ovonranmwen has the intricate choices of either pleasing the gods or the White man he only sings “the word is caution” unconvincingly to a set of chiefs who ignore his call and go ahead to kill a white man. This turns out to be the albatross round the king’s neck for the rest of his reign. All through the scenes that follow till the final humiliation of Ovoranmwen, the absence of Princess Evabakhavbokun and her ability to discern what to do at the nick of time is only too

137

conspicuous. The king’s retinue of wives who form part of the cast are not given any chances either; they only sing and perform other supplementary roles that have no direct impact on the course of dramatic action in the play hence we can say that the world of the play is a male dominated one, accompanied by male oriented mistakes. This absence of female influence in Ovonramwen

Nogbaisi and the attendant tragedy is similar to what obtains in Kurunmi, another gender polarised play by the same playwright.

The absence of any form of female voice/advice in Kurunmi’s life aggravates his mistakes and his tragedy. The act of delegating his five sons to go and “defend Iwawun or there die” (61) for instance evinces total absence of any form of motherly, wifely or sisterly influence which might have insisted on splitting the children instead of stationing the entire five of them on the same very hot spot in battle. The intransigence of the Field Marshal has either enhanced the silence of the women in his life or has driven them all to silence and irrelevance. Mosadiwin, Kurunmi’s wife is only called upon when Kurunmi needs her to bring the soup with which he would send the incendiary message of contempt and disgust to the newly crowned Alafin Adelu and her only statement throughout the entire play is her clarifying question “Just the stew and ladle?”(25).

Thoroughly preoccupied with the contemplations of war and war strategies, the war hungry men of Ijaye give no room for female involvement that could have mitigated their aggressiveness. While they get incensed by matters of tradition and kingship succession, none is able to shift the gaze to the domestic side of life and attempt an evaluation of what a war of that magnitude may cost the citizenry. Kurunmi is a war strategist with laurels to his name but the circumstances surrounding the Ijaye war reveal that he is either ill-advised or lacks sound advice entirely. First he is a lone ranger in the cause, for other kings have accepted Adelu as the new Alafin. Considering the fact that the historical character transposed as Kurunmi in the play is described as “a bloodthirsty tyrant” who was

138

“more dreaded in Ijaye than even the gods.” (Johnson 283-284), it is understood that the women in his life and other denizens of the palace go into hiding leaving him without the kind of maternal protection that can be given only by women.

Kurunmi thus turns out to be the bloodiest of all Rotimi’s historical tragedies. The aftermaths of the war last decades after it is fought and lost and, unfortunately, leave imprints on men, women and even children of Ijaye. Although the play does not contain the reactions of Mosadiwin to the death of her five sons, she is however present when Kurunmi poisons himself and insists that she should have him buried in the River Ose. Immediately he drinks the poison and leaves instructions for his burial, Kurunmi commands Abogunrin and Mosadiwin to “go now and ready yourselves” (94) for his unusual burial. The stage direction thereafter says “Abogunrin and Mosadwin exit” (94). This scene displays the insensitivity of the playwright to familial feelings especially since this portion is not culled directly from history but a fictive addition of the author to the legendary story of Kurunmi of Ijaye. The unrealistic manner of making a woman watch her husband take poison and exit calmly afterwards portrays that not only the Ijaye society of the 19th century but equally the playwright himself is too preoccupied with the exigencies of political issues to take cognizance of women’s sensitivity. This becomes more probable just as in Kurunmi, a play sourced from history, as well as The Gods

Are Not To Blame, carved out of ancient Greek Oedipus Rex by Sophocales.

The Gods Are Not To Blame has been studied variously as the tragedy of a prince fated to be a patricide and a regicide right from birth but less attention has been paid to how the tragic hero’s human relations contribute to the accomplishment of the prophecy. The play contains a fairly larger number of women than Ovonramuwen Nogbaisi or Kurunmi though the balance tilts towards the male side. The women too are more conspicuous than in the two other plays. However, the customs and traditions within which the women are

139

located ineluctably confine them to a form of silence and utmost submission even where their lives and happiness are concerned. Although it can be conceded that the oracle already predicts Odewale’s patricidal and incestuous crimes, the culture of agnatic marriage which hands over a woman to her husband’s successor the way other properties are transferred is a huge factor in facilitating the god’s prediction.

It is discovered that all the characters involved in the prophecy make efforts to forestall its manifestation: Adetusa and Ojuola connive to murder the unfortunate baby rather than allow it grow and destroy their lives, Odewale himself flees Ijekun Yemoja in order to avert the evil prophecy looming over his head. While the unstoppable hands of fate are discernible in the eventual manifestation of the negative destiny, some other factors also contribute to the fulfillment which ‘include the supernatural forces, the society, and the protagonist’s personal weakness or tragic flaws (hubris)” (Dasylva, 19). Out of these three, Augusto Boal thinks that “he himself, by his own decision, moves towards his misfortune. It is intolerance that causes him to kill an old man, who happens to be his father, because the latter did not treat him with proper respect at a crossroads” (19).

If we follow the trend of Boal’s argument and discountenance the gods, albeit temporarily, there are obvious human and societal forces in Odewale’s tragedy. First of the human inputs involved in the manifestation of this tragedy is Alaka’s refusal to heed royal instruction and kill the child, followed by Odewale’s disobedience to the oracle’s injunction for him to “stay where you are” (60) when he goes to consult it in Ijekun. Odewale’s inveterate temper is another major human flaw which enhances the fulfillment of the first part of the prophecy.

Perhaps the highest of the human factors contributing to Odewale’s tragedy is the culture which turns over a man’s wife, alongside with other properties, to his successor. This is an African leviratic marriage tradition employed usually in cases of

140

childlessness. In Yorubaland the African widow is still given to the appropriate male in her late husband’s family even when her first marriage is fruitful (Johnson 115). It is interesting that the custom is found in Classical Greece as well as among the Yoruba. The practice is more profound in royal settings where the next king automatically becomes the husband of the surviving wives of the dead king. This is the case with Odewale who traditionally assumes the position of husband to Ojuola as soon as he ascends the throne of Kutuje thus fulfilling the second part of the prediction.

Apart from being grossly insensitive to women as grief over the loss of a dear one is conflated with pains of an untoward marriage, this type of marriage has a way of conversely affecting even the man too, although gratified by the prospects of bagging another wife, a younger woman or secretly admired in-law unwittingly invite the angst of some other rivals in the household. Aderopo is one of such rivals and the tantrums that trail his relationship with Odewale are traceable to his hidden dislike for the fact that one who is only two years older than he and consequently his age group, is now husband to his mother. The following altercation between him and Odewale displays his discomfort at the marriage combination:

ODEWALE: Just because I am an Ijekun man, and do not belong to your tribe, the sight of me as your king gnaws at your liver, and rips your heart asunder. So you go round me, bribe that blind but to come and point his finger at me as the cursed killer of your father. Tell me now, is that not the act of crawling, cunning tortoise? ADEROPO: Your highness, I have been taking all these insults from you because you married my mother and custom demands that I… ODEWALE: Ah, I thank you. Bedsharer. I forget that one. The blind bat called me bedsharer too. Tell me, what is the crime I have committed by marrying your mother and raising children by her? (34)

Aderopo is quick to redirect the discourse from the accusations of treachery and connivance to the issue of the king’s marriage to his mother. Aderopo had earlier challenged the king to face him man

141

to man rather than invite Ojuola, Aderopo’s mother and now the king’s wife to mediate between them. The king’s ire equally betrays what might have been earlier misgivings on the marriage. Imbalanced as the marriage between Odewale the king and Ojuola may seem because of the age difference, the woman’s attributes of submission, humility and self control could have been exploited to the king’s advantage. Her calmness and patience contrast sharply with Odewale’s irascibility and petulance. His verbal acknowledgement of her virtues when he goes to confess at the shrine -

ODEWALE: Gods! What a woman (Kneels before the

household shrine, arms raised) Give me some of her patience, I pray you. Some ... some of her cool heart … let her cool spirit enter my body, and cool the hot, hot, hotness in my blood – the hot blood of a gorilla! (Cleansing himself in the sacred water) Cool me, Ogun, cool me. (39)

does not seem to have any transforming effect on his character for almost immediately after it is rendered, he goes ahead to show his knack for quick temper.

ODEWALE: Labata! (enter Labata and Ojuola) LABATA: Were you calling, my Lord? ODEWALE: Have the chiefs not come yet? LABATA: No, my Lord ODEWALE: (angrily) Go and tell them I am waiting. (50)

Neither does he display any change in attitude toward his wife Ojuola who calmly and respectfully approaches him and asks:

OJUOLA: When will my lord come back home? ODEWALE: Come back home? When you see me, you see me, woman. (51)

The tone of finality and emphasis employed in the word ‘woman’ is intended to remind Ojuola that she is a woman and should, therefore, not ask too many questions or attempt to control

142

his movements. The various usages of ‘woman’ and ‘wife’ to address his wife reveals that Odewale is gender sensitive and would not do anything to appear a weakling. In the tragic discovery of Odewale’s pedigree, the fatal blows directly affect the woman at the centre of the fulfilment -Ojuola. Whereas the females in Ovonramwen Nogbaisi and The Gods Are Not To Blame suffer indirectly from the tragedies through the death of either husbands or sons, Ojuola is at the centre of action in The gods are not blame and the tragedy is driven faster by society’s perception of her as a woman. She is the one who gets disgraced at the end for marrying her own son yet she has no say in the decision on whom to marry. Her visibility throughout the play is thus because the tragedy is anchored on the role she is made to play by custom and tradition. After these three historico-monarchical tragedies, Rotimi makes a turn around and writes another play which is both a comedy and a departure from the male-centeredness of the previous three.

Our Husband Has Gone Mad Again appears to be an attempt at correcting the outmoded perception of women in his first three plays although in an environment that still betrays Rotimi’s entanglement with patriarchy. The Nigerian dramatic scene had already witnessed the production of plays that valourised women by the time Our

Husband Has Gone Mad Again was published in 1977. Femi Osofisan, for instance, writes to “highlight … women’s valour, as well as their suffering, and … the unbelievable injustice of which they are victims” (8). Osofisan’s drama bears some resemblance to Rotimi’s in that he also writes from history and myth but he creates eponymous plays such as Tegonni: An African Antigone and Morountodun where his heroines make positive contributions to society and cause revolution through heroic deeds.

Rotimi is not the only one to change his stance on the female figures in his plays, Wole Soyinka also in a latter play, The

Beatification of Area Boy creates a female character, Miseyi, who teams up with the male ideologue, Sanda and they jointly stir a revolution. What we find in Our Husband Has Gone Mad Again

143

may thus be part of the results of the clamour for better female presentation in drama texts by African Feminists.

Women in Our Husband Has Gone Mad Again are chauvinistically located in men’s world but here they are seen striving to better their own lots and make their voices heard rather than the fatal submission of the women in Rotimi’s earlier plays. The imbalance in gender relations in the play is engendered by Lejoka-Brown’s parochial view of women in the family and society at large. The mode and purpose of acquiring his first two wives show that women are better reckoned within the confines of tradition or for some other pragmatic purposes. He marries Mama Rashidat because tradition requires it and Sikira because it will be of some calculated benefit to his political ambition.

The effect of these marriages on the entire family is that everyone is Machiavellian on most issues and this has retarding implications on the goals set both as individuals and as family. Lejoka-Brown confesses to Okonkwo that his marriage to Sikira is “…for emergency…that woman’s case is only for necessity, anyway - temporary measure. We need women’s votes, man, if we must win the next election” (10). Thus Sikira packs her belongings and leaves Lekoja-Brown’s house when she discovers that she is only a means to an end for her husband, without considering whether her move would jeopardize his political ambitions. Even Mama Rashida is not committed to Lekoja-Brown’s progress and responds swiftly to Sikira’s teasing thus:

SIKIRA: Can you imagine? In three months’ time Mama Rashida will make so much profit from Chicken eggs that the master will have enough money to borrow for his crazy politics. MAMA RASHIDA (defiantly): Borrow my profits! To campaign politics? Allah forbid! (49-50)

The seeming subservience of the women at the beginning of the play is therefore only an outward show, a front put up to ward off critical and punitive offensive from their overbearing husband. Hence at the first exposure to the thought of freedom and equity,

144

they all bolt. Whatever advantage Lekoja-Brown hopes to derive from them gets blown and it becomes obvious to him so he shifts position and later admits that men and women are created equal as he realises the women can no longer be held in perpetual bondage. He confesses to Okonkwo:

LEJOKA-BROWN: We have come to new world, brother. A woman’s world. (71)

The play is a correction of the traditional view of the women in the three earlier plays of the playwright. Liza is portrayed as a woman of great skills and it takes her ingenuity to rectify the complex family situation created by Lekoja-Brown’s ineptitude as a family man and rescue the two older women from atrophy. As Sikirat goes into politics and Mama Rashida ventures into business, the main thesis of the play thus seems to be Liza‘s idea that men and women are created equal. However, she has redirected Lejoka-Brown’s lifestyle from that of “matrilineal polygamy to a Euro-Christian conjugal monogamy” (Dako 161). Lejoka-Brown at the beginning of the play is obviously a confused individual without deep convictions. After legally marrying Liza in the Congo, he returns to Nigeria and insists that the other women must “remain in the dignity and protection of this house of my fathers” (12). The contradiction immanent in his life is partially resolved by Liza’s initiative. He is evidently delighted in her inventiveness from the way he swiftly reacts to Mama Rashida’s request to relocate to the village and expand her chicken eggs business. Thus Rotimi shifts his stand and adjusts this play to “the status of women in the changing socio-cultural order” (Dako 158).

A holistic appraisal of polygamy in the play as distinct from the responses of individual wives to personal exploitation however is surely not positive and this may, if viewed separately, question the earlier claim that Our Husband is redemptive of Rotimi’s male-dominated dramaturgy. Certainly Lejoka-Brown’s cockeyed perception of the female gender is no better than either of Odewale

145

or Kurunmi even in the twentieth century when the play is set, considering the way he sets out to maintain his patriarchal heritage and remain the lord of his household. What we here affirm is that the transformation he passes through until he settles down to tentative monogamy is an improvement on the older plays. Besides, the fact that the women strive to be heard at all, in contradiction to what obtains in the tragedies, is an improvement on Rotimi’s work.

IV Liza is a prototype African feminist after the order of Emecheta

who obviously believes there should be more choices for women. There are certainly no choices for any of Evbhakavbokun, Mosadiwin or Ojuola who are compelled to chart the course mapped out for them by ageless tradition despite the auspiciousness of their characters. Ojuola, like any other woman, would definitely have preferred not to marry a man young enough to be her son if she had a choice. Liza’s approach is to create choices for Sikira and Mama Rashidat through empowerment and orientation. She has her own choices too from the beginning to the end of the play; she could leave Lejoka-Brown or stay married to him if she so desired. A comparative study of the two groups of women would reveal that family, society, women themselves and indeed everybody benefits enormously when women have choices. If Evbhakavbokun had a choice, she would have remained in her father’s ruling cabinet and the result might have been positive for all.

So far we have tried to argue that a study of Rotimi’s plays can be an excursion in gender relations/imbalance and not merely a representation of historic and mythic stories. In as much as the paper does not seek to disprove fatalism as one causative factor in the historical tragedies, the doom on the tragic heroes have been enhanced by the discriminatory gender relations in the plays. We assert that Odewale’s tragedy is gravely boosted by the tradition of bequeathing a surviving wife to her husband’s successor which

146

makes him invariably marry his mother just as the vacuum created by Evbakhavbokun’s exit adversely affects Ovonramwen’s political relations afterwards. Kurunmi’s extreme posture of not recognising women in his pursuits earns him an ignominious end where some female instinct and wise advice might have, at least, mitigated his own mistakes. As the resources latent in the women in these patriarchal worlds are left untapped, the sufferings of the men are multiplied. However Our Husband Has Gone Mad Again marks a shift in female figure representation in Rotimi’s plays. Here the women refuse to wait for approval but intractably forge ahead till they achieve their goal. It is noteworthy that in this play where a woman places herself quietly at the helm of family affairs, the conflict is resolved and things end comically well for everybody. This shift is a trend in Nigerian drama for even a playwright like Soyinka creates a woman Miseyi to work with Sanda to cause a revolution just as Osofisan has variously valourised female characters in his plays. These all go to prove our point that members of the female gender contain in themselves much more virtue than a patriarchal attitude can perceive yet harnessing those potentials might be one way for the healthy development of society.

Works Cited Abrams, M. H. A Glossary of Literary Terms. London: Wadsworth.

2005. Print. Ajayi, Omofolabo. “Gender and Revolutionary Ethos of Class in

Morountodun.” Ed. Awodiya Muyiwa. Femi Osofisan:

Interpretive Essays 1. Lagos: CBAAC., 1996 (88 -104). Print. Boal, Augusto. Theatre of the Oppressed. London; Pluto Press. 1974.

Print. Dako, Kari. “The Female Role as an Indicator of Social Change in R.

E. Obeng’s Eighteenpence. LARES: A Journal of Language and

Literary Studies. Vol 14. No 1 (2003). 158-181. Print. Dasylva, A. O. Dramatic Literature: A Critical Source Book. Ibadan:

Sam Bookman. (1997). Print.

147

Davies, Carole Boyce. “Some notes on African Feminism.”Eds. Tejumola Olaniyan and Ato Quayson. African Literature, An

Anthology of Criticism and Theory. Victoria: Blackwell Publishing. 2009. 561-569. Print.

Elegbeleye, O.S. and Adeoti, Gbemisola “Reflections on the Dominant Affective Personality of Ola Rotimi as Exemplified in his Tragic Hero Characterisation.” Eds. Lekan Oyeleye and Moji Olateju. Readings in Language and literature Ife: Obafemi Awolowo University Press Ltd. (2003). 253-264. Print.

Emecheta, Buchi. “Feminism with small ‘f’’! Eds. Tejumola Olaniyan and Ato Quayson. African Literature, An Anthology of Criticism

and Theory. Victoria: Blackwell Publishing. (2009). 551-557. Print.

Johnson, Samuel. The History of the Yorubas. Lagos: CMS Bookshops. 1966. Print.

Kern, Anita. “Notes on the Evolution of Women in West African Fiction.” Eds. Feuser Willfried and I. N.C. Aniebo. Essays in

Comparative African Literature. Lagos: CBAAC. (2001). 157-176. Print.

Obafemi, Olu. Collected Plays of Olu Obafemi(1) Ilorin: Frobim Press. 1986. Print.

Ogundipe-Leslie, Molara. “Stiwanism: Feminism in African Context.” Eds. Tejumola

Olaniyan and Ato Quayson. African Literature, An Anthology of

Criticism and Theory. Australia: Blackwell Publishing. (2009). 542-550. Print.

Osofisan, Femi. “Literature and the Cannibal Mother.” Ed. Femi Osofisan, Literature and the Pressures of Freedom. Ibadan: Opon Ifa Readers. (2001). 1-24. Print.

− − −.Tegonni: An African Antigone. Lagos: Concept Publications Ltd. 2007. Print.

− − −.Morountodun and Other Plays. Lagos: Longman. 1982. Print. Rotimi, Ola The Gods Are Not to Blame. London: Oxford UP. 1971.

Print. − − −. Kurunmi: An Historical Tragedy. Ibadan: Oxford UP. 1971.

Print. − − −.Ovonramwen Nogbaisi: An Historical Tragedy. Benin: Ethiope

Publishing Corp. and Ibadan: O.U.P. 1974. Print. − − −.Our Husband Has Gone Mad Again: An Historical Tragedy in

English. Benin: Ethiope Publishing Press Plc. 1974. Print.

148

Smith, Harold L. Ed. British Feminism in the Twentieth Century. London: Edward Edgar Publishing Ltd. 1990. Print.

Sophodes “Oedipus Rex” The Theban plays. Harmondsworth Pergium Books Limited. (1975). 22-162. Print.

Soyinka, Wole. The Beatification of Area Boy. Ibadan: Spectrum Books Limited. 1995. Print.

149

Rethinking Feminism and the African Woman’s Identity in Tess Onwueme’s Tell it to Women

H. Oby Okolocha Preamble Onwueme is a playwright for whom drama serves a feminist

purpose. Like the majority of contemporary women writers in Nigeria, Onwueme continues the literary and dramatic tradition of feminist concern for women’s issues. Her plays demonstrate a commitment to exploring the challenges facing modern women in changing times. Thus drama, for her, is an excursion into the issues of gender, feminism, identity, race, history, national and international politics, specifically as they affect women. In Tell it to

Women she makes statements on the nature of feminism as practised by educated women in Nigeria; she provides an insider’s exposition of the identity of the African woman and gives a participant’s evaluation of the benefits and consequences of feminism as an ideology adopted by educated Nigerian women. This woman’s point of view, dominant in Onwueme’s writing and in the creativity of contemporary women writers, is a perspective that has not been adequately provided in the literary output of male writers.

Feminism in Nigerian Literature

In general, the term Feminism is the struggle for the liberation of women and encompasses epistemologies, methodologies, theories and modes of activism that work towards bringing an end to the oppression and subjection of women on different planes: social, economic and political. Historically feminist thought and activity

150

can be divided into two waves. The first wave which began in about 1800 and lasted until the 1930s was largely concerned with gaining equal rights between women and men. In England, Mary Wollstonecraft wrote ‘A Vindication of the Rights of Woman’ (1792) where she demanded equality and better education for women and made the first sustained critique of the social system that relegated women to an inferior position. In 1869, the popular British philosopher and economist, John Stuart Mill, became outspoken on the subject of equality for women, an unpopular cause at the time. His essay entitled ‘The Subjection of Women’ sought to shift the law and public perceptions in order to free women from what was virtual slavery, and to allow them to live as individuals. The second wave which began in the late 1960s has continued to fight for equality but has also developed a range of theories and approaches that stress the difference between women and men while drawing attention to the specific needs of women (Encarta). Thus feminism is essentially a western construct that has gained universal acceptance and from which we must expect the diversity and variants that typify the different regions and cultures of the world. For instance, Carole Boyce Davies describes the feminism that is African and which supports the African female consciousness in literature as “not antagonist to… men, but challenges them to be aware of certain salient aspects of women’s subjugation” (8-9). This indicates that the essence of feminism in Africa is to extract concessions from the patriarchal structures of society for women.

In literary works, these woman-centred ideologies seek to rectify masculine views that have relegated women to insignificant positions. In her essay, “The Female Writer and her Commitment,” Omolara Ogundipe-Leslie asserts that it is the duty of the female writer to correct the misconceptions and rewrite the stereotypes propagated by male writers and give a genuine woman’s point of view on the following issues: the woman as a writer, as a woman and as a third world person (10). Similarly, Rachael Koenig suggests that the female writer’s presentation of issues (especially

151

the presentation of female subject) may challenge the male writer’s presentation of the same subject (10). This is because men and women view things differently and there is no self-identification when a male playwright presents a female character. By providing an insider’s view, women writers fill a void, and provide the missing perspective in African literature thereby providing a more balanced picture of their society.

The Nigerian literary scenario now has a rich harvest of female writers who identify with women and speak on their behalf. Nigerian novelist Buchi Emecheta provides a good example of self-identification with the female subject in literary productivity. Chukwuma identifies the central theme in all Emecheta’s novels as “woman, the feminine gender of the species of homo sapiens” (3). In her novels, the protest against perceived injustices to the woman in society is unrelenting. Zainab Alkali of Northern Nigeria is also concerned and very preoccupied with issues of the woman in her society. Her novel, The Stillborn, presents Li, a visionary woman, who is assertive and individualistic in her pursuits. She embodies the feminist doctrine of independence and self-assertion in the sense that she relies on herself, not on a husband, to fulfill her aspirations.

Among her peers Tess Onwueme has proven to be a committed playwright. Onwueme is eminently a political dramatist for her insistence that power affects every other aspect of society; as Evwierhoma asserts, “Onwueme’s plays are committed to highlighting the place of women in the various environments in which they find themselves. Through the ideas pivoted on women in her drama, the feminine ideal is propagated with a view to actualizing it in the society” (125). In The Broken Calabash Onwueme treats gender roles in a changing society, the conflict between traditional and western values as it affects the woman and the effort of the modern woman to rise above the imposition of culture. In The Reign of Wazobia she discusses female power and leadership demonstrating her belief that her duty as an artist is to chart a new path, speak for the voiceless and bring to the fore those

152

issues that have been kept on the sidelines. Onwueme presents the woman as a visionary leader, capable of transforming society that has been mismanaged by men. Her concern with women issues is such that she devotes an entire play to it. However, in Tell it to

Women, Tess Onwueme’s feminist posture takes a significant deconstructive turn.

Rethinking Feminism and the African Identity Onwueme’s presentation of feminism in Tell it to Women

points to the fact that Nigerian women and feminism have a contradictory relationship because feminism in the African context continues to be highly contested and problematic. It remains essentially a western doctrine which cannot find total affinity with many areas of African life. Even in this era of extreme westernization and globalization, some scholars - male and female - reject the label entirely, while others display various degrees of acceptance and tolerance but support the inclusion of women in male-dominated spaces. While feminism has been a platform for raising the consciousness of women to the existing conditions in the past and present, and for making them aware of future possibilities, still it continues to receive criticism.

The major criticism leveled against feminism is that it only enforces the western world view and the socio-political processes that emanate from it. In addition, Chandra Mohanty et al point out that western feminist theories have serious political implications for the African woman because it is “inscribed within the relations of power” that place western theories and third world women who adopt it at polar ends (53) of superior and inferior. Mohanty also charges western feminism of depicting male and female relationships as permanently embroiled in adversarial conflict which is not necessarily a characteristic of gender relations in Africa. Apart from the binaries that dominate western discourse, the issue of global sisterhood propagated by western feminists is unrealistic

153

because there is little link between the African woman’s experiences and the experiences of those western women. Furthermore, it is also impossible to ignore the fact that racism makes solidarity between African and western women impossible. Although we acknowledge that the marginalization of women existed before colonialism, most writers and critics agree that colonialism escalated it into worse dimensions. In her book, Recreating Ourselves: African Women and

Critical Transformations, Ogundipe-Leslie identifies colonialism as the first mountain the Nigerian woman has to surmount. She argues that through forms of colonial education, indoctrination and government, the woman was propagated as being behind the man. Excluded from public affairs, and from certain jobs and positions of responsibility (28-30), “they lost their meaningful roles within the old production processes” (28). Similarly, Akachi Ezeigbo argues that

although the traditional African woman lacked political power… she enjoyed considerable economic power and social influence in her community. The misfortune of the modern Nigerian… woman is that she neither enjoys political nor economic power. Her tragedy is that she has virtually lost out on all counts and finds herself even more marginalized and devalued than her traditional foremothers. (xvi)

These assertions that colonialism enabled men’s sense of

superiority to grow into huge proportions are easily affirmed in the social thought processes of the western world visible in even the most ordinary things. For example, the English language did not see the possibility of a ‘woman’ as the chair or director of a company hence the title ‘chairman’ made no allowances for women. The lexicon is so gendered and male oriented that even the words “woman” and “female” are derived from the masculine nouns ‘man’ and ‘male’. Also the terms ‘man’ and ‘human’ are used to signify both sexes when there is no need to specify the gender. Nigerian languages show more gender equity in vocabulary. To buttress this, Zulu Sofola points out that in Igbo and Yoruba languages, a

154

common denominator is used in the constitution of words that represent male and female. For example, in Igbo, the word for child, nwa, is used as a root word as in nwa-oke for male and nwa-anyi for female. In Yoruba, it is rin - okunrin (male) and obirin (female). And to refer to both gender inclusively (human), it is madu (Igbo) and enia (Yoruba). There is no hint of the male chauvinism that is enshrined in the English language (53). English society further placed the home as the most respectable place for the middle class woman. One of the most noticeable of its western gendered traditions is the switching of names for the woman when she marries. The woman is considered to be a flower, not a worker. For Karl Marx, women are a man’s proletariat. In the Bible, the head of every man is Christ; the head of every woman is man. Besides being contradictory to African cultural norms and attitudes, feminism as depicted by Onwueme in Tell it Women also contradicts itself in several ways as adequate illustrations in the text abound.

Feminism in Tell it to Women

In this play, Ruth and Daisy - city women and professed

feminists - visit Idu to propagate female empowerment. The city women have brought ‘Better Life for Rural Women’ to rural Idu women in the bid to empower them and bring “light into their lives” (24). These ‘better life’ city women persuade the rural women to send a representative who will return to the city with them to study the ways of the city and return to teach these new ‘better’ ways to rural women. Yemoja is chosen to go to the city. However, in the city, Daisy maltreats Yemoja whom she openly scorns as illiterate and, therefore, second-class. Sherifat, Daisy’s mother-in-law, is treated with the same hostility and disrespect that Daisy shows Yemoja. Rural women come to realize that Ruth and Daisy have absolutely no interest in improving their lot. Through the actions of these self-proclaimed feminists, one begins to wonder whether their ideology is directed towards anarchic domination of weaker women

155

by their more advantaged sisters rather than centred on liberating all women from strictures, laws, attitudes that have no advantages for them.

Onwueme attempts to point out that feminism as practiced in Europe and America cannot be absorbed completely in Africa, because of the vast differences in culture, values and perceptions that exist between the continents. Through the characters of Ruth and Daisy, Onwueme presents the following as the concept of feminism practiced by these educated Nigerian women, (a) rights and opportunities equal to and surpassing that of men, (b) total freedom of choice for women; the choice to marry, choice to indulge in lesbian relationships or otherwise, choice to procreate etc, (c) western education appears to be a prerequisite for the liberation they preach. Ruth and Daisy do not appreciate anyone without western education. Daisy heaps innumerable insults on Yemoja simply because she is illiterate. Yemoja laments the treatment she gets in Daisy’s house: “They treat me like a pig. They say my manners are crude and I am a disgrace to womanhood. That is dirt splashed on my face by my fellow women…” (80).

The brand of feminism illustrated in this text encourages stratification among women and raises a number of questions. Does feminism mean equal rights with men and for women of a certain status and education only? Is education a yardstick for measuring the womanliness of a woman? Is feminism an issue of neo-enslavement for the uneducated woman? To Ruth and Daisy, the rural women are “a disgrace to womanhood” (80), “crude spillover straight from hell” (83), “simplistic minds” (86), “ just like a herd of cattle” (87) etc. They do not see the rural women as their equals in any way. Neither do they credit these women with much intelligence. This stratification and inequality also contrasts with the feminist doctrine of equality. Moreover, the modern feminists treat fellow women much worse than the men whom they say they need to be liberated from. Yemoja comes to realize that “… beneath these gold plated words and their worm filled souls” (12), it is another

156

kind of chain: the chain of fellow women and not of men. Ironically, the man Okei (Daisy’s husband) poses no problem in

this set up. Yemoja attests that he hasn’t contributed to her anguish. She wonders: “who knows when the man will start his own abuse? So far, the man has not bothered with me….” (80) He does not underrate rural women like his wife does. He insists that they are different but not simplistic; to this assertion, Daisy scornfully labels him “defender of the faithful” (116). He advises Daisy against arrogance and condescension in dealing with rural women. He tells her:

Hey, my learned one, if you must win the rural woman over, you must come down from your ivory tower and dialogue with them with respect too. Not this talking down attitude by which you intimidate them from your high towers of academy where you flash neon lights to dazzle them. You must be humble to learn from them. True knowledge humbles but for reckless people like you, knowledge empowers you to the point of intoxication. You have got to change your attitude to appreciate and win the rural women over. (118/119)

Okei could easily have been the true feminist here; he displays the respect and value for women irrespective of status that we should expect from Daisy and Ruth.

A tendency of feminism in Tell it to Women is the arrogance and irresponsibility of the educated women. Daisy feels free to go out for business at past midnight to a destination she stubbornly refuses to disclose to her husband. Even age is not a deterrent as she is openly rude and disrespectful to her mother-in-law, Sherifat. Her sense of freedom liberates her from feeling obligated to cook meals for her husband and daughter. Another consequence of feminism seen in this play is the sexual license it confers on the practitioners. In the bid to play men’s roles, lesbianism becomes a practice among the feminists. Daisy regards her husband Okei as an enemy and flaunts her lesbian relationship with Ruth before her husband and mother-in-law. Daisy honestly acknowledges to her partner Ruth that this is “radically unconventional” (89). Their extremism only

157

destroys the hitherto manageable relationship in the home and society. Onwueme prods us to wonder if the pursuit of improved advantages for the woman must translate to disadvantages for the man and family. The outrageous acts of Ruth and Daisy in Tell it to

Women seem like male chauvinism in reverse and negate the essence of the feminist gospel of societal improvement.

The feminist movement as presented in this play does not seem viable in relation to its socio-cultural setting. In fact, it becomes obvious in the text that the brand of feminism practiced by Ruth and Daisy is dangerous to embrace. It is interesting and ironical that the man becomes the only one intent on preserving the home and cultural values which the women seem inclined to destroy. Koko accuses Ruth and Daisy: “You women will be our ruin! You home wreckers! Women, you ruin everything of value to us! You travel to all these strange lands, import new diseases, infect our women and wreck our homes in the name of what?” (63). Feminism as depicted in Tell it to Women tends to disintegrate the home. For instance, Daisy aims at being totally independent of both her husband’s control and support. Consequently, she does things her way (whether they are good or bad), neither does she care about what her husband does. Okei and Daisy live different lives in the same house, the very essence of marriage which is companionship and communality between couples is eroded. To act as if no one needs the other in the name of freedom obviously does not serve a positive purpose and contrasts with the harmonious co-existence of traditional families. Koko goes on to point out to Ruth and Daisy that we Africans are always on the receiving end of other people’s doctrines. He wants to know why we too cannot conquer and impact our own doctrines; he says:

“when the Christians came, they crucified our god and crowned their own. The same with Moslems. And now our women are embracing a new religion: FE-MI-NISM! Ugh!! Must our women take on the ways of women from other lands to become better women?” (64)

158

In addition, these feminist practitioners would prefer to

obliterate and disregard valuable traditional norms and customs as marks of “backwardness”. They have absorbed western influences without caution or discretion. Like their imported religions, they are so carried away by the new gospel that they begin to despise tradition. It is noteworthy that both Ruth and Daisy long abandoned their traditional names, language and norms signaling complete alienation from their culture. As a result, they cannot be fully European persons and they have also become strangers to their own world. Hence Sherifat scornfully calls Daisy: “You, woman without tribe or tongue!” (123).

Probably the worst aspect of the feminism as presented by Onwueme is that those who profess it lack belief in the movement or believe in it only to the extent that it affects their personal lives - a movement that is merely a ‘fashion’ and ‘a game’ in a money making or profit yielding venture. In a telephone conversation, Daisy enthuses:

Yes… for those of us in government. Yes! We’ll make some cool money of course! Yes… Yes… international fame. Yes… of course bringing ourselves to world attention… feminism is the Swiss bank of course! (laughter) But I know your account in Switzerland is breathing… hmm… heavily too! I also know that Ruth will get her promotion on this rural fashion… the new vogue now. Yes… fulfilling the requirements of UN declaration of the Decade for Women. Yes… the government too wants attention and votes for the next election. Yes, buy the people… buy up their conscience. What else? Well who cares what happens afterwards? Who cares what happens to the program after the election? My own money will be resting in some women program… Yes… we’re no fools…. And neither is the government. (85)

The above reveals the feminists to be merely hypocrites; they

pretend to champion a just cause for the benefit of all women when, in fact, they are only working for personal ‘profits’ and ‘paychecks.’

159

The launching of ‘The Better Life Programme’ is merely a device, a means to personal ends, for the city women involved. Ruth hopes to get promoted; Daisy hopes to retain her job plus an improved Swiss account. Their hypocrisy is such that they both plan to keep the funds (ten million naira) for the programme to themselves. All the flowery speeches they deliver are mere masks and their promises are empty. It is also noteworthy that the two women do not mind using blackmail. For instance, they insist that the government fund their programme since it will need voters for the next election. This is yet another blemish on feminism.

Onwueme’s stance in this play is very different from her unadulterated loyal feminist stance in her previous texts. In this play, she takes the time to expose the loopholes, the problems, inherent in the feminist ideology, and she attacks them from the traditional point of view, the adversarial gender relations it creates, and the hypocrisy that characterizes its major proponents. In addition, feminism is presented as contradictory and irreconcilable with the identity of the woman.

Social Context of African Feminine Identity

In Tell it to Women Onwueme upholds African feminine identity and strength within her social existence thereby forcing us to rethink the feminist doctrine and its implications for the woman. Under the male oriented society depicted in this play, Onwueme creates women who have a correct perception of their own uniqueness, their strengths, weaknesses and areas of need. These women ascribe value to themselves and succeed in extracting immense concessions from their patriarchal society. They achieve this by forcing the society to recognize the areas of power exclusive to women as they work towards improvements in areas where they lack power. For instance, the rural women of Idu show that women are endowed with a natural power that is unique and priceless - motherhood. As no man can become pregnant, the continuity of life

160

in the world can only be ensured by women in all cultures of the world. What feminist women call a burden is rather presented as the pride and ultimate power of African womanhood. Adaku says “for me, motherhood is the ultimate power and I don’t know any man yet born of woman who can boast of that power to conceive… I mean create and carry another life” (36). One of the consequences of feminism which Onwueme exposes is its erosion of the natural rights and powers of womanhood in the sense that the freedom of choice characteristic of feminism whereby a woman can decide not to have children in a marriage or not to even marry at all reduces the strength of womanhood in this cultural milieu. The choice not to have children is unacceptable to women in the society where procreation is highly valued and marriage a sign of dignity.

Onwueme presents a traditional African world view rooted in the philosophy of harmony and communalism that upholds a healthy social set up in which both men and women are vital for a healthy and harmonious society. Hence the socio-political situation of rural Idu in the play provides women with several contexts for participation in societal processes and governance. The identity, position and power of woman can be seen in the concept of ‘Umuada’ (daughters of the clan) who are rightly respected by men and women alike and wield significant influence in the community. There is also the Omu-Adaku (female king) who is solely in charge of the market; not even the male king can challenge her sovereignty in that area. Women are therefore ascribed an identity as managers of the traditional economy. This co-rulership position also features in Onwueme’s The Reign of Wazobia where the Omu is described as ‘her royal highness the king of women.’ Her role in the community is summarized when she asks the priest of Ani if he “can snap the finger without the right thumb” (9).

Onwueme takes the trouble to point out that power distribution is indispensable in African world view. In Sherifat’s long exhortation to daughter-in-law, Daisy, she points out that male and female roles complement each other. No one can take the place of

161

the other because each role is special and unique. Neither can these different roles be measured in terms of equality because they are not alike. For instance, how can one evaluate equal beauty for the male and female when they have different physical features? Onwueme’s authorial voice insists that women have always been valued in Nigerian society. She makes Okeke explain to Yemoja that part of the reason why only male children were sent to school at the initial stage of western education was to protect their precious female children from the strange and unknown entity that was western education. Male children are expected to be able to brave hardships including the unknown. The value for male children is understandable, not because female children are undervalued but because it is the natural course of events for women to marry, take on an extra family identification and inherit a new lineage. The male child is therefore the one who continues the parent’s lineage. Even the names given to female children in traditional society illustrate the high value placed on them. Nneka (Mother is Supreme), Ona (precious stone), Adaku (the daughter that brings wealth), Nwanyibuife (a daughter is priceless).

It is worthy of note that rural Idu women so accept and are comfortable with their identity as women that they hold on to and continue to defend their traditional roles and perceptions of womanhood in the face of Ruth and Daisy’s flamboyant existence. Faced with an alternative way of existence, they have the confidence of self-awareness that enables them choose what is best for them. Onwueme’s loud authorial voice seems to advocate a feminism that retains the best ideas in traditional life. Tell it to Women implies that the brand of feminism we need should be one that embraces only ideas in westernization that are profitable to indigenous lifestyles as well as providing improved advantages for the woman. That Onwueme’s authorial voice condemns the activities of Ruth and Daisy implies that she would prefer the new feminist woman to discard ideas that do not improve family life and the society as a whole.

162

In conclusion, we aver that Onwueme is definitely feminist in

outlook as majority of her plays testify. Plays like Legacies, The

Reign of Wazobia, The Broken Calabash and A Hen Too Soon are gender-based and gender sensitive. However, in Tell it to Women, Onwueme sings a different song. She presents feminism as problematic in African cultural context and advocates a great deal of caution in propagating the modern feminist gospel. She acknowledges the discrepancies within the doctrine, the problems that result from this ideology, and the inappropriate nature of some of its ideas. She advises that ideologies which do not contribute positively to the individual and the society should be embraced with caution. In addition, Onwueme validates the identity of traditional African women. She presents their uniqueness, their strengths and areas of need. She also applauds the self-perception that enables them to identify and withstand the force of negative winds of change. Her argument is that feminist doctrine and awareness must acknowledge and accommodate traditional gender sensibilities, values and needs in order to be useful in society. As Okei says to his wife Daisy,

You feminists may need to reconsider your politics of confrontation and oppositionality; your Cartesian ideology of this or that. Your binary logic of EITHER, OR cannot stand in a world like Idu ... where everything is related and complementary: man AND woman, good AND evil; night AND day etc. Where you envision opposites, they envision difference and complimentarity. That is fundamental if you must enter and capture the mind of Idu (119-120).

It becomes too clear that women’s interests, aims and problems have to be addressed within specific contexts and with the awareness of differences. Onwueme indicates that the appropriate articulation of one’s self and circumstance is a prerequisite for identifying the problems that afflict women in society and pointing the way to appropriate solutions. She therefore advises the use of

163

caution and discretion in adopting foreign ideologies. This revisionist posture on feminism marks an important shift from the usual stance of her previous works.

Works Cited Alkali, Zaynab. The Stillborn. Ibadan: Longman, 1984. Print. Chukwuma, Helen. “Positivism and the Female Crisis: The Novels of

Buchi Emecheta” Nigerian Female Writers. Ed. Henrietta Otokunefor and Obiageli Nwodo. Lagos: Malthouse, 1989. 2-18. Print.

Davies, Carol Boyce. “Maidens, Mistresses and Maidens: Feminine Images in Selected Soyinka’s Works” Ngambika Studies of

Women in African Literature. Eds. Carole Boyce Davies and Ann Adam Graves. New Jersey: Africa World Press, 1986. 75-88. Print.

Ejinkeonye, Ugochukwu. “Still a Malignant Cancer? Feminism in Nigerian Literature and Society” (2) Sunday Vanguard. July 13, 2003: 46. Print.

Emecheta, Buchi. Second-Class Citizen. Oxford: Heinemann, 1994. Print.

Encyclopaedia Encarta Premium. Redmond: Microsoft Corporation, 2009. DVD.

Evwierhoma, Mabel. Female Empowerment and Dramatic Creativity in

Nigeria. Ibadan: Caltop, 2002. Print. Ezeigbo, Akachi. Gender Issues in Nigeria: A Feminine Perspective.

Lagos: Vista, 1996. Print. Killam, Douglas and Rowe, Ruth. The Companion to African

Literatures. Oxford: James Currey, 2000. Print. Koenig, Rachael. Interviews with Contemporary Female Playwrights.

New York: Birch Tree, 1987. Print. Mohanty, Chandra, Ann Russo and Lourdes Torres (eds). Third World

Women and the Politics of Feminism. Bloomington: Bloomington Indiana UP, 1991. Print.

Ogundipe-Leslie, Omolara. “The Female Writer and Her Commitment.” African Literature Today. Vol. 15. Ed. Eldred Jones et al. New Jersey: Africa World Press, 1987. Print.

- - -. Re-creating Ourselves: African Women and Critical

Transformations. Trenton NJ: Africa World Press, 1994. Print.

164

Onwueme, Tess. The Broken Calabash, Ibadan: Heinemann, 1992. Print.

- - -. Riot in Heaven. New York: Africana Legacy, 1996. Print. - - -. The Reign of Wazobia, Ibadan: Heinemann, 1992. Print. - - -. Tell it to Women, Ibadan: Heinemann, 1995. Print. Oyewùmi Oyèrónke. “Feminism, Sisterhood and other Foreign

Relations”. African Women and Feminism: Reflecting On The

Politics of Sisterhood. Ed. Oyewùmi Oyèrónke. Trenton NJ: Africa World, 2003. 1-24. Print.

Sofola, Zulu. “Feminism and African Womanhood.” Sisterhood,

Feminisms and Power: From Africa to the Diaspora. Ed. Obioma Nnaemeka. Trenton NJ: Africa World Press. 1998. 51-64. Print.

165

Heroes, Memory and Race

167

The Construction of Heroism in Rwandese Insigamigani Texts

Rodrigue Rwirahira

SMIRNOV Oleg views heroism as fitness cost to the individual

via increased risk of death hence we might expect it to be eventually disappearing from the human population. Yet heroism certainly does happen with some frequency across a wide variety of cultures and societies (18). The term heroism itself had been narrowed down from warfare incidents to socio-welfare. Indeed Smirnov makes it clear on character traits which should define a hero in different circumstances, from which altruism or self sacrifice for a group community or a country can occur in warfare. He asserts that if heroism by definition is an altruistic response on behalf of one’s group in the event of war with some other group, its task demands would appear prima facie quite distinct from those of other altruistic behaviors, for example, providing food to others and caring for the sick (18).

It is plausible that heroism could have evolved on its own trajectory, independent of other forms of altruism, and with warfare as the agent of selection. In this case associating heroism as a willingness to fight for one’s group even when it places oneself at a reproductive disadvantage relative to other group members can evolve based on the selective pressures of war within a population or groups. A hero, however much can be narrowed down to include the five typical models, mainly divine, leader, common, ironic and romantic, as argued by Campbell Joseph, who noted that while Northrop Frye in his “Anatomy of Criticism” emphasized the cultural value of a particular quality made evident through archetypes, various mythologies suggest a common quest in which the individual is summoned from the familiar world, usually a hut or

168

castle, to face a challenge; it is here that the hero encounters a “protective figure” who bestows the hero with some sort of power in a shape of weapon and amulet and thus the hero is well-armed for the task ahead (69).

The hero then proceeds to defeat an obstacle blocking progress of the adventure. The hero enters an unfamiliar world, a “dark kingdom,” in which he or she is both tested and helped by various individuals; the hero then prevails through the tribulation and is rewarded, usually through marriage or fame, and in variations may have the reward stolen and then returns home. Campbell and Vladimir Propp share similar ideas on trends that a hero goes through. For example, Propp argues that the actions that fall into a hero's sphere include departure on a quest; reacting to the test of a donor; marrying a princess, and so on and so forth.

However Northrop Frye presents a particular heroic model based on archetypes of common imagery in Western literature, in various contexts to include Classic and Christianity. He distinguishes some five different models of a hero as (a) the divine hero, who is superior in kind to both humans and a normal human atmosphere; (b) the romantic hero who is superior in degree to normal humans and typical human situations, where laws of nature are slightly suspended, but is human nonetheless; (c) the leader-hero, who while superior in degree to other humans and more intelligent and virtuous, is still limited by normal human surroundings; (d) the common-hero who, as implied by the name, is on the same level of an average human and her surroundings; and (d) the ironic hero or anti-hero, who is inferior in skill, intellect, power, or possibly even moral character to the average human, yet exists in a normal human atmosphere; and while this kind of hero lacks qualities that are typically understood as heroic, he or she still manages to achieve heroic actions (143-145).

Heroism in Rwanda

169

The mythology in Rwanda acknowledges the courage and heroism that had been a paramount character trait among Rwandese mainly in the pre-colonial era. Different kings in their respective reigns had so projected to extend Rwanda to far reaching edges that would it be that borders had to be drawn and an end put to ancestral warfare some people believe Rwanda would have been an enormous nation in Africa.

The determination in self sacrifice makes Rwandese an exceptional people in the whole region. Rutayisire Paul, et.al argues that the king Ruganzu Bwimba and his sister Robwa had shown an outstanding heroic love to Rwanda until they died for it. This was demonstrated during the first battle between Rwanda and Gisaka overtaken by Rwandese later (16). Other kings who followed the paths of Rugwe and his sister to further extend the country preserved highly the integrity and identity of Rwanda amid the neighboring countries. Rutayisire argues that it was a respected country amongst others.

Heroism in Rwanda became a way of life to some extent because people were driven by nothing but conquest to further extend the country, and they were too much exposed to various war and conflicts. Rutayisirte singles different kings who expanded widely the country, among them Ruganzu Ndoli, who was taken as a demigod and an outstanding warrior that Rwanda had ever known. He writes that Ndori revived Rwanda, a country which was in the hand of Abanyabungo, and a lot of things were named after him. He blended the new kingdom’s emblem Karinga, after Abashi took over Rwoga the first emblem. Ruganzu fought and defeated Bunyabungo and Bugara communities as a revenge for his country, he got Bunyambiriri, Bwanamukari, and Bugoyi, Byahi, Bwishya and Bufumbira in the volcano region (17). According to Rutayisire the country was formally structured having the king, the queen’s mother, elders and fighters as the top decision makers. The king was mandated to distribute the power and was the only custodian of the monarchy emblem Karinga. He represented God and was a demigod

170

(18). Heroism in Rwanda cannot be narrowed down to reflect the

pre-colonial era alone, it was a culture and a legacy from the ancestors that continued to flourish during the colonization and after independence. Two categories of heroes mainly Imanzi and Imena have now been given a memorial day in the whole country. The acknowledgement of seven people to include those in the colonial era, 1994 genocide and liberation war are still honored for their heroic performances in preserving, fighting and dying for the country’s well being.

In Imanzi category, we have the late major general Fred Gisa Rwigema, who died in the 1990 liberation war that saved the lives of different Rwandese people. In the same category we also have the common Unknown Soldier who also died during the same war. The Unknown Soldier is a representation of every soldier who died fighting for the country to be liberated from the hands of genocide perpetrators in 1994.

Under the Imena category we have, the king Mutara Rudahigwa, the son of Yuhi Musinga who died mysteriously after he was taken by Belgians. He was said to be a strong pacific patriot, who despite his cooperation with the Belgian protectorate, wanted to see his country and people free from the hands of white people. There is also Michelle Rwagasana who was his close aid and might have died in the same circumstances.

Lastly, the country also honors and remembers the three late genocide heroes who died trying to protect others for being killed. Those include Agatha Uwiringiyimana, who was the Prime Minister in 1994, Felcite Niyitegeka a then parish administrator and Nyange students; they all died because of what their ethnic identities and what they believed was moral and genuine for Rwandese citizen.

Heroic Models in Rwandese Insigamigani texts Rwandese Insigamigani texts are rich and have treated largely

171

the idea of heroism alongside patriotism, with regard to how people might have lived within a certain timeline. Using the heroic models as defined by Northrop Frye to different proverb subjects (Insigamigani) and their different heroic performances during fighting, protecting and representing Rwanda positively, we have -

(a) Divine heroism According to Northrop Frye the divine heroism is beyond and

involves actions which are said to be beyond human capacity and imagination. In fact a Divine Hero, is a person who is “superior in kind” to both humans and a normal human atmosphere. It is very easy among Christian believers to associate Jesus as a divine hero as it is believed he gave up his life for the whole world to be saved; he belonged to heaven and earth at the same time (143). Divine heroism has mainly been seen in the Insigamigani proverb “He is not a man, but a strong tree”.

In the proverb “He is not a man, but a strong tree” the narrator depicts Ruganzu Ndoli as a superhuman character - some Rwandese up to now believe Ruganzu was a demigod. The Ruganzu Ndoli was a son of Ndahiro Cyamatare killed by Abakongoro from the current Uganda, and Rwanda as a country vanished for 11 years. Ruganzu who had exiled in Tanzania as a child came back in Rwanda as a savior; he revived the country after all those years. The tasks he faced in the same process of reviving the country, were tough and had to be done by none other than a superhuman character, the King Ruganzu Ndoli who in this context can be labeled a divine hero. His strategy of spying and hitting back both as king and as warrior made him extend the country to reach the far horizons. Ruganzu started to fight alone using different spying and mendacious strategies to recover the whole country from the then occupant tyrants. He is believed to be divine because of his supernatural power which he used while fighting from the eastern parts of the country going to the west until reaching the Kivu lakes. The narrator recites:

One day, Mukire came to visit Ruganzu at his house, and Ruganzu saw him appearing in the yards, he went and pretended

172

to sleep and covered himself with heavy metal objects. Mukire asked to see him and was told that he was asleep and could only be awakened by a hit of an axe on his chest. Mukire took an axe and hit him hard, Ruganzu could not be touched or feel the hit of an axe because he had covered himself with heavy metal objects, he only felt a slight knock. “Who is that waking me up?” Ruganzu mumbled while waking up. “It is me your master Mukire,” Mukire responded. Ruganzu woke up and they had a talk, Mukire went back home after the conversation. He is not a

man, but a strong tree. (114)

(b) Leader heroism The Leader-hero is a person while superior in degree

intelligent, virtuous, is still limited by normal human surroundings. As far as these proverbial narratives are concerned such person will be compared to kings. Kings in Rwanda were demigods as Rutayisire earlier asserts; this confirms why they are still limited to normal human beings and surroundings. Indeed they had to be intelligent and virtuous, since it was cultural and obvious to undergo typical different royal education; they were taught how to behave virtually and majestically if they were to lead the country. However, some of them went very far and became heroes. The narrator here has talked about two related kings, Mibambwe Sekarongoro Mutabazi and Ruganzu Bwimba who showed various heroic performances when fighting for the country either to expand it or to retake back some of its parts which were in the hand of the enemies. Hence the main proverbs where this heroic model is largely used: “Keep your food, if you don’t know the story at Fumbwe” and “He

reaches Yihande horizons”. In the first proverb “Keep your food, if you don’t know the story

at Fumbwe” the narrator descriptively recites how Mibambwe Sekarongoro Mutabazi started to fight for his country from when he was young:

The first time Abanyoro fought with Rwanda, they were defeated and went back home. It was under Kigeli Mukobanya and it is said that his son Sekarongoro Mutabazi did earn the royal name of Mibambwe because of his brave services during

173

the war from which he got seriously injured at the frontline. Keep your food, if you don’t know the story at Fumbwe. (125)

In the second proverb “He reaches Yihande horizons” the narrator recounts a story of how Ruganzu Bwimba who was the king of Rwanda, from 1312 to 1345, died fighting offensively, in the then Gisaka dynasty:

Nkurukumbi was an uncle to Ruganzu Bwimba, another Rwandese king who reined in between 1312-1345, the king himself is well known for his royal martial services, in Gisaka dynasty and Bucengeri in the current Ngoma district, where he died. After Nkurukumbi suspected an underhand attack from Gisaka dynasty to Rwanda, the king had no other choice but to suddenly attack and fight first, he went to fight without observing war initial rituals, which were to ask gods protections. He reaches Yihande horizons. (19)

The Symbolism and Imagery of Insigamigani Texts Rwandese Insigamigani narratives are rich with symbolism,

dialogue, imagery and hyperbole as extensive literary features. These Insigamigani texts are first proverbs and they became narratives when the authors trace the origins of the respective proverbs and then draw a plot of the whole story. As we illustrated earlier, proverbs here stand for popular sayings that contain advice and state generally the accepted truth; Insigamigani refers to subjects (people, objects, animals, etc.) from which different proverbs have originated. Thus Insigamigani texts are stories embedded in proverbial and narrative forms.

Bussmann argues that the words symbol and symbolism are derived from the Greek word meaning “to throw together.” A symbol creates a direct, meaningful equation between a specific object, scene, character, or action and ideas, values, persons, or ways of life. If effect, a symbol is a substitute for the elements being signified, much as a flag stands for the ideals of a nation. In the proverb “What is followed by men is finally reached”, the narrator

174

talks about three main symbols and imageries at the same time: Men, the Buffalo and the Horns. To begin with, the narrator introduces the proverb by saying that it is uttered in a situation when people opt to work on a difficult decision. You hear others saying: “What is followed by men is finally attained. Men in this context are symbolic since they represent the whole society, as he argues. With the word ‘people’, the narrator is not being chauvinistic in order to minimize the whole society to nobody else but men. In this case men as another extra image by the narrator represent the people in a given area or circumstances. He uses this to deliberately communicate that when there is an emerging issue people should go for it. Regardless of how threatening it can be, people (women and men) should act altruistically to overcome it.

The Buffalo is symbolic, in a way that the narrator depicts it as a serious common threat, it becomes imagery because it can be seen as a predator in the society and has to be dealt with. Its presence out of the forests was a situation which required serious measures and decisions. The narrator evokes again the sounds of horns which are symbolic in a sense that they were communicating to the people and the forests, the death of a giant animal; horns turn out to be imagery since they represent an alarm device that makes a loud warning sound, although, apart from being a signal, the horns might stand for achievements of hard work done by the people.

The proverb, “Rumors ended up in Gishike” identifies the symbols, Gishike, as a place, and Rumour as a situation. In the proverb, “He reaches Yihande horizons” Yihande horizon stands for a place of no life, a desert and a land of no help. In the proverb “Words or things have attained Ndabaga’s phase” the narrator uses both symbolic places and characters to convey the meaning of the proverb. He introduces the narrative by saying that such proverb is uttered when things turn to be impossible or socially unbearable, if not to say extremely difficult. There is a belief about its origin, but people don’t talk about the real source of the Ndabaga’s character. Thus Ndabaga and her father Nyamutezi are symbols as far as this

175

narrative is concerned; the battle camps and the training camps are also spatial symbols.

In the proverb, “Not everything fine is entirely perfect”, the narrator, brings to mind the reader that this proverb should be uttered in a situation where a delightful moment gets interrupted by undesirable circumstances, and because of that there will be no complete happiness. As the narrator recites:

“Look we have few cows, and your wife is not meant for our family, what if I get married and you gave out cows. There will be a shortage of milk, and Kalira would not get sufficient milk, consequently, she will grow thin, and the people will start to gossip around that we were given a wife; we couldn’t manage to care of, there are possibilities for her to be taken from us, in case we fail. Therefore, I would suggest not to marry soon, so that we can be able to take care of Kalira accordingly, the time, we will have a sufficient number of cows, I can get married and you can give me cows,” the younger brother suggested. They all agreed on the decision. “Not everything fine is entirely perfect.” (92-99)

Symbolism as a multiple style in these meta-genres can again be seen in the proverb “Measure your beehive to Bugegera’s one.”

In this proverb we are again drawn to another appeasing story of how to achieve great social success out of goodwill and good intentions. In fact, the narrator explains that this proverb is uttered when people want to teach others to adopt good and moral behaviors from some ideal people. Bugegera as a name is allegoric and symbolic at the same time. Literally, the name might be associated to ‘Kugegera’ a Rwandese verb which means to be redundant or to be an idler, a person who has nothing and has nowhere to go. Much as Bugegera in this context represents a minority group in the society, this does not necessary makes him an idler. He was a servant, although the narrator says he was very poor and had disabilities: “Even if Bugegera was a servant, he was said to be poor, and he was physically deformed, he didn’t have fingers on his right palm. Measure your beehive to Bugegera’s one” (58). Although Bugegera is poor and malformed, physically, but his head

176

is intact and can generate good ideas to get him out of poverty. In this regard, Bugegera is symbolic in the sense of courage and commitment; this is shown when he told his wife to brew a very tasty banana wine, for everyone who would help him to fix a beehive for honey. The narrator recites:

She brewed a very tasty wine, call it a render speechless wine; so many people came in to have a sip. Bugegera took advantage and announced to his visitors his intention. “Listen to all of you people gathered here, I would wish to offer an extra tasty wine to any person who would make a beehive for me,” he asserted. Measure your beehive to Bugegera’s one. (58)

In our last proverb “The venue is at Huro”, the speaker reminds us that such proverb is only uttered when people signal to each other on the agreed decisions or places of meetings. To clearly explain the same proverb the narrator in his story talks about Huro and the forest (imagery) as a symbolic places plus Muberamfura a symbolic character. Huro as an agreed place for the last meeting is symbolic in the sense that it stands for serenity, a place of peace and justice. It is after the two related brother Murego and Rugango reached there after a long journey of insecurity, they managed to be at ease and got their lives saved and secured. The narrator recites:

I have a brother Mugenza who live at Huro in Bumbogo, he is a very good servant to Mibambwe Gisanura, if I manage to get you to him, you will be in good hands and he can recommend you to serve Mibambwe, who in return can ease your cases,” he told the brothers. The venue is at Huro. (67, 69)

The forest imagery represents darkness, a closure of a death, and in this context it has been used as short time place of a refuge. Since the brothers were being hunted to be executed, Muberamfura who was living in the same forest appeased their worries and let them stay with him for a while. The same forest stands for a transitional unsafe place to be. The main idea was to take the brothers somewhere safe and that would be at Huro.

Lakoff and Johnson note that the common denominator of all

177

metaphors is that one domain of experience that is less structured in a relevant respect is understood in terms of another domain that is more well-structured in the same respect. They argue that simply, one thing is thought of in terms of another. The function of metaphoric predications runs the scale from epistemic to expository. In other words, it is used to think things that would otherwise be difficult to think at all, to give a better illustration of an idea that would otherwise be more opaque, or just to find a catchy way of framing a pre-existing idea. (15)

In Insigamigani text, narrators rely on historical objects, names, situations and incidents to give a clear explanation or a picture in a reader’s mind. It is throughout the proverbial narratives that we are able to differentiate symbols and metaphors, simply because metaphors may be unconsciously depicted. Symbols can be used deliberately, since the author may want to stylize his artifact to meet different purposes. However, as again Lakoff et. al asserts, metaphors might occur even if the author or the narrator did not think about them. They can later be identified by him or the reader. In the same Insigamigani texts not all proverbial narrative carries metaphors; there are only five Insigamigani texts that have used remarkably metaphors. In this section we are going to use the above insights and ideas on metaphors to illustrate the logic behind them.

For a start we can identify the use of metaphors in the proverb “Not everything fine is entirely perfect.” In the same proverb the speaker puts some few names and one place to point to the reader’s mind a relationship of evidences to the depicted incidents. He talks about King Yuhi Mazimpaka and his daughter in law Kalira who later was nicknamed Rwabami and a place called Kivumu cya Mpushi as metaphoric features in the narrative:

“That is injustice and hostility, you need to give back that husband’s wife,” the king urged him. … The king asked the husband whether he cannot accept another wife, be it from the house or any other place. …“No one amongst you deserves this wife other than the king himself, from now onwards she is mine,” the king affirmed. Not everything fine is entirely perfect.

178

(92-99)

Another metaphoric usage can be identified on the nickname Kalira was given (Rwabami) by the people as the narrator recounts, “Kalira was nicknamed Rwabami because she became a wife to two kings-Yuhi Mpazimaka and Cyirima Rujugira. Not everything fine is

entirely perfect” (92-99). A reader or a hearer can easily associate the name Rwabami, which literally might stand for a property of two kings, to Kalira who became a wife of the two kings in different circumstances. She was married to Rujugira but his father who was also a king by force made her his wife for some time. Kalira as a wife was subjected to every possible condition. The metaphoric feature is that of a place which the narrator calls Kivumu cya Mpushi. He speaks of a skin disease that Kalira suffered at that place while trying to make her husband come back from an exile. The place is metaphoric in the sense that it entails two pictures, a tree and a disease: Kivumu is a renowned resistant tree in Rwanda which is said to be huge and contains liquid bitter substances in a form of milk. Mpushi is a delivered name from a skin disease Ibihushi from which symptoms its patient scratches the body too much until it twists. Hence, a reader who sees all these pictures can understand why that place came to be named so. Because there was a Muvumu tree and Kalira stayed there while she was suffering that severe skin disease.

The proverb where a metaphor has been identified as the name of a person who killed the legendary king Ruganzu Ndoli, a certain Bitibibisi is “He is not a man, but a strong tree.” This proverb should have been called “He is not a man, but Bitibibisi” but for translation purposes we have chosen to replace Bitibibisi to a strong man, not because it is the appropriate term to use but because proverbs are dynamic and relative and to some extent should communicate flexibly. Nevertheless the name Bitibibisi, its meaning would be close to the fact of being strong, something which is strong is also exceptional and unique.

179

The Ethic of Insigamigani Texts Primoratz Igor posits that there is a major tradition in moral

philosophy which understands morality as essentially universal and impartial, and seems to rule out local, partial attachment and loyalty. The center of morality to him is when love of one's own country characteristically goes together with dislike of and hostility towards other countries. Drisko associates morality as determination to work for the better of one’s country. He asserts that citizens in order to be effective need to act from respect for the common good. They need to be willing to deliberate about the nature of the public good and how to achieve it. They also need to possess compassion, ethical commitment, social responsibility, a sense of interdependence among people and between people and their environment (110). Miller Richard concurs with Drisko by saying that commitment to these principles expresses the desire to be worthy of the trust of all those who respect one's own autonomy while insisting on respect for their own autonomy. No doubt, much more is required for the height of virtue. He expresses it better by saying that overriding desire of this kind at least makes someone a morally responsible person, a person who avoids wrongdoing if her acts are faithful to her goals (169). The above insights on morality as far as the country is concerned are far-fetched and cannot be limited to the obvious virtual aspects, to include respect, will, love and care or any other typical positive code of conduct to observe as a citizen. However, to add to the former aspects of morality, the insights are likely to relate, if not to say completely related and extensively manifested to Insigamigani narratives.

Referring to the proverbial narratives, we intend to pull out various positive behaviors and intentions that might have depicted by the authors. For example in the proverb “What is followed by

men is finally attained” readers are being advised on the idea of solidarity and unity in the community. For example, the hunters together with farmers and cattle keepers come together to overcome

180

a threat that would cause harm to their activities and families. The unity culture is also highlighted when it comes to the sharing of meat. They all understand the importance of sharing equally fruits of collective efforts. Also advised is the idea of faith and trust, where different women were being counseled not to underestimate their respective husbands when it comes to their particular responsibilities.

In the proverb “Rumors ended up in Gishike” the narrator emphasizes the magnitude of hatred, jealousy, and how very sensitive conspiracies are to the society hence they should not be given a space. This is manifested when people suspected and accused Rugereka over the death of King Mutara Rwogera. It was untrue and should not have caused disunity between Rwandese people and Abagereka. In the proverb “He reaches Yihande

horizons” the narrator highlights different inappropriate behaviors which include conspiracies, brutality, disrespect and egoism; all these drove King Ruganzu Bwimba into a war which he could not have fought, and he lost his life and Rwanda lost their king. However, the speaker acknowledges the idea of maturity and fair judgment, where he describes the young King Cyirima Rugwe as royally immature yet manages to deliver a fair judgment after a discussion over a killed antelope while punishing those who failed to abide by the rules of war.

In the proverb “Words attain Ndabaga’s phase” or “Things

attain Ndabaga’s phase” the speaker talks about patience and extreme commitment. Patience is portrayed in the character of Ndabaga’s mother, the wife of Nyamutezi who had gone into a long-time battle camp. Ndabaga’s love for her family and country generates commitment to go beyond her femininity and train herself in male tasks and she manages to get his father, the king, to regulate a new rule which would not keep older people at the battle camps.

In the proverb “Not everything fine is entirely perfect” the narrator strictly condemns the impunity of the two royal characters King Yuhi Mazimpaka and his son Cyirima Rujugira over Kalira’s

181

husband and brother. He again exposes how jealousy can result into unreasonable and atrocious killings, like what Mazimpaka did to his son Musigwa. Additionally, in the proverb the narrator highly demonstrates the idea of self-sacrifice, determination, flexibility and integrity as manners that can help people to enhance communalism for a prosperous future in the country. This is shown in the proverb “He is not a man, but a strong tree” where the narrator stresses the gallantry of the legend Ruganzu Ndoli who revived the country after it vanished for 11 years, liberating and expanding it to far ends of the horizons.

In the proverb “Keep your food, if you don’t know the story at

Fumbwe” the idea of unreasonablly extended and occupational warfare is looked down upon, since it presents and bears no other importance other than imperialism and selfish domination. This is shown on how Bunyoro community fought Rwanda just to overtake it; they called on for an extra support from neighboring dynasties. However, the speaker values the importance of fighting a war under practical and plausible reasons which might be for the welfare of the community. This has been practically illustrated when the King Mibambwe Sekarongoro Mutabazi, instead of fighting with Bunyabungo community, who had initially offered them a refuge, over a dead bull decided to fight Bunyoro and get back the country to its people.

In the proverbs “Measure your beehive to Bugegera’s one” the narrator once again speaks to us about the ideas of efficiency and a positive vision. Finally, in the last proverb “The venue is at Huro”,

the narrator disssociates himself with longtime jealousies, choosing rather to stress the habit of common sociability and friendliness.

Conclusion The current study argues that historically, literary and

culturally, proverbs have been influencing each other in as far as patriotism and heroism are concerned to the Rwandese community;

182

and that deep in themselves, they are used not only to trace the history but also to suggest, adjust and/or change some behaviours within the community. It is in this regard that the study has sought to establish the relationship existing between these meta-genres and their historical trends while determining the role of Insigamigani texts as key guidance to the Rwandese daily life situation. We have limited the focus of this study to a collection of Benedigito Mulihano‟s “Ibirari By‟insigamigani” (2005) in collaboration with the Rwandese Ministry of Culture and Sport. The study has been a library based research and is a critical examination of how themes of heroism and patriotism are portrayed in Insigamigani documents. Works Cited Benedigito Mulihano, Ibirari By’insigamigani, Kigali, Imprimerie

Nationale, 2005. Print. Bussman H., Routledge Dictionary of Language. London: Routledge,

1996. Print. Dagger, Richard, Rights, Boundaries, and the Bonds of Community: A

Qualified Defense of Moral Parochialism, American Political Science Review, 1985, 79: 436-47. Print.

Drisko G. “A Blueprint for Democratic Citizenship Education in South Africa.” South African Journal of Education. 1993. EASA Vol.26 (1)129-142. Print.

Hawthorne Jeremy, A Glossary of contemporary literary theory, New York, Routledge, 1994. Print.

Miller, Richard. “Killing for the Homeland: Patriotism, Nationalism and Violence.” The Journal of Ethics. Vol. 1, No. 2. Springer, Web. 11.2011 www.jstor.org/stable/25115543

Mukarutabana, Rose-Marie. Gakondo: The Oral Literature of Rwanda. Web. 11.2011 www.webspinners.com

Northrop Frye, Anatomy of Criticism. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1947. Print.

Primoratz, Igor, and Pavković, Aleksandar (eds.) Patriotism:

Philosophical and Political Perspectives, Aldershot: Ashgate Publishing, 2008. Print.

Propp Vladimir, Morphology of the Folktale. Austin: University of Texas Press, 1970. Print.

183

Rutayisire Paul et.al. Incamake y’amateka y’u Rwanda kuva mu Ntangiriro kugeza mu mpera y’ikinyejana cya 20, Rwanda National Reconciliation Commission, 2010. Print.

Smirnov, Oleg. Ancestral War and the Evolutionary Origins of

Heroism. Oregon: Stony Brook University, 2007. Print.

185

African Storytelling and Development

Osedebamen David Oamen Introduction Storytelling has always been a product of human development

initiated from the need to entertain, instruct, inform and educate the people towards a better society. Although the above need informs storytelling, it has been found to capture other aspects of life beyond its acclaimed tradition of a lullaby. These include politics, economics, health, social values and norms, with the social values being more appreciated than other areas. Our argument in this presentation is strengthened by a health related African development story entitled ‘The Wise King.’ It unveils the storyteller as a talented developer who uses the influence of the stage, environment, and language to relay an important message. The language of the storyteller is flexible, constructive and communicative. The developmental impact of African storytelling is evidenced by its recognition in cultural policy administration which recommends that African storytelling should be further studied with a view to exploiting its various useful components in broad ways for the purpose of development.

Storytelling as the product of human development started when civilisation began to make progress in interactions and thoughts about terrestrial and celestial existence. It evolved from the need to transfer values, norms, history, songs, poems et cetera, from memory to memory as there was no means of written records of human events. This was before the emergence of the art of symbolic representation which came before writing. Storytelling was useful for the storage of norms and values in its own time. Human memory was a good reservoir of experiences where they could easily be recalled, expressed or acted. Of course human memory has its own disadvantage, that is, when the person who is the reservoir dies, the

186

reserve itself dies with him. Human civilisation realised this early enough and thus started the transfer of such storage from human memory to human memory through varying modes of expression, sometimes accompanied with songs. This is storytelling or folktale, the process of which has helped man’s developmental process in recent times.

African Storytelling and Development A lot of people understand only the traditional lullaby and

entertainment aspects of African storytelling. These are the popular two segments covered by African storytelling that are readily appreciated. However, depending on the story, it covers other areas like politics, health, governance, religion and other aspects of development. From the beginnings of storytelling which is difficult to ascertain but assumed to be when man began to live in communities and interact with one another and the immediate environment, the essence of storytelling has been to preach morality. Morality constitutes the foundation of development. This moral essence of African storytelling is related all aspects of development, considering Rodney’s view on development as a stage of growth or advancement of a human being or thing:

Development in human society is a many-sided progress. At the level of the individual, it implies increase in skill and capacity, greater freedom, creativity, self discipline, responsibility and material wellbeing. Some of these are virtually moral categories and are difficult to evaluate depending as they do on the age in which one lives, one’s class origin, and one’s personnel cadre of what is right and what is wrong. (1)

Rodney’s definition cuts across several aspects of development, further stating that some of these are virtually moral categories which are difficult to evaluate. Yet the contribution of storytelling to development lies within the moral category. Storytelling is didactic; any aspect of human endeavour that is didactic is evaluable depending on the mode of evaluation. In as much as storytelling has

187

a purpose, the achievement of that purpose could be used to evaluate it. One of the purposes of storytelling is to impact acceptable values and norms that project simple moral or ethical education. At this dimension of storytelling, emphasis is consistently placed on man and his relationship with his neighbours; when this relationship is healthy it becomes instrumental to the growth of a harmonious society (Oamen 128).

As an instrument for moral advancement, storytelling becomes a communicative art. As relevant as any human profession or business may be, e.g. law, medicine, pharmacy, politics, administration, etc, the individual is first a human, birthed by parents, from a society whose norms and values are wrapped in different cultural expressions. Storytelling is one of them and it has the power to impart acceptable moral values that will enable an individual to function in a given society and beyond. The ability of an individual to function with his personal and professional conduct in society forms a reasonable base to evaluate the impact of storytelling on his culture. African storytelling contributes to development through moral or ethnic bracing of members of the society. This in turn guides society’s habits, especially with their neighbours either in their individual or professional conduct. As the ‘The Wise King’ exemplifies, African stories ensure their developmental purpose in relation to societal issues and needs.

‘The Wise King’ Elo was the king of Azun. He died due to epidemic outbreak

in the kingdom. After his death, his eldest son, Aza, took over his throne. Aza knew very well that his father died due to the epidemic outbreak in his kingdom. His father was not the only person who was affected. Many other people in the community also died. As a wise King, Aza took a decision with his council of chiefs to improve the sanitary condition of his community. Before he became king, the sanitary habit of the people was very poor. At that time, the entire people of Azun used one empty piece of land at the back of the village hall as toilet. Aza was not satisfied with this, therefore, he ordered every family head to organize his family and dig a pit. The king gave an order

188

that nobody should defecate behind the town hall. Anybody found violating this order after a given time shall receive twelve lashes of horse whip on the back. So every family in the community came together and dug latrines for their families, while the king’s was dug by the entire community.

One morning the king’s mother was caught by watchmen posted around the town hall. She was taken to the king’s palace. Everybody heard that the king’s mother was caught defecating at the prohibited place. The entire community was eager to know how the new king will judge the case being the first crucial case he would handle. It was an opportunity for him to prove his wisdom.

As it was in the custom of the people, a day was set aside for the whip bearer to flog the king’s mother in public. On the appointed day, the king took his mother to the venue where she will receive twelve lashes of the horse whip. Most of his subjects had thought that the king would waive the punishment binding on his mother but the king made up his mind to prove to his people that he was a king who believed in justice and equity.

Soon the whip bearer appeared and the king ordered him to give his mother twelve lashes of horse whip specified for the offender. As the whip bearer gave her the first stroke, the king’s mother screamed and fell down. When the king saw her mother in agony, he stepped forward, disrobed himself and told the whip bearer to give him the remaining eleven strokes on his back. The whip bearer was scared but the king encouraged him to do his job and he did. The entire community was thoroughly frightened as there never had been a king like this in the entire kingdom.... (Oamen 4-6)

The above story has political and health implications on

development as the king of Azun died from epidemic outbreak, probably cholera or malaria diseases, influenced by environment. His son took over and changed the sanitary condition in the entire community to avoid future recurrence. If the late king had exercised his authority over his people, he would have been able to notice their poor sanitary habit and probably may not have died from the pandemic. Because he was king, his death, however, brought changes. This is indeed a reflection of our modern societal experience: A dangerous pot hole in the middle of a highway will never be repaired until a prominent politician is involved in an

189

accident and dies on that spot. Just like the death of king Elo, which awakened the son who passed a decree to improve the sanitary condition of the people, so also are state administrators only roused by tragic accidents, massive deaths and loss of property due to their own negligence in public responsibility. They are alerted only at the instance of an occurrence; thereafter, their usual complacency sets in.

We can deduce from the above story that people may have died in great numbers but nothing happened until the king became a victim. What is important, however, is that the sanitary condition of the people has undergone improvement. The success of the king’s law was dependent on the action he took about the queen mother of the community who was the first violator. By public expectation, the king was expected to defend his mother but he allowed his mother to experience the pain and humiliation of violating a law made by the king by encouraging the whip-bearer to flog her just once. Then the king disrobed himself and took the remaining eleven strokes of the whip. This must have sent serious signals to his entire subjects that no one is above the law. It also indicated the premium place of sanitation in the health needs of the kingdom.

In modern political style of African administration, the king must be foolish not to defend the queen mother. But if he had defended his mother, he would have violated the spirit of the law himself had made. This would fulfil an African proverb which says: ‘when a woman who owns a bowl would not value it, another woman will use it to pack refuse.’ In essence, nobody would respect the king’s decree and anyone could violate it just because the king and his mother had abused the law. The only means to remedy the situation was the bold action the king took against his own mother, otherwise the people could as well continue to defecate behind the hall and the pandemic could as well persist. The king’s value placement enabled him to take a decisive decision that would alter old negative habits and enforce the ideal that will improve the health practice of the people, thereby enhancing development within the

190

health system. The king took his action based on good sense of moral judgment. This, no doubt, strengthened his personality and authority as a king in his kingdom. In essence, he distinguished himself for respect and obedience from the people. Having taken a gallant action against his mother and himself, no reasonable citizen would decide to violate any of the laws.

The political implication of the story is that the king exercised his authority against himself and his mother with a view to improving the general health situation of the people. A process of proper health practice has been initiated, backed by authority, and influenced by development oriented moral values exemplified by the king for the good of the entire nation.

Development Values of Storytelling African storytelling has been held in divergent opinions by

scholars out of which a few schools of thought notably the entertainment, social functionality and literary aesthetic schools are prominent. Elechi Amadi propounds that literature is something meant to give pleasure to people, so if you concentrate too much on the vices in society and so on, you find the reader really gets bored and doesn't feel either elated or pleased (quoted in Emezue 344). But it was argued that people learn through facts of social relationships between man and his community, a child and his parents, a man and his relations and friends, and a man and his enemies (Egudu 35). Others proposed that the life of traditional oral literature is closely bound up with the life of man on our continent, with elaborate rites of passage, occupational interests, religious beliefs and social institutions (Epronti 77). Still the aesthetics of Chinweizu et al debate for the literary distinction of the story as a prose genre of orature in its own right. An analysis of an African story, like the one above, will reveal that each of these positions holds a value which contributes to development in society. African stories are related to every aspect of African life, depending on the situation. That means an African story as a communicative art must

191

actually convey values for development in the process of telling it to the audience. The values communicated are not only relevant to its time but holds promises for the future. For instance, there are many African communities whose social systems fit into that of the story above. These are communities where people have never had public toilets, where they defecate about and endanger human life. Disseminated on a large scale, the above story is capable of reordering such communities’ sanitary system. In practice, storytelling communicates values which are capable of enhancing development even in its entertainment and social functionality. The values communicated through storytelling would vary with or match many other aspects of human existence.

The Storyteller as a Developer The storyteller is a communicative artist who explores his

wealth of memory and a reservoir of oratorical traditions to the benefit of a ready audience, especially in less technologically sophisticated communities of past and present times. The storyteller reaffirms the usefulness of his story and the norms and values embedded in them in relation to his society or target audience. The storytellers in Africa have over the centuries used the resources of myriad languages to artistically affirm beliefs, values and social structures. In the process there has been much to celebrate and much to depreciate. The critic is to celebrate those values in storytelling that make greater inputs into our development, and depreciate those that will hamper development.

The storyteller is therefore a developer who utilizes the values in storytelling as moral blocks to build human minds for present and future advancement. The exploration of the nuances and patterns of his indigenous language by the storyteller artistically adds value, enhances expressive skills, and gives weight to his ideas. Sometimes he mimes and sings responsorial songs which involve every participant and, sometimes, the story is expressly performed in a drama. Often, in storytelling gatherings, questions are thrown at

192

participants to measure their level of participation. This encourages each participant to listen attentively to every story till the end of the session which comes up every evening. At the end of each evening, participants would have learnt a story and a song, if any. Most importantly, they would have learnt the norms and values which have been deliberately built into the construction and communicative mechanisms of a story. Thus the storyteller, in this regard a builder, enhances the receptive ability of participants by telling and encouraging them to sit down and listen to morally sound and captivating stories as well as build their views through the responsorial songs which enhance their retentive ability as they learn and retain the stories and songs. The moral value input from the story, the trained voices, and the retentive ability of listeners that have been enhanced, are required for further education, skill acquisition or other related trade. All these contribute to the development of the society in various ways.

The above diagram shows that storytelling contains two vital moral and value elements. These are often seen as one but have their different functions as seen in the diagram. While storytelling informs morals and values, morals inform and build positive human

193

resources, while values build positive and strong capital resources required for production and consumption. Effective production and consumption system enhances development. It is thus certain that any development which is moral and value based is more enduring and purposeful. It then becomes very important to build morals and values, through storytelling, because these are indices of higher civilisation and development. Morality and value have their extended usefulness beyond production and consumption. They go further deep to enhance human relationships. For instance, morality is required to live peacefully with others and is required as panacea for trust in any transaction. Retentive memory is needed for sound education or for skill acquisition. Voice is required for singing and other expressive skills. Each of these storytelling qualities is an aspect of development when exploited for economic purposes. This indicates that as the storyteller builds moral and mental aspects of being, he builds the society, by extension, and contributes to its development. There is no development without value placement. Mental, spiritual and material values are dependent on interpersonal relationships upon which every other human endeavour is dependent.

Stage and Environment in African Storytelling The stage and environment employed by an African storyteller

have developmental influence on his participants. Usually the stage round is used by the storyteller. The storyteller neither sits inside or outside the stage, rather he sits side by side with the participants in the round setting. The round in Africa symbolizes unity and strength. It means strength-to-strength because the sitting pattern is shoulder-to-shoulder, which is symbolic of the spirit of African communality. In West Africa the circle is an important element for any kind of theatrical action - it is a macrocosm symbolizing harmony, unity and communal experience (Rohmer 53). The circle reflects collectivism, and the space within represents the vacuum which exists in human mind, without knowledge. It is the vacuum

194

which storytelling or any theatrical knowledge occupies. That is why the space is used for dancing, acting or singing. These are of developmental nature as everyone needs a place for support, which those in the circle are there to give. The spirit of brotherhood exists in the stage round and it is a collective representation of cooperation enabling people to work together in the society. Sometimes, for the purpose of familiarity, the storyteller weaves his story around his environment. This also helps him to deliver his message appropriately because his listeners are closer to the environment around which the story is woven. The environment helps the storyteller to infuse environment related problems about what is to be revered and what is not. This is aimed at his listeners who are supposed to know what is expected of them in terms of social responsibility, e.g., how to support a family and contribute towards the continuity, or the need for balance and stability in social, economic and political life. The stage and environment are important aspects of any story because they are the fabric in which the values and norms inherent in storytelling are presented and upheld.

Conclusion The relevance of African storytelling has made it responsive to

the people’s development needs even in the face of technological advancement and incursions of western civilisation. It then becomes necessary that storytelling as relevant and communicative art should be sustained as an art, a means of entertainment, for the moral impact that it is known for, as well as the amplification of its educative, informative and instructive content. Storytelling is basically dependent on expressive skills which enable it to appropriate language and environment to inform, educate and entertain with real vernacular effect, and with a view to developing man and enabling him to develop his society. This makes it necessary for stories to be studied and applied to areas of relevance. Most importantly, its lessons must be imbibed by young and old.

195

Therefore, for storytelling to contribute more to development, it should be studied and introduced to the stage with closeness to reality as in drama.

The contribution of storytelling to the moral and intellectual development of African literature is obvious. It has impacted on Africans in terms of knowledge, honesty, diligence and intelligence. It has also enhanced social and cultural awareness of communities and their environment, improved expressive skills on the use of folk songs and their reordering to meet modern day challenges. The success of social, economic, political and technological development is dependent, at least in part, on morality, intelligence and good social behaviour which storytelling promises by helping to redirect the way we do things. It must be understood that storytelling has far developmental implications than ordinary entertainment and lullaby. As a means through which cultural policy implementation is explicated, the relationship between storytelling and development is an import which has yet to be fully acknowledged in cultural management. For instance, the Nigerian cultural policy states: ‘the state shall preserve and present oral tradition, folklore… and popularise them by producing them in Nigeria’ (quoted in Aig-Imoukhuede 171). To popularise and produce folklore through any media is a process of management. This process is important because of the usefulness of folklore to human existence especially in Africa. According to Nketia,

African societies attach a great deal of importance to these traditions because particular forms serve as medium for the expression of individual and group sentiments and thoughts as well as repositories of history and traditions, while also serving, as in other culture, simply as creative expressions that may be enjoyed in their own right in recreational, ritual, or ceremonial contexts. (1)

The richness of African folklore has endeared it to quite a few African writers led by Chinua Achebe who enjoy its aesthetic sources and seek to enhance its high creative imagination upon the

196

reading populace. This is an example of how the folklore of a people is exploited for their developmental essence. The achievement of this development will be enhanced by a cultural policy which understands the need for folklore discharge and management in the developmental concerns of the continent.

Works Cited

Apronti, E. O. “The Writer in Our Society.” Literature and Modern

West African Culture. Ed. D. I. Nwoga. Benin City: Ethiope Publishing, 1978. Print.

Chinweizu, Ihechukwu Madubuike, Onwuchekwa Jemie. Toward the

Decolonisation of African Literature. Enugu: Fourth Dimension, 1980. Print.

Aig-Imoukhuede, F. (ed.) A Hand Book of Nigeria Culture. Lagos: Department of Culture, 1991. Print.

Emezue, GMT. “Literature and Conflict Resolution in Africa: Discussions with Seven Nigerian Authors.” Ed. Charles Smith. Journal of African Literature 5, 2008 (339-359). Print.

Egudu, R. N. “Igbo Traditional Poetry and Family Relationship.” Literature and Modern West African Culture. D. I. Nwoga. Benin City: Ethiope Publishing, 1978. Print.

Nkatia, J.H.K. Safeguarding Traditional Culture and Folklore in

Africa. Accra, Ghana: International Centre for Africa Music and Dance, 1999. Print.

Rohmer, M. “Patterns of Communication: Wole Soyinka’s Death and the King’s Horseman and Royal Exchange Theatre Production, Manchester.” Ed. Eckhard Brectinger. Theatre and Performance

in Africa. Bayreuth: African Series, 2003. Print. Oamen, Osedebamen. “Storytelling as a Contributory Factor to the

Discrimination against Women.” Multidisciplinary Journal of

Research Development, vol. 9, 2007. 128. Print. Rodney, Water. How Europe Underdeveloped Africa. Abuja: Panaf,

1972. Print.

197

Memory and Palimpsestic Time in Ben Okri’s Famished Road

Kei Okajima

1. Introduction IN his influential work, How Europe Underdeveloped Africa,

Walter Rodney critically examines the impact of the slave trade in Africa showing how the European slave trade systematically underdeveloped the African continent. However, despite the tremendous influence that the slave trade exerted on every corner of contemporary African life, most West African writers appeared to turn away from the traumatic memory of the slave trade, pursuing milder themes of pre-colonial Africa or post-colonial challenges of emerging nations. Indeed critics and scholars have read Ben Okri’s 1991 novel The Famished Road as such a novel.

For instance, Olatubosun Ogunsarwo, focusing on the narrative modes of the novel, celebrates the magical-realist framework used to create the typical “postcolonial” novel (50). Ogunsarwo argues that the juxtaposition of the African folkloric myth with the description of the nation’ s predicament in form of a European realist novel signals the discursive multiculturality of “postcolonial” conditions, which allegedly re-formulates the colonial perception of different cultural phenomena. Ogunsarwo maintains “The inescapable intertextuality and the consequent mutual ‘rubbing off’ underline the interdiscursivity of the novel’s textual discourse; there is a relation of mutual interdependence between the dominated and the dominators that must be recognized, since neither the imperial city nor the colony can return to a ‘pure’ state following colonization” (45). Along similar lines, John C. Hawley applies the label “postcolonial postmodernity” to The Famished Road, asserting that “The significance of an abiku narrator … is that it moves African

198

literature closer to the postmodern movement” (31 his italics). According to Hawley, Azaro’s presence as an abiku child embodies alternative ontological systems that are foreign to the western master narrative of history while at the same time Azaro allegorizes postmodern “resistance to the fixing of boundaries” that enable him to “imagine something new” (36). On balance, these scholars praise the happy blending of essential elements of the African mythological consciousness with the postmodern stylistic features, which ultimately creates this “postcolonial” novel.1 While such arguments may have its own credits, their rather easy celebration of the “postcolonial” hybridity seems to overlook the significance of the traumatic memory of the colonialism that is still alive and manifest in Okri’s novel.

On closer reading, The Famished Road could bear some memories of the transatlantic slave trade. Following M. Jacqui Alexander’s palimpsestic notion of time, we can trace Azaro’s repetitive movements between the worlds of the Living and the Unborn as symbolic of the slave trade. African sentiments on the slave trade may also be illustrated in Azaro’s parents’ reaction toward their son’s unstable movements between the two worlds. Thus, Ben Okri’s novel could serve to save the memory of the colonial violence that was inflicted on Africa from oblivion through Azaro’s palimpsestic existence that perpetually re-scrambles the past and present.

2. The “Black Hole” in African History and Literature

1 Yet another discussion of The Famished Road concerning its post-

colonial characteristics is the polemic between Douglass McCabe and Esther De Bruijn. The focal point of their argument is whether Okri’s novel has Western modernist elements that are manifest in the form of New Age spirituality (McCabe) or it embodies postcolonial, cosmopolitan text (De Bruijn). See McCabe; De Bruijn for further argument.

199

Laura Murphy points out an apparent consensus among African scholars that Africa lacks collective memory of the Atlantic slavery (Murphy 141). As quoted by Murphy in her essay “Into the Bush of Ghosts: Specters of the Slave Trade in West African Fiction,” Bogumil Jewsiewichi and V.Y. Mudimbe argue that African intellectuals “establish a direct link between a glorious past and a future, while bypassing the barbarism of foreign intrusion” (9).2 Jewsiewichi and Mudimbe further claim “The result is a black hole, a huge omission, which, by the very structure of suspended time, is excluded from history” (10). In other words, African scholars ignore the traumatic periods of the colonial history in favor of the pre-colonial history that incarnates the traditional, mythical Africa or simply the usable past. At stake here is the selectiveness with which African intellectuals reconstruct African history.

It is significant then that contemporary West African literature also appears to reflect this whimsical conception of history. Kwadwo Opoku-Agyemang states: “The vastest depth and stretches of African history, slavery and the slave trade are never regarded in a sustained way or mined in any serious fashion for their lessons, their truths and their metaphors. … [and that] Modern African literature, then, is essentially a literature of forgetfulness, and the evidence is related to a gap in our history four hundred years long” (quoted in Murphy 142). This echoes Murphy’s comment that West African writers turn away from the traumatic history of the slave trade, focusing instead on present-day concerns such as poverty and government corruption (142).

The Famished Road has been read as a part of the “literature of forgetfulness” as it apparently focuses on the struggles that contemporary Nigerian people face. Unique to The Famished Road

2 Murphy also cites Achille Mbembe’s comments on the lack of

mnemonic traces of slavery in Africa. In his article “African Modes of Self-Writing,” Mbembe asserts that “there is, properly speaking, no African memory of slavery” (260).

200

is how the struggle for the birth of the nation is modeled after the Nigerian mythological tradition, namely, the myth of the abiku spirit-child. Abiku, literally “born to die,” is a spirit who does not wish to be born and resists life by willing itself to die in infancy. Azaro, the narrator protagonist, is one of such abiku children. Azaro delineates the characteristics of abiku children who reside in the “world of the Unborn”:

As we approached another incarnation we made pacts that we would return to the spirit world at the first opportunity. We made these vows in fields of intense flowers and in the sweet-tasting moonlight of that world. Those of us who made such vows were known among the Living as abiku, spirit-children. … We were the ones who kept coming and going, unwilling to come to terms with life. We had the ability to will our deaths. Our pacts were binding. (Okri 4)

Azaro, however, does not follow this destiny. He abandons his companions, choosing instead to stay with his parents in the world of the Living. The main plot of the novel, if any, is that Azaro’s spirit companions come to take him back to the spirit world, causing much trouble for Azaro and his parents though Azaro consistently resists and escapes them.

It is noteworthy that Azaro’s struggle for birth corresponds with Nigeria’s struggle for independence. In other words, set in 1960s urban Nigeria, Okri’s novel depicts Nigeria’s slow, painful emergence from British colonialism. This interesting similarity between the abiku child and the nation is clearly shown in the text. Toward the end of the novel, Azaro narrates his father’s thoughts on their nation whose destiny, according to his father, is comparable to that of abiku child, “Dad found that all nations are children; it shocked him that ours too was an abiku nation, a spirit-child nation, one that keeps being reborn and after each birth come blood and betrayals, and the child of our will refuses to stay till we have made propitious sacrifice and displayed our serious intent to bear the weight of a unique destiny”(494). The crucial implication here is

201

that The Famished Road can be read as part of the “literature of forgetfulness” in the sense that the novel combines traditional Nigerian myth with contemporary issues of independence, apparently leaving out the painful memory of the slave trade.

3. Palimpsestic Time as Anti Post-colonialism The concept of post-coloniality has required us that we

rationalize the numerous colonizing operations still taking place today. Concerning this point, Carole Boyce-Davies contends that we are not beyond Western colonialism and the ideologies of “posting” work to re-hegemonize Western cultures: “Post-coloniality represents a misnaming of current realities, it is too premature a formulation, it is too totalizing, it erroneously contains decolonizing discourse” (61). Boyce-Davies further argues “(T)he effect has been a highly problematic subsuming of non-Western cultures, reducing these cultures while further hegemonizing the West” (61). Boyce-Davies emphasizes that the postness of post-colonialism is a false claim; in effect, colonialism has a lingering effect and still torments the colonized.

In the light of Boyce-Davies’ understanding of post-coloniality, we can read The Famished Road differently. It is plausible to argue Azaro/Nigeria’s prolonged struggle for birth describes their battle with lingering colonialism. In fact, neither Azaro nor Nigeria secures life in the novel. Their circumstances are open-ended. The novel is directionless, emphasizing the repetitive events: Azaro’s capture and escape from his spirit-companions. Hence, it is of great import to note that The Famished Road defies the ideology of “posting.” In this sense, it is anti post-colonialism. Implicit within the discourse of post-colonialism is a notion of time that is linear and hierarchical. Contrary to the linear flow of time, Okri’s novel offers an alternative sense of time, namely palimpsestic conception

202

of time that defies the ideology of “posting.”3 In Pedagogies of Crossings: Meditations on Feminism, Sexual

Politics, Memory, and the Sacred, M. Jacqui Alexander conceptualizes this notion, proposing a deconstruction of the Western linear flow of time. Alexander states,

Time is neither vertically accumulated nor horizontally teleological. … The central idea is that of the palimpsest -- a parchment that has been imperfectly erased and remaining therefore still partly visible. … It thus rescrambles the “here and now” and the “then and there” to a ‘here and there’ and a ‘then and now,’ and makes visible … the ideological traffic between and among formations that are positioned as dissimilar. (190)

It is noteworthy that the palimpsestic concept of time dovetails with Azaro’s circumstance as an abiku child who experiences life and death repetitively:

I was still very young when in a daze I saw Dad swallowed up by a hole in the road. Another time I saw Mum dangling from the branches of a blue tree. I was seven years old when I dreamt that my hands were covered with the yellow blood of a stranger. I had no idea whether these images belonged to this life, or to a previous one, or to one that was yet to come, or even if they were merely the host of images that invades the minds of all children. When I was very young I had a clear memory of my life stretching to other lives. There were no distinctions. Sometimes I seemed to be living several lives at once. One lifetime flowed into the others and all of them flowed into my childhood. (Okri 7)

3 Okri is not alone to theorize an alternative formulation of time. In “Bi-

living, Time and Space: LeAnne Howe's Shell Shaker and Chin Ce's The Visitor,” Marlene De La Cruze-Guzman argues that authors such as Chin Ce and LeAnne Howe employ coeval realities, or what De La Cruze-Guzman calls “bi-living,” that “denotes a rejection of the Western temporal linearity imposed upon the colonized across the world and a privileging of time and space as conceived, perceived, and communicated by indigenous peoples who kept their own sacred, temporal, spatial assumptions and practices despite superficial acceptance and use of the Western linearity”(75).

203

It is important that Azaro’s confusion works to disrupt the linear flow of time and thus has potential to fill in the “black hole” in African history. In other words, Azaro’s different perception of time enables the memory of the slave trade to come to surface of the text. Indeed, the image is a recurring motif in Azaro’s life that is based on the scrambled “then and now” formulation of time.

4. Images of Slave Trade and the African Sentiment Azaro’s struggles with his spirit-companions who come to

take him back to their world are comparable to the vicious cycles of the slave trade.4 In a significant scene depicting the image of the slave trade, spirit-companions kidnap Azaro in a sack at Madam Koto’s bar.5 In this scene, albinos, Azaro’s spirit-companions disguised as humans, come to capture him:

And then the albinos sprang at me and covered me with the sack. I struggled and fought, but they expertly bundled me in and tied up the sack as if I were an animal. And as I resisted, kicking, I heard the noises of the world, the voices of all the different people who had been in the bar. …They took me down many roads, rough-handling me in the sack. …All the time I fought and struggled like a trapped animal. The more I strained

4 It is no coincidence that, as Marcus Rediker notes in The Slave Ship: A

Human History, the word “spirit” is a terminology used among slave traders, meaning “kidnapping” : “A less common but still-important means of enslavement was trickery, which was used by slave traders to prey upon the naïve and unsuspecting. Among European sailors and indentured servants, the wily labor agent was called a ‘spirit,’ the process itself ‘spiriting’ or alternately trepanning or kidnapping” (104).

5 See Murphy’s essay for further discussion on the use of a sack to capture slaves. In her essay Murphy argues that the bondage in a bag represents the complete subordination of the African body in slavery. The prime example of this is, Murphy asserts, the classical slave narrative by Olaudah Equiano, when the narrator accounts how he is captured in Benin and shipped to England (Equiano 48). Equiano describes his experience of being put into a sack by his captors so that he is not able to call for help.

204

for freedom, the more they tightened the sack, till I had no room to struggle. (Okri 111-112)

Here Azaro’s kidnap in a bag, shrouded by darkness and unable to move, signals the state of being buried alive. This resonates with Harriet Jacobs’s account of her captivity in the attic of her grandmother’s house where the boundary between life and death is destabilized in a complete darkness. As Jacobs suggests, the dark attic is comparable to a tomb where she is buried alive. Jacobs’ account of the ambiguous borderline between life and death succinctly explicates the predicament of captured slaves who lack freedom and are totally subordinated. In this sense, it seems plausible to read Azaro’s being abiku-child who is, in a way, both alive and dead as a metaphor for slavery. All in all, Azaro’s captivity in a sack is a re-imagined description of the traumatic experiences of Africans.

Another significant motif that denotes mnemonic traces of the slave trade is found in the trope of eating, or what Saidiya Hartman calls “the politics of belly” (114). The trope of eating provides a clear picture of the relationship between the powerful and the powerless or the captor and the enslaved. In other words, in a metaphorical sense, the slaves are devoured by their captors and masters as food. As Hartman asserts “Who could deny that white men gained their strength from black flesh? It was clear for everyone to see: they possessed the power to transform the bones of slaves into gunpowder, to convert blood into wine, and to dine on their organs” (69). Interestingly, Okri’s novel is replete with the trope of being eaten. The politics of belly is unequivocally linked with the slave trade in peculiar images of roads that eat people. Azaro’s parents frequently caution him about the roads. One time, Azaro’s Mum says “The roads swallow people and sometimes at night you can hear them calling for help, begging to be freed from the inside its stomach” (Okri 121). Mum’s caution resonates with Dad’s oral tradition about the King of the Road. According to Dad, the King of the Road is a legendary giant who eats travelers on the

205

road: Once upon a time … there was a giant whom they called the King of the Road. … The King of the Road had a huge stomach and nothing he ate satisfied him. So he was always hungry. Anyone who wanted to travel on the road had to leave him a sacrifice or he would not allow them to pass. Sometimes he would even eat them up. … Anyone who forgot the monster’s existence sooner or later got eaten up. ... Some say people make sacrifices to the road to remember that the monster is still there and that he can rise at any time and start to eat up human beings again. … That is why a small boy like you must be very careful how you wander about in this world (258-261).

The oral tradition about the King of the Road may be read as a slave narrative in the contemporary African imagination. It is noteworthy that the story about the hungry King of the Road is directly linked with the title of the novel, The Famished Road. In a metaphorical sense, the roads ruled by the King of the Road can be compared to the slave trails leading to the Atlantic Ocean. Historically, the slave trails were a space where African lives began to end. In other words, it embodied a door of no return. To borrow Hartman’s words, the slave trail “is a road of torment and devastation, a road of insatiable and cruel appetites, a road where you lost everything” (181). Indeed, in the novel, each time Azaro is captured by spirits, he is taken along the roads that lead to water that symbolizes the Atlantic. Azaro’s travels metaphorically denote the routes taken by slaves. That is why both Mum and Dad warn Azaro of the roads.

Even in the history of the transatlantic slave trade, “cannibal” roads not only functioned as a metaphor, but also existed in reality. During the era of the slave trade, castles were built along the coast lines as a storehouse of the enslaved. Cape Coast Castle in Ghana is one such castle built by the British. This castle in fact functioned as the cannibal King that devoured the slaves. As Hartman’s travel narrative from Ghana explicates, the dungeon in the castle resembled a large intestine. Moreover, in 1972, a team of

206

archaeologists excavated the dungeon and found out that the top layer of the floor consisted of the compressed remains of captives such as feces, blood, and skin (Hartman 115). Indeed, the castle devoured the enslaved. It is no coincidence that Azaro’s parents talk about the cannibalistic roads. The apparently mythic story about the King of the Road in fact has existential reality.

As to the ways in which African sentiments on slavery are expressed in the text, we find Azaro, after being heavily scolded by his parents, refusing to eat and, as a form of revenge, slowly departing from the world of the Living, while his crying parents cling hopefully on him:

On the third day of refusing to eat, I began to leave the world. Everything became distant. I willed myself away, wanting to leave, singing the songs of departures that only my spirit companions can render with the peculiar beauty of flutes over desolate mountains. Mum’s face was far away. The distance between us grew. Dad’s face, large and severe, no longer frightened me. His assumption that the severity of his features gave him power over anything made him look a little comical. I punished him by retreating from the world. I tortured them both by listening with fullness of heart to the unsung melodies of spirit companions. ...I did not sleep for three days. I did not eat. Mum wept. She seemed a long way off, in a remote part of the earth. I ranged deeper into that world. (Okri 325)

Azaro starts travelling with the three-headed spirit on the road that leads to the river separating the two worlds. While Azaro journeys to the spirit world, he is still connected to the world of the Living, able to see and hear what his parents do or say to him. Indeed, it is Azaro’s parents who stops him from leaving and takes him back to their world. Dad says to Azaro:

We are poor. We have little to give you, but our love. You came out of our deepest joy. We prayed for you. We wanted you. …Don’t you feel for us? Every moment that my head is bursting with loads at the garage, my soul is brimming with good dreams for you. In this life you have seen how sweet even sorrow can be. Our life appears to be a sad music. So how can you come

207

and then leave us? Do you know our misery? Do you know how you make even that bearable? (337italics added)

Saying that they love Azaro, Dad attempts to persuade him not to go. This sentiment, “because we love you, don’t go,” is what Africans felt for the enslaved who left for another world. It is noteworthy that this sentiment is reflected in the term odonkor. Odonkor is an Akan word that refers to someone bought and sold at market. That is, odonkor means slave. Nonetheless, its etymology paradoxically embraces the African sentiment toward the slaves. The origins of the word are in the words odo -“love”- and nti nka, meaning “don’t go” (Hartman 87). Therefore, Odo nti nka means “Because of our love, don’t go.” Eventually, Azaro’s parents successfully take him back to their world by expressing their love to him. It is his parents’ love that saves Azaro.

The Famished Road describes the mnemonic traces of the slave trade through Azaro’s palimpsestic existence, refusing the linear, hierarchical ideologies of “posting.” As we have seen, the novel also accurately captures the African sentiment toward the enslaved: the eternal bonding to the beloved, and to roots. In this sense, it seems entirely possible to read this novel as Okri’s attempt to fill the “black hole” in African history. To put it differently, The Famished

Road is the novel that aims to save the memory of the prolonged colonial violence meted out to the continent from oblivion. Okri resurrects the remembrance of the buried past in the way that Azaro’s parents saved their son through the expression of love.

Works Cited Alexander, M. Jacqui. Pedagogies of Crossing: Meditations on

Feminism, Sexual Politics, Memory, and the Sacred. Durham and London: Duke University Press, 2005. Print.

Boyce-Davies, Carole. Black Women, Writing and Identity: Migrations of the Subject. London: Routledge, 1994. Print.

De Bruijn, Esther. “Coming to Terms with New Ageist Contamination: Cosmopolitanism in Ben Okri’s The Famished Road.” Research in

208

African Literatures 38:4 (2007): 170-186. Print. De La Cruze-Guzman, Marlene. “Bi-living, Time and Space: LeAnne

Howe's Shell Shaker and Chin Ce's The Visitor.” Journal of

African Literature and Culture 7 (2010): 75-88. Print. Equiano, Olaudah. “The Interesting Narrative of the Life of Olaudah

Equiano, or Gustavus Vassa, the African, Written by Himself.” 1814. The Classic Slave Narratives. Ed. Henry Louis Gates Jr. New York: Signet Classics, 2002, 15-249. Print.

Hartman, Saidiya. Lose Your Mother: A Journey along the Atlantic

Slave Route. New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2007. Print. Hawley, John C. “Ben Okri’s Spirit-Child: ‘Abiku’ Migration and

Postmodernity.” Research in African Literatures 26:1 (1995): 30-39. Print.

Jacobs, Harriet A. Incident in the Life of a Slave Girl. 1861. New York: Cosimo, Inc., 2009. Print.

Jewsiewicki Bogumi. and V.Y. Mudimbe. “Africans’ Memories and Contemporary History of Africa.” History and Theory 32:4 (1993):1-11. Print.

Mbembe, Achille. “African Modes of Self-Writing.” Public Culture 14:1 (2002): 239-73. Print.

McCabe, Douglass. “New Age Spirituality in Ben Okri’s The Famished

Road.” Research in African Literatures 36:4 (2005): 1-21. Print. Murphy, Laura. “Into the Bush of Ghosts: Specters of the Slave Trade

in West African Fiction.” Research in African Literatures 38:4 (2007): 141-152. Print.

Ogunsanwo, Olatubosun. “Intertextuality and Post-Colonial Literature in Ben Okri’s The Famished Road.” Research in African

Literatures 26:1 (1995): 40-52. Print. Okri, Ben. The Famished Road. New York: Nan A. Talese, 1991. Print. Rediker, Marcus. The Slave Ship: A Human History. London and New

York: Penguin Books, 2007. Print.

209

British Racial Problems and the Poetry of Fred D’Aguiar

Dilek Sarikaya

FRED D’Aguiar is black British poet whose poetry gives voice

to the problems of black immigrants who were considered as the problem groups by the British public during the 1970s and the 1980s. Fred D’Aguiar was born in England but was sent back to Guyana at the age of two, to live with his grandmother during his childhood (Slade 1). D’Aguiar focuses on the problem of racism and its negative effects on the lives of black people in his poetry. He concentrates on both contemporary racism and colonial racism, and the psychological trauma of the black people caused by racism. D’Aguiar inclines to dwell upon the cultural alienation and psychological isolation of the black people in a completely foreign society, and their feelings of exile in a different society together with their desire to return back to their black African roots. The aim of this article, therefore, is to study Fred D’Aguiar’s poetry in terms of the problems of immigration and racism which shape social and political circumstances of Britain during the 1970s and the 1980s.

Racism, an “ideology of racial domination based on (i) beliefs that a designated racial group is either biologically or culturally inferior and (ii) the use of such beliefs to rationalize or prescribe the racial group’s treatment in the society” (Bulmer and Solomos 4), has been a highly contested issue playing a socially and politically important role on the contemporary global platform. Attributing different origins to each human community, racism aims at creating cultural, social and class barriers between people. The configuration of racial issues in contemporary Britain goes back to the social, economic and cultural impact of mass immigration after World War II, which took place after the loss of the British empire at the end of

210

the 1940s (Solomos 3). The gradual racial re-structuring of Britain has been determined by its economic and Capitalistic interests which were essentially instrumental in regulating immigration to Britain (Brown 7). The homogenised structure of Britain is changed into a multiracial structure; as stated by Ian Spencer, “Britain had ceased to be a white man’s country” (2). This multiracial structure brought about a series of problems for the black people like “struggles to achieve equal opportunity, fairness in criminal justice system, equal access to good housing and obtaining satisfactory education” (Goulbourne 75). The problems of “health, social and community services” were the issues that immigrants had to face during the process of their integration into British society (Goulbourne 75). Entangled within such unpredicted problems as an outcome of immigration, Britain found itself endeavouring to restructure its social, political and economic laws according to the problems of immigrants. Black immigration was conceived as a threat endangering the British way of life since those people who immigrated to Britain, instead of incorporating themselves into the mainstream British culture, tried to preserve their own racial identity by creating a kind of counter-cultural identity in opposition to Britishness. According to Teresa Hayter

Immigration controls embody, legitimate and institutionalised racism. They have both been caused by and caused a racism which has become deeply embedded and widely manifest in the rich nation states of the West, and especially so in their apparatus of control, including the police, the immigration authorities and private security guards. Immigration controls have their origins in racism. Time and again, in the history of controls, it becomes clear that the reason for them is not excessive numbers of immigrants, or any realistic assessment of immigrants’ effects on jobs, housing, crime or health, but the supposed ‘non-assimilability’ or ‘inferior stock’ of certain immigrants. (21)

Thus the resultant social upheavals in opposition to Britain’s open door policy of immigration helped in shaping the public mind

211

about the issues of race and immigration. Waters argues that “Contemporary discourses of national decline” caused by the presence of immigrants as “perceived threats to national cohesion” contributed to the creation of stereotypes and negative images of black and coloured people (216). Meanwhile, “focusing on the supposed social problems of having too many black immigrants” social and political debates in Britain were circulated around stopping immigration and preventing the entry of new immigrants who were perceived as a problem (Solomos 52). As a consequence black people on the social and political level began to “resist against discrimination in the form of demonstrations, protests, and ‘riots’” while black British poets on the artistic platform became with “cultural forms to register their grievances, express solidarity, and contest the politics of representation” (Childs 194).

Fred D’Aguiar as a black British poet deals with the “question of victimisation” of black people in Britain during the 1970s and the 1980s (Draper 204). D’Aguiar tries to show that the cause of the problem is not black existence in Britain, but the racist hostility of white Britain which is reluctant to embrace its black population and pushes them to the peripheries of mainstream society. In this respect, repudiating the current public opinion about the black population as the “enemy within”, D’Aguiar demonstrates clearly in his poetry that it is almost impossible to survive in a society in which there is extreme form of racism, brutality, and hostility towards black people (Gilroy 45).

In the title poem of Mama Dot (1985), a book which is based upon D’Aguiar’s and his grandmother’s experiences of Caribbean village life in Guyana (Forbes 1), D’Aguiar mourns the issue of the double subjugation of slave women. “Mama Dot” is the first poem of the volume, in which the poet summarises the life of his grandmother in a few simple words:

Born on a sunday In the kingdom of Ashante

212

Sold on monday into slavery Ran away on tuesday cause she born free Lost a foot on wednesday When they catch she Worked all thursday till her head grey Dropped on friday Where they burned she. (1-12)

The poet uses the days of the week to sum up his grandmother’s whole life story which is full of pain and suffering. The use of days to summarise the life of grandmother creates an effect of shortness and simplicity of grandmother’s life which is short enough to fit into seven days. From the very beginning of her life, she has to live as a slave and her struggle to get her freedom results in her being exposed to a harsher treatment and mutilation, that is, the loss of her foot. The poet in these lines emphasises the fact that slavery stands as the only inevitable destiny of black people who are born as slaves, and death is the only way to liberation.

While D’Aguiar deals with colonial racism in “Mama Dot”, he deals with the contemporary racism in “Black Ink”, published in British Subjects (1993). “Black Ink” is an important poem which shows the power of the media in alienating the black population in the United Kingdom:

Reading the Sundays I wash my hands Four or five times. I never lick my fingers To turn the pages; not since 1982 when I read The Name of the Rose- the way those monks died. (1-4)

D’Aguiar’s witty style is felt from the beginning of the poem when the persona takes up a Sunday newspaper to read it. The biased attitude of the media to the problem of racism is underlined

213

through the persona’s suspicion that the paper might be poisoned. Making a reference to Umberto Eco’s novel The Name of the Rose, the persona parallels himself to the monks who were poisoned by licking their fingers while reading Aristotle’s Poetics. The persona’s insecurity leads him to be suspicious of everything, and he thinks that when he licks his fingers to turn the pages, he will be poisoned by the papers. These lines can be read metaphorically to imply the provocative attitude of the media towards racial issues and stirring up of racial hatred. In the following stanzas, the poem focused on the concept of blackness:

My skin reacts against the detergent in soap Forcing me to use a cocoa-butter moisturiser, This in turn attracts more newsprint. If unwashed, my hands would shine ebony, No blacker. I note how yesterday my tone Was lighter; how today rain insists, In a scherzo belted out like an old 78, On blackening this city’s red brick walls. (9-16)

The persona’s hands are blackened by the newsprint so that he needs to wash his hands. Talking about his skin’s reaction to the soap which forces him to use a moisturiser, the persona’s hands are further blackened by the newsprint. He tries to get rid of this blackness by washing his hands. According to McLeod, “the image of newsprint blackening the speaker’s hands literalizes the ways in which the media is complicit in promoting a posionous racializing rhetoric which converts an ‘ebony’ hand into part of a ‘black body’, just as the rain insists on ‘blackening this city’s red brick walls’” (172). As McLeod states, the persona in the poem finds a comparison between his own self and the city whose walls are blackned as the rain falls. Just like the city’s brick walls are blackened by the rain, he also feels blackened both literally and metaphorically as he reads the newspapers. He is literally blackened because of the black ink of the newsprints, and he is metaphorically blackened because of the racially intense provocative media which

214

shows the black population as the source of racial problems. The last stanza of the poem comments on the context of the newspapers:

The news is hot, hungry, exclusive after Exclusive with respected bylines, Matching action-pictures and written in Trick ink which disappears as it dries. (17-20)

In this description of the news, the word “exclusive” is especially important because of the fact that just like the news items are excluded from each other by bylines, the news is also characterised as exclusive because black people are separated from the society by the news. Furthermore, the title of the poem is also significant in that the media uses black ink which further blackens the minorities by associating them with criminal activity and promoting stereotypes and racial prejudices against blacks, and thus excluding them (Balkaran 1). In the last line of the poem, the black ink is described as “trick ink” which deludes people by making false news about black people by further blackening and accusing them of being the source of the problems.

Fred D’Aguiar also gives voice to the suffering of a slave in his poem “At the Grave of an Unknown African” published in British

Subjects. The poem consists of two parts; in the first part the persona is a black British who stands at the grave of an unknown African while in the second part, the persona is the dead African himself. In part I, the persona compares himself to the dead African by comparing the past times of slavery with the present:

African slave without a name. I’d call this home By now. Would you? Your unknown soldier’s tomb Stands for shipload after shipload that docked, Unloaded, watered, scrubbed, exercised and restocked Thousands more souls for sale in Bristol’s port; Cab drivers speak of it all with yesterday’s hurt. (11-16)

Although the persona living in England perceives it as his

215

home, he is doubtful about whether the dead African would think England as his home because of the simple fact that he was brought to England as a slave centuries ago during the slave trade. The persona later concentrates on British slave trade and transportation of slaves from Africa to the Bristol port for sale. As James Rawley states, “in the late seventeenth century and during the first three decades of the eighteenth, London dominated the British slave trade. Eclipsed by the West Coast ports of Bristol and Liverpool in midcentury, London recovered over Bristol in the last half-century of the trade” (18). Once the persona thinks about the dead African slave, his mind goes back in time and he begins to think about slavery itself and the lives of those slaves who were transported to Bristol. Later the persona’s mind switches to the present, compares the present day experiences of the blacks to the dead African who lies peacefully in his grave:

St Paul’s, Toxteth, Brixton, Tiger Bay and Handsworth: Petrol bombs flower in the middle of roads, a sudden growth At the feet of police lines longer than any cricket pitch. African slave, your namelessness is the wick and petrol mix. Each generation catches the one fever love can’t appease; Nor Molotov coctails, nor when they embrace in peace. (19-24)

The place names that are mentioned in the poem, St Paul’s, Toxteth, Brixton, Tiger Bay and Handsworth are the areas of growing “outbreaks of unrest” in the 20th century where the racial conflicts between the black people and the police force resulted in violence on the both parts (Solomos 143). After describing the hard living conditions in a war like atmosphere among the petrol bombs and Molotov cocktails, he underlines the fact that the namelessness of the African slave and the other slaves like him are the igniters of the fires for black people to resist against the police force. In other words, the persona emphasises that the present generation of black people are taking the revenge of their ancestors who were enslaved

216

and sold as property and who did not even have a name. While the persona tries to understand the feelings of the dead

African slave in the first part of the poem, the dead African slave becomes the persona in the second part of the poem. He begins his speech with a rebuke to the first persona and states:

Stop there black Englishman before you tell a bigger lie You mean me well by what you say but I can’t stand idly by The vandal who keeps coming and does what he calls fucks On the cool gravestones, also pillages and wrecks. If he knew not so much my name but what happened to Africans, He’d maybe put in an hour or two collecting his Heinekens. (1-6)

He opposes the speaker in the first part who claims that the unknown African who lies in his grave is unaware of what is happening in the present day, and how hard life is within racial conflicts. The persona claims that he is not blind about the things going on around his grave. His grave is destroyed and harmed by the Whites whom he calls vandals. He further states that those people could have the chance to know what happened to Africans in the past, they would have shown a little respect to their grave by collecting their beer-cans. In brief, Fred D’Aguiar, in this poem, tries to show that race and racism still continue to be a major problem in Britain, by making a comparison between the past and present. The black population are still exposed to the same treatment of subordination and discrimination. Although they are not slaves any longer, black people continue to be the targets of racial hatred either by the white population or by police brutality. They are forced to live under the shadow of police control.

The categorisation of the black people as a problem group is also illustrated in detail in another poem by Fred D’ Aguiar, “Ballad of the Throwaway People” published in British Subjects. D’Aguiar specifically brings to attention the operation of racial discrimination

217

in almost every social institution, and shows the isolation of the black population as a result of racially motivated legislations against immigration. D’Aguiar expresses the feelings of animosity of the black people as follows:

We are the throwaway people The problem that won’t go away people … … … The we have no use for you people The blood we had to have was tainted people. (1-4, 9-12)

Black people are explicitly defined as the problem in this poem. The poet reacts with frustration and anger with the hostile living conditions of the black people who, as victims of racism, frequently find themselves in conflict with British society which sees the presence of the black population as a great problem, disrupting the peace and security of contemporary Britain. The physical structure of the poem is also significant. The lines consist of long and short lines which complete each other meaningfully but the repeated words “people” are all separated from the previous lines to imply the marginalisation of black people from the rest of the society. After referring to the discrimination and exclusion which leave the black people in isolation, the poet underlines the dominant hegemonic discourse of the black race being inferior to the white race as it is expressed explicitly in line 11. The poet further continues to delineate how little value is given to the black people whose life seems useless:

The priests are reluctant to bury people The buried at the edge of cemeteries people The keep your grief private people

218

The world has no love for us people. (21-28)

D’Aguiar gives voice to the difficulties of living in a world that has no love for black people. Not only in life, but also after their death black people are given no value. The title of the poem “Ballad of the Throwaway People” is also significant. The Ballad, as a literary form, is part of a song tradition telling a generally tragic story in a simple language, told through dialogue and action (Cuddon 71). The poem, in this respect, is a ballad of “throwaway people”, song of black people who are Othered by the society. The poem narrates the tragedy of black people who find it difficult to live in a hostile society. The operation of racism at first glance seems to be the social, political and economic segregation of the black people in the inner city areas, but closer examination reveals its deep psychological dimensions on the life of the black people who develop a sense of worthlessness as an outcome of racism. D’Aguiar, in this poem, puts emphasis on the impact of racial exclusion on the life of black people who are separated from their origins, marginalised in the society, discriminated, pushed away and abused in the streets, and refused by British society.

Furthermore, the poet becomes more specific in his criticism of the deteriorating living conditions of black people, and goes further in his exploration of institutional racism in another poem called “Inner City”. In this poem, D’Aguiar explicitly demonstrates the tremendous realities of the inner city areas of Britain where the white and the black dichotomy reached its peak. The corruption within the institution of the police force as an instrument of oppression and exploitation is pinpointed; he says:

Who’s to knock their heads together Now that the bobby on the beat is part of the gang you meet at night roaming the city’s streets, brazen in their uniform, smiling through clenched teeth? (7-12)

219

The police force which is patrolling the streets of the inner city areas with the supposed aim of providing security, itself constitutes a threat for the security of people. Living in the inner city areas in poor conditions, the black population that is associated in discourse of racism with criminality and violence have themselves become victims of police violence. The order and neatness of the police officers’ clothes are in complete contradiction with the corruption of the police institution. The reason of this corruption apparently is the fact that racism is institutionalized within the state apparatuses which cause social, cultural, economical and political inequalities within the society. As Sivanandan states, racism is an instrument of discrimination and exploitation:

In Britain, with its long tradition of racism over five centuries and three continents, racial prejudice has become an intrinsic part of popular culture, racial discrimination has come to inhere in the institutions of the society and racist laws and policies have characterised state intervention at the point of economic need….In sum, the laws, the administration, the criminal justice system- the whole state apparatus in Britain- is rife with racism and gives the lie to the government’s pretensions to counter institutional racism and the culture which gives it a habitation and a name. (2, 3)

Therefore, racism, which is institutionalised within the criminal

justice system and other institutions, leads to the overrepresentation of black people and the inevitable stigmatisation of blacks as criminals in the view of the police as well as the general public. The idea that the blacks are the source of social problem proves itself to be wrong as it is explicitly revealed in this poem. In the following part of the poem, a specific incident of the killing of a black girl is reported:

The children report the attack as something miraculous. One says he heard the girl’s bones crack. Another liked how the dog wagged throughout. A third bragged

220

that after a while it was hard to tell the colour of the ground from the girl’s smooth brown: both were dug-up, both were raw; both were under English law. The children grow up feeling like dogs, they worship stumps for gods. (19-30)

With the aim of reflecting the desperate situation of the inner city areas which are characterised with poverty and crime, the poet brings forth the subordination of people to the intolerable living conditions caused by the failure of law and order in the society. The police, far from solving the problem, constitute the most important part of the problem. Moreover, another striking point that needs to be emphasised is the children that witness the attack on the black girl. Children should be normally expected to be sensitive to the awfulness of the situation but, on the contrary, they report the violent event as an exciting miraculous incident because of the simple fact that violence has become an integral part of everyday life in the inner cities. What is more shocking in the poem is that children almost delight in violence and bloodshed and brag about it as if it were something positive. The “wagging” of dogs is also important which shows that even the dogs feel joy and happiness in this violence. After emphasising the failure of the British law system to improve the poor living conditions of the inner city, the poem ends with a hint of foreboding. Children who are brought up in such living conditions are accustomed to violence and eventually turn out to be criminals by losing their humanity.

Both the “Ballad of Throwaway People” and the “Inner City” show that Fred D’Aguiar specifically draws attention to the problem of racism which makes life difficult for black and coloured people in Britain. D’Aguiar’s poetry reflects how racism turns out to be a crucial problem in contemporary Britain, causing the escalation of tensions between the blacks and the whites and creating polarisation in the society.

Fred D’Aguiar’s “Letter from Mama Dot” included in Mama

221

Dot, is based on the idea of racial identity of those who did not immigrate to Britain and preferred to remain in their homeland. The poem is written from the point of view of a grandmother in the form of a letter to her grandson. The poem consists of two parts and in the first part, the grandmother points out the social and economic deterioration in Guyana:

Your letters and parcels take longer And longer to reach us. The authorities Tamper with them (whoever reads this And shouldn’t, I hope jumby spit In them eye). We are more and more Like another South American dictatorship, And less and less part of the Caribbean. Now that we import rice (rice that used to grow wild!) We queue for most things: Flour, milk, sugar, barley, and fruits You can’t pick anymore. I join them At 5 a.m. for 9 o’clock opening time, People are stabbing one another for a place And half the queue goes home empty-handed, With money that means next to nothing. (1-15)

The grandmother’s letter depicts the economic, social and cultural deterioration which have shaped black historical experience not only during slavery but also after slavery. The present situation of Guyana which is founded upon the ruins of colonial exploitation is displayed in the poem. Guyana is drained out of its resources, and its people are trying to survive in extreme wretchedness, poverty and misery. The grandmother’s comparison of the previous situation of Guyana where rice along with the other foods grew naturally in the environment and the present day situation of Guyana where they have to import them is significant in its demonstration of the paralysing results of colonialism. It is further emphasised that the authorities, instead of dealing with the social problems like unemployment and poverty, turn out to be dictators trying to exert a strict control over people. The grandmother’s observations, like her wishing a “jumby spit in dem eye” (4-5) of those who read and

222

control the letters, in fact, pinpoints a crucial understanding of the political subordination of black people as it is argued by Brian L. Moore:

The third facet of the process of subordinating the Creole section in social and economic terms was by hindering the growth of an economically independent peasant and small farming sector as a viable alternative to the plantation system. The very problems which facilitated the intervention of the central government in village affairs and its eventual exercise of absolute control over village administration formed the basis of economic decay of the villages. (118)

As Moore further argues, the emphasis on the poverty of the

villagers shows the impact of colonial exploitation which systematically strives to keep ex-colonial countries under subjugated position. Through a grandmother figure, the poet succeeds in shedding an unbiased light on the social and political circumstances of Guyana. In an interview D’Aguiar says:

I've been interested in history, specifically black history, since my first book of poems, Mama Dot, about my grandmother in Guyana who is of African descent. My interest in ancestry beyond those who are alive is really my attempt to fill in the gaps of an eradicated past and to understand history through personality, through people and their experiences rather than by a rehearsal of dates and events. A society is best understood by a study of its treatment of the poor and powerless in it. The seeds for regeneration in society frequently come from the bottom, from the least empowered people as a result of their agitation, hunger and invention, and travels upwards, whereas the decay in that society, a society's decadence, its early signs of death, works its way from the top to the bottom. (Frias 418)

D’Aguiar points out that his grandmother is a historical figure,

constructing a bridge between the poet and his past. The grandmother functions like a living memory for the poet who is continuously reminded of the colonial history which sums up the cultural elimination, economic exploitation and political

223

assimilation of the colonised people. In the second part of the poem, the grandmother’s focus shifts

from Guyana to Britain, to reflect the hard living conditions of immigrants, and she tries to speculate on the white population’s view of the black people who will always remain aliens. Her feelings of despondency are expressed in the following lines:

You are a traveller to them. A West Indian working in England; A Friday, Tonto, or Punkawallah; Sponging off the state. Our languages remain pidgin, like our dark, third,

Underdeveloped, world. I mean, their need To see our children cow-eyed, pot-bellied, Grouped or alone in photos and naked, The light darkened between their thighs. And charity’s all they give: the cheque, Once in a blue moon (when guilt’s A private monsoon), posted to a remote Part of the planet they can’t pronounce. They’d like to keep us there. Not next door, your house propping-up Theirs… (1-15) [italics are original]

The grandmother warns her grandson about the crucial fact that, regardless of his attempts to be incorporated into mainstream British society, he will forever remain an outsider. By referring to the strongly established stereotypes about Afro-Caribbean people who are labelled “dark, third world, underdeveloped, cow-eyed, pot-bellied and naked” (4-5) the grandmother underlines an important issue about the fixity of racial identity of black people who are conceptualised as the other to the Western self. It can be argued that British society tries to preserve the difference between the two cultures by keeping black people at a distance. In this respect, Stuart Hall emphasises the notion of difference which is essential to “giving things meaning by assigning them to different positions within a classificatory system” (236). In the same manner, black people are classified in a position of difference and given meanings

224

through representation. Hall formulates the working of representation and claims:

Typical of this racialised regime of representation was the practice of reducing the cultures of black people to Nature, or naturalising ‘difference’. The logic behind naturalisation is simple. If the differences between black and white people are ‘cultural’, then they are open to modification and change. But if they are ‘natural’-as the slave-holders believed-then they are beyond history, permanent and fixed. ‘Naturalisation’ is therefore a representational strategy designed to fix ‘difference’, and thus secure it forever. It is an attempt to halt the inevitable ‘slide’ of meaning, to secure discursive or ideological ‘closure’. (245)

As Hall argues, the cultural division between black and white is fixed and naturalised through representation. In the poem, the grandmother’s allusion to the desire of westerners to see the black Afro-Caribbean people as “cow-eyed, pot-bellied/ Grouped or alone in photos and naked” (7-8), can be considered as part of representation of black people. Black people’s difference is naturalised through fixed differences between the British self and the black other. The qualities of being cow-eyed, pot-bellied and naked are indicators of malnutrition, hunger and poverty. In this respect, the representation of blacks as such can be seen as an implication of the desire of the British people to see blacks in a fixed position of poverty and hunger. Moreover, the grandmother in the poem perceives that the reason behind British society’s charity shows its desire to keep blacks at a distance. Therefore, through representation, the racial otherness of the blacks is secured; in Hall’s words, the racial identity of “the primitive” in contrast with “the civilised world” is firmly established and naturalised via representation (239).

Additionally, Fred D’Aguair’s “Colour” published in British

Subjects, is an important poem displaying the psychological damage of a black man who is afraid of his blackness:

I woke with the last of my colour on my gums.

225

The rest had melted from me and coated the sheets Mattress and both pillowcase. I cursed myself For sleeping nude as I stood before the mirror. This pale somebody stared right back and right through me, He looked so hard, I had to glance behind myself. An involuntary shiver took me over. Ghosts after ghost hurdled my grave. I felt the blood drain from my face. My one thought was, what would I say to the cleaner? (1-10)

What is emphasised in these lines is the nightmare of a man who discovers that his colour stains the sheets, mattress and pillowcase when he wakes up in the morning in a hotel room. The persona blames and is ashamed of himself, internalising the racist stereotypes about his colour which symbolises “evil, demise, chaos, corruption, and uncleanliness, in contrast to whiteness, which equalled order, wealth, purity, goodness, cleanliness, and the epitome of beauty” (Adam and Moodley 250). Although it is not explicitly expressed by the persona who is just worried about how to explain it to the cleaner, the underlying idea of his nightmare is the revelation of his hidden fears about the colour of his skin which is the primary reason of his sense of inferiority. Fred D’Aguiar comments on the conditions of black communities and points out:

A generation of British-born and bred blacks had come of age only to find that Britishness did not include them. Jobs were not open to them, the police harassed them, there was an increase in racist violence, and subtler forms of racism, such as discrimination in the classroom, meant that black youths were underachieving in school and getting pushed into sport, or else signing on for the dole. This bleak picture fed back into the arts as poets tried to find ways of expressing this experience and articulating creative solutions to it. (“Have You Been Here Long?” 59)

In conclusion, after a detailed analysis of his some of his

poems, it can be stated that Fred D’Aguiar’s poetry reflects the

226

growing restlessness towards the problem of racism, its becoming social and political concern in Britain and the increasing struggle of the blacks to fight against it. Demonstrating clearly what it is to be black in a British society, D’Aguiar clearly displays the extents of racist violence and exploitation that black people are exposed to (Eldridge 37).

Works Cited Adam, Heribert and Kogila Moodley. “Psychological Liberation.”

Racism. Eds. Martin Bulmer and John Solomos. Oxford: Oxford UP, 1999. 250-259. Print.

Balkaran, Stephen. “Mass Media and Racism.” 1999. Web. 27.08.2009. <http://www.yale.edu/ypq/articles/oct99/oct99b.html>. Brown, Ruth. “Racism and Immigration in Britain.” International

Socialism Journal 68 (1995) Web. 5.06.2006. <http://pubs.socialistreviewindex.org.uk/isj68/brown.htm>

Bulmer, Martin and John Solomos. Introduction. Racism: A Reader. By Bulmer and Solomos. Oxford: Oxford UP, 1996. 3-17. Print.

Childs, Peter. The Twentieth Century in Poetry: A Critical Survey. London: Routledge, 1999. Print.

Cuddon, J. A. The Penguin Dictionary of Literary Terms and Literary Theory. London: Penguin. 2000. Print.

Eldridge, Michael. “The Rise and Fall of Black Britain.” Transition 74 (1997): 32-43. Print.

Forbes, Peter. “Critical Perspective: The Poetry of Fred D’Aguiar.” 2001. Web. 28.06.2008. <http://www.contemporarywriters.com/authors/?p=auth26>.

D’Aguiar, Fred. Mama Dot. London: Bloodaxe, 1985. Print. ---. British Subjects. London: Bloodaxe, 1993. Print. ---. “Have You Been Here Long? : Black Poetry in Britain.” New

British Poetries: The Scope of the Possible. Eds. Robert Hampson and Peter Barry. Manchester: Manchester UP, 1993. 51-71. Print.

Draper, R.P. An Introduction to Twentieth-Century Poetry in English. New York: St. Martin’s, 1999. Print.

Frias, Maria. "Building Bridges Back to the Past." An Interview with Fred D'Aguiar. Callaloo 25.2 (2002): 418-425. Print.

Gilroy, Paul. “One Nation Under a Groove: The Cultural Politics of ‘Race’ and Racism in Britain.” Anatomy of Racism. Ed. David

227

Theo Goldberg. Minneapolis: Minnesota UP, 1990. 263-282. Print.

Goulbourne, Harry. Race Relations in Britain since 1945. London: Macmillan, 1998. Print.

Hall, Stuart. Representation: Cultural Representations and Signifying Practices. Walton Hall: The Open UP, 1997. Print.

Hayter, Teresa. Open Borders: The Case Against Immigration Controls. London: Pluto, 2000. Print.

McLeod, John. Postcolonial London: Rewriting the Metropolis. London: Routledge, 2004. Print.

Moore, Brian L. Race, Power and Social Segmentation in Colonial Society. Montreux: Gordon and Breach, 1987. Print.

Rawley, James A. London, Metropolis of the Slave Trade. Columbia: Missouri UP, 2003. Print.

Sivanandan, A. “Poverty is the New Black” Race and Class 43.2. (2001): 1-5. Print.

Slade, Ted. “Poetry Kit Interviews Fred D’Aguiar.” 1999. Web.5.06.2009.

<http://www.poetrykit.org/iv/daguiar.htm>. Solomos, John. Race and Racism in Britain. London: Macmillan,

1989. Print. Spencer, Ian R. G. British Immigration Policy Since 1939: The

Making of Multi-Racial Britain. London: Routledge, 1997. Print. Waters, Chris. “‘Dark Strangers’ in Our Midst: Discourses of Race and

Nation in Britain, 1947-1963.” The Journal of British Studies 36.2 (1997): 207-238. Print.

229

FOR years IRCALC has presented critical commentaries and reviews on contemporary African (and Diaspora) writers namely: Achebe . Aidoo . Allende . Andreas . Armah . Atta . Ba . Bandele-Thomas . Bessora . Beti . Biyaoula . Brathwaite . Camara . Ce . Coetzee . Couto . D’Aguiar . Dasylva . Dlamini . Emecheta . Enekwe . Ezeigbo . Fall . Farah . Forna . Gordimer . Head . Iyayi . Kane . Kuti . Lopes . Magona . Mahfouz . Makeba . Mpe . Naipaul . Ndongo . Ngugi. Nkengasong . Ofeimun . Ojaide . Okri . Onwueme . Osammor . Osofisan . Osundare . Mabanckou . Naylor . Ousmane .Oyono . Rotimi . Roumain . Soyinka . Ushie . Uways . Vassanji . Vera . Wilson... Plus: - Angolan Writing . Camerounian Birth Songs . Hindi Movies in Africa . Igbo War; Marriage and Birth Songs . New Kenyan Writers . Nigerian Pidgin Rhetoric . Oral Performance among the Graffi . Rumuji Women Dance . Rwandese Insigamigani Texts . Yoruba Satirical Songs . Zimbabwean Popular Music

In the journals of Critical Studies, African Literature, and New Poetry

Published for the International Research Council on African Literature and Culture (IRCALC) by Progeny and Lulu Press, NC. USA.

EDITORIAL DIRECTORS

AFRICA RESEARCH CENTRE

Chin CE - Charles SMITH PROJECT EDITORS

EBONYI STATE UNIVERSITY GMT EMEZUE ONTARIO STATE COLLEGE

Irene MARQUES

The journals of African Literature [JAL} and New Poetry [NP] and Critical Studies [CS] are the projects of the International Research Council on African Literature and Culture [IRCALC] comprising works of contributing scholars from universities around the world and providing a web based platform for distribution of criticisms, reviews, images and ideas of African art and thought. Available online, JAL, NP and CS usually come with new, insightful arguments on creative expressions from Africa and her entire Diaspora. Editors routinely welcome contributions on non African writings which combine a comparative appreciation of an African work or advance theories of literature and culture which incorporate indigenous, historical or contemporary paradigms around African texts and discourse. For years this IRCALC initiative has given impetus for the emergence of scholarly publications on Africa’s literary and cultural heritage. A collegiate project, IRCALC CS, JAL and NP are internationally and double blind reviewed with most original submissions subject to extensive assessors’ revisions. CS, JAL and NP are also indexed with the MLA International Bibliography as electronic and print journal specialties on African Literature and Culture.

Visit our website for further information: http://www.africaresearch.org Editors’ Tel: +1 416 205 0362 or +233 246 55 3194 or +234 803 669 5552

Send email subscription enquiry to orders@africaresearch.org Submissions enquiry to editors@africaresearch.org

THE INTERNATIONAL RESEARCH COUNCIL ON

AFRICAN LITERATURE AND CULTURE (IRCALC)

Progeny

230