December 17, 1998

The African Writer

Dr. Debo

Both Nadine Gordimer and Ngũgĩ wa Thiong'O have centered pieces of their literature around conflicts concerning the ownership of land. The central character of Gordimer's None to Accompany Me is a white lawyer in transitional South Africa fighting to allow Blacks to continue to live on land that by Apartheid laws is not really theirs. For Gordimer, land ownership is a fundamental step towards human equality. In Ngũgĩ's Weep Not, Child the central character is a young Kenyan who becomes entangled in the Mau Mau War to retake the nation from the English. In Ngũgĩ's work the war for independence is construed as being a combination of many personal struggles to maintain contact with particular tracks of land.

In Gordimer's novel None to Accompany Me she argues that the government needs to insure that land will be available to the Blacks. She does not make a case for an end to the White presence there. She makes this dichotomy clear with her representation of the conflict between a Boer farmer named Tertius Odendaal and the Black squatters living on his land. Odendaal's claim to the land he owns is three generations old (Gordimer 21) so it makes little sense for the transition from Apartheid to the new South Africa to take the land away from him. However, at the same time the Black community needs places to live and Odendaal's unused farmland is available. When he charges exorbitant rent the protagonist of the novel, Vera, the novel's protagonist, moves in to help the Blacks live on the Odendaal land for free.

In Vera's eyes the land is Odendaal's so long as he agrees to allow the Black community to use it as a transitional setting from which they can move into more affluent permanent housing. In a sense she believes that he has a right to keep the land in the end as long as he relinquishes all control of it for the present. This is perhaps a way of repaying the Black community for the injustices of Apartheid.

When Vera and a representative from the Black community confront Mr. Odendaal she makes it clear that she respects him as a landowner. "I can assure you that neither of us is here to deny your position" (Gordimer 24). However, the representative from the Black community also makes it clear that the Blacks are there to stay and that Odendaal will have no real control over his land. "Meneer Odendaal, don't be afraid. We won't harm you. Not you or your wife and children" (Gordimer 25). This line, heavily repeated throughout the novel, is representative of the Black's power in this situation. They are the majority and can have their way if they truly wish. When the novel ends we do not know if Odendaal managed to keep his farm or not. What we do know is that he had unsuccessfully attempted to drive the Blacks out. This is indicative of the growing power of the Black majority in South Africa and of the control over land use they will have as the ruling majority.

In Ngũgĩ's Weep Not, Child the Mau Mau War for Kenyan independence from Great Briton is seen as the combination of many personal struggles for control of land. The principle characters fighting to maintain Kenya's status as a colony are Englishman. For example, Mr. Howlands was born and raised in England but moved away because of personal troubles. He has made his Kenyan farm his permanent home and can not fathom the concept that it might not be. "His life and soul were in the shamba. Everything else with him counted only in so far as it was related to the shamba" (Ngũgĩ 29). Living next door to him, however, are Kenyans who can not comprehend why Mr. Howlands will not move back to England. "Ngotho could not quite understand Mr. Howlands' devotion to the soil" (Ngũgĩ 39). To Ngotho, the Black father figure of the novel, the land belongs to the Africans because it belonged to Africans before the arrival of the English.

When Ngotho's family becomes entangled in the Mau Mau War it is because they are inextricably tied to the piece of land owned by Mr. Howlands. Ngotho because he feels it belongs to him because it belonged to his ancestors. The war for independence therefore, is a war for control of land.

Both novels center on themes of land. In both cases the land has historically been African, but is now controlled by Whites who have settled in Africa permanently. While Ngũgĩ's novel ends with the death of the White presence, Gordimer leaves the reader in doubt. The Mau Mau War of Ngũgĩ's novel is over. The transition Gordimer writes about is still in progress.

Although the majority of the texts that were assigned for this course were written by and about women, I found that Mariama Bâ's So Long a Letter, and Nawal El Saadawi's Woman at Point Zero contained some of the strongest protests against the contemporary role of African women. In both novels women are suppressed and taken advantage of by men. In both cases they search for freedom but find it in different ways.

In So Long a Letter by Mariama Bâ, the protagonist, Ramatoulaye, is a Senegalese woman whose husband has just died. Although she loved her husband her entire life, he chose to take a second wife part way through their marriage and move in with her, divorcing Ramatoulaye in every way but legally. In most cases such as this the first wife will divorce her husband and try to remarry which is what Ramatoulaye's friend did. However, in this case Ramatoulaye chose not to divorce her husband as a declaration of her continuing love for him even though he chose to marry and live with another woman.

After the death of her husband Ramatoulaye is approached by a line of gentlemen, each proposing to marry her. She is in fact a prize, having a large home and a fair amount of money. Forty days after the death of her husband her brother-in-law informs her that he is planning a wedding for them at the end of the appointed mourning time. "I shall marry you. You suit me as a wife" (Bâ 57). However, Ramatoulaye asserts herself and declares her freedom from the control of men by rejecting him. "I concluded, more violent than ever: 'Tamsir, purge yourself of your dreams of conquest. They have lasted forty days. I shall never be your wife'" (Bâ 58). By rejecting the powerful advances of her ex-husband's siblings and friends she gains her freedom. She gives up love for her freedom from the power of men.

In Nawal El Saadawi's Woman at Point Zero the protagonist, Firdaus, is an Egyptian woman who was born into the lower class and is taken advantage of by each man she trusts. Through time she moves into the city and up in the social order. However, each step out of her lower class status is accompanied with another step into deeper prostitution. Her climb out of poverty is assisted by men who use her. Her economic freedom is accompanied by sexual enslavement.

Firdaus finds her freedom from the control of men in death. In the climax of the novel and the final few pages she reveals her escape. In a fit of rage she murders her pimp and as she does sees fear in his eyes. At that moment she realizes that fear is the tool that men use to enslave women. She knows mankind's secret. Because she murdered a man the Egyptian government can imprison her. However, her imprisonment is only a final step towards her death and freedom. In her words, "to have arrived at the truth means that one no longer fears death. For death and truth are similar in that they both require a great courage if one wishes to face them" (El Saadawi 102). Firdaus' gives up life for her freedom from men.

Both novels are about African women who once lived under the control of men. The climax of both is their escape from this control. Both novels accuse men of being chauvinistic, lustful, deceitful, and devoid of the respect and love. These are the similarities between the two novels, but there are also important differences. While Bâ's protagonist only has to give up love for her freedom, El Saadawi's Firdaus has to give up her life. Bâ's novel argues that women do have a place in Senagalese society. They should be cared for and loved. They should be allowed to have an equal place as men. Ramatoulaye's daughter and her future son-in-law exemplify this argument at the close of the novel. Bâ definitely rejects polygamy as an acceptable social custom. El Saadawi argues that women have no real place in Egyptian society. Unlike Bâ, she offers no solutions to the social ills she sees. She sees the position of prostitute as a more respectable than that of the wife. Her novel is biting and critical and ends without a view of a potentially better future. Bâ's novel closes with hope for possible change, represented by a future generation striving to make its own way through Senegalese society.

Because polygamy is an African cultural tradition that contradicts western morality, it has become an important theme in contemporary African literature. Chinua Achebe, one of Africa's most famous writers, included the theme of polygamy in his great novel Things Fall Apart. Likewise, the renowned Senegalese filmmaker Ousmane Sembene predominantly figured polygamy in his film Xala. Unlike most of the work done by women writers we read for our course, these two men did not incorporate polygamy into their works for the purpose of social criticism. In their works polygamy serves other important purposes.

Chinua Achebe's Things Fall Apart is the story of a West African man whose world collapses as it is invaded by Europeans. Achebe wrote Things Fall Apart in order to inform western readers about the African perspective of the continent's colonization. The novel was written specifically contradict the negative misconceptions which works like Joseph Conrad's Heart of Darkness created. In order to do this, Achebe needed to present the reader with a very positive, but traditional African setting. He chose to use polygamy, principally because it was an African institution that had been targeted by European missionaries, as one of the vehicles by which to create this image.

The protagonist of Achebe's novel has three wives and a variety of children. They all live in a single compound, with a hut for each wife and their respective children, and a main hut in the center for the hero. The three wives always work together. There is no fighting between them or their children. The second two wives respect the authority of the first wife. In all, they live an Edenistic appearance. As the village is infiltrated Europeans tear down the ideal social situation of a dominant man and many wives and the once happy family is destroyed. With the end of the African custom of polygamy (among other customs) comes the end of happiness in the novel until at the end the powerful African hero is driven to suicide.

While Achebe does not include any criticism of polygamy whatsoever in his novel, Ousmane Sembene did in his film Xala. However, he still uses polygamy primarily for another purpose. Xala is a film that generally concerns itself only with two themes: traditional African verses Western customs and neocolonialism. But, as is the case with most forms of entertainment, especially film, Sembene needed something to keep his audience from getting too bogged down in the seriousness of his social criticism. This is the reason polygamy is figured in Sembene's work.

In Xala the protagonist is a Senegalese man who is among the first leaders after independence. He is corrupt and steals from the government in order to afford a third wife. His first wife is a very traditional African woman with grown children. His second wife is a younger, more modern woman, also with grown children. The third wife-to-be is very young.

During the course of the film the first two wives find themselves alone together on a variety of occations. The resulting exchanges are comic relief for the moviegoer. They discuss the third wife, the reasons the first has always opposed polygamy and why the second now does, and the husband they both love to hate. The first two wives are a great screen duo because of their exaggerated characteristics. One is excessively traditional while the second is excessively 1970's. While the conversations and the conflict of the film make it clear that Sembene is opposed to polygamy, it is not a central theme. Polygamy is only one of many social ills that lead to the protagonist's eventual downfall. At the close of the film he loses his position in the government, his wives leave him, and he finally has to face his corrupt past. Polygamy's place in the movie is satirical more than critical.

While polygamy has been thoroughly criticized in African literature, especially by women writers, it has been used for other purposes as well. Chinua Achebe skillfully used it to help create an African Eden that could then be destroyed by encroaching Europeans. Ousmane Sembene, while criticizing instead of romanticizing polygamy like Achebe, still used it in his work without making it a central theme.

The theme of modernization or westernization versus traditional Africa figures predominantly throughout most of the literature we read for this course. This theme manifests itself clearly in Wole Soyinka's play The Lion and the Jewel and also in Ama Ata Aidoo's Our Sister Killjoy, but in different forms. This particular theme is so complex and changes forms so completely as it moves around the continent that it is difficult to explain exactly how it is used in African literature. So instead of trying, I have chosen to explain the two different ways it has been presented by two geographically related authors.

The central theme of Wole Soyinka's The Lion and the Jewel is the power struggle between African culture and western culture. This struggle is symbolized by two men's quest to woo the young African beauty of the village. On the side of traditional Africa is the old and revered traditional leader of the village who already has a multiple wives. On the side of western culture is a young African man with a few years of pseudo-western schooling who has returned to his hometown with the intent to pass along his priceless new knowledge.

The race to win the young girl's affection is spurned on by photos of her published in a magazine from the city. An urban photographer safaries out into the bush in search of fresh images for his magazine and is fully accepted into the village. His automobile, mirrors, and camera make a stir but cause no controversy in the town. In this way the villagers show no opposition to being modernized.

They, symbolized by the young beauty, do show an opposition to being westernized however. Whey it finally comes time for her to make a decision she opts for the older, traditional man. In her view the young teacher of western knowledge is weak compared to his traditional opposite. The elder man is wise in the ways of the village and knows and respects the traditional customs the girl has grown up to expect from a potential suitor.

Soyinka uses the play to explain why modernization is acceptable in Africa but westernization is not. While modern conveniences may be incorporated into Africa without harm, Soyinka argues that Africa has its own particular identity, which can not be westernized.

Ama Ata Aidoo presents an entirely different view of westernization and modernization from that of Soyinka. Hers is a view from Europe itself as presented by Sissie, the protagonist of Aidoo's novel Our Sister Killjoy. Sissie travels to Germany and England on a sort of diplomatic goodwill mission for, Ghana, her nation.

Westernization is only lightly touched on in an African context at the farewell party at the beginning of the novel. Instead Aidoo expresses her views towards westernization during Sissie's stay in Europe. While there she concludes that Europe is a continent of cold and lonely people who colonized the world because of their intense desire to find real human contact. In Aidoo's view the West is a cultural mindset that creates sadness. She views Africans in England who have accepted this mindset as "so wretched, she wondered why they stayed" (Aidoo 85).

Aidoo's only criticizes modernization in passing because most of her novel is focused on the cultural ills of the West. Aidoo clearly fears that the western cultural view of the world as conquerable will enter Africa and infect the people there. She is also adamant about condemning Africans who move to Europe and accept western culture while living abroad. This is contradictory to Soyinka's analysis of westernization, which he argues can not occur to true Africans because their cultural identity is too strong. Weak Africans like the young teacher are unimportant to Soyinka.

Aidoo, Ama Ata. Our Sister Killjoy. White Plains: Longman, 1977.

Gordimer, Nadine. None to Accompany Me. New York: Penguin, 1994.

Bâ, Mariama. So Long a Letter. Oxford: Heinemann, 1989.

Ngũgĩ wa Thiong'o. Weep Not, Child. Oxford: Heinemann, 1987.

El Saadawi, Nawal. Woman at Point Zero. London: Zed Books, 1983.

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