by Jonathan Loomis

The African Writer

Dr. Debo

October 12, 1998

The colonization of Africa by the European powers has been credited to a tremendous variety of causes, foremost among them being economical reasons. The Portuguese and Spanish were interested in the coastal regions because of the potential wealth in slaves, the English and French in the interior because of the tremendous natural recourses the continent provided. However, Ghanaian writer Ama Ata Aidoo presents an entirely different view on the motivations of colonization. The essential message Aidoo expressed through her novel Our Sister Killjoy was that the colonization of the world by Europeans was a result of a deep, inner loneliness that manifested itself as a tragic imperfection in the European psyche. Aidoo portrays this through three motifs. The first is the weather and landscape of Europe, the second her treatment of Bavarian food, and the last Sissie's almost lesbian relationship with Marija and its allusions to nazi racism.

Aidoo expresses the loneliness of the Europeans through their land and weather even before she makes it truly clear what their tragic flaw is. Before the reader is allowed to traverse more than a dozen pages of the novel he or she receives a first glimpse of Europe. "The Alps at six o'clock in the morning. Grey rocks, more grey rocks. One huge grey rock" (p. 11). Gray is a descriptive term that reoccurs throughout the novel in Aidoo's portrayal of Europe. "A cool breeze was blowing. The river was a dark grey in the somewhat twilight and lapping quietly against the stone and concrete embankment" (p. 46). The darkness of Europe's landscape is a hypocritical reflection of Europe's racism. Aidoo's portrayal of Europe as a place of darkness draws a correlation with such Eurocentric terms as "The Dark Continent," and Joseph Conrad's famous novel "Heart of Darkness." Under the bright modern comfort that is Europe's image of itself, there is a darker side that flows deep within the European psyche and is as irremovable as the river in the above-mentioned passage. Aidoo touches on European racism at many points throughout the novel, but shows it most clearly with her treatment of religion. "Since, dear Lord, Your / Angels, like Your, are / Western / White / English, to be precise. / Oh dear visionary Caesar! / There are no other kinds of / Angels, but / Lucifer, poor Black Devil" (p. 27). By painting Europe as dark and gray, Aidoo points out the contradiction that while the Europeans' view black, gray, and darkness as symbols of fault and evil, they posses the same deep faults themselves. Aidoo is saying that part of the Europeans' tragic flaw is their desire to associate with other people like themselves while at the same time rejecting the very characteristics that make them similar to their African counterparts.

Aidoo's second major theme used to show the reader Europe's tragic loneliness is its food. By using food as a metaphor for colonization she demonstrates how Europe gorged itself on Africa looking for happiness and comfort without finding either and without ever becoming full.

Then later in the novel, after noting that Europeans have no end to their appetite, Aidoo points out the connection between food and evil. "Who does not know that / Plumpness and / Ugliness are the / Same, an / Invitation for / Coronary something or other? / That / Carbohydrates are debilitating / Anyhow" (p. 46-47)? No matter how much of Africa Europeans were able to colonize or control there was no end to their want of companionship. Like the food the campers ate, Africa was rich, the food in butter and carbohydrates, and the land in minerals and natural resources. However, like the campers who could consume enormous quantities of food and still have room for more, the colonizers could settle vast expanses of territory without finding an end to their loneliness. The racism of the Europeans prevented them from capitalizing on the real value of Africa: its people.

While I have not made a clear correlation between the symbolism of the food and the loneliness of Europe with the above-mentioned passages, I believe Aidoo makes this connection clear with her treatment of fruit, and in particular, plums. The plums that Marija grows in her garden are succulent, dark, and sweet. They are nothing like the canned fruit Sissie has seen in Africa. They are the products of the rich soil of Europe, which Aidoo explains is black. Black with nutrients that come from decaying plants and animals, which leads one to believe that the succulent plums of Marija's garden grew from Germany's dark past, a past that filled the earth with Jews and the deflowered maids and serfs of the castle-hostel. The people that gave the soil and the plums their richness possessed the richness of character that Europe lacked. "…those Bavarian plums owed their glory in her eyes and on her tongue not only to that beautiful and black Bavarian soil, but also to the other qualities that she herself possessed at that material time: / Youthfulness / Peace of mind / Feeling free: / Knowing you are a rare article, / Being / Loved" (p. 40). Europeans in Aidoo's novel gorge themselves on the fruits of a soil made rich by the people they so want to be like. Like gorging themselves on Africa, the answer to the European loneliness is not in the act of eating itself, but rather in the knowing that which is being eaten.

The third key motif that Aidoo uses to express her thesis is the almost-lesbian relationship between the main character Sissie, and her German friend Marija. Along side this relationship Aidoo placed a series of racist, nazi allusions which bring out the irony that is the real foundation of the relationship's metaphorical role in illustrating European loneliness. There is relatively little the reader is allowed to know about Marija, other than that she is a young mother married to a man named Adolph who is never around. Adolph, logically because of his name, is a symbol for European racism towards Jews, Gypsies, and especially in this case, Blacks. The fact that Marija is married to him is important, as the characters here all carry symbolism. Marija represents a lonely Europe, Sissie the human aspect of Africa that could alleviate this loneliness, and Adolph European racism. Marija, or Europe, is married to Adolph, or racism, but just as he is never around, racism is only an idea. I believe that Marija really does fall passionately in love with Sissie, but can not find a socially acceptable way to express her love. Like in a marriage, Europe is bound to its racist beliefs by social constraints. Aidoo takes care to highlight these constraints by showing how they bind Marija's love for Sissie. Their tragic relationship is a mirror image of the racist beliefs that prevented Europeans from connecting with the Africans they colonized. As their friendship grows, the voices of Marija's neighbors are heard. "She must not take her to her house every day! / She must be getting neurotic! / It is perverse. / SOMEONE MUST TELL HER HUSBAND!" (p. 44)! The neighbors feel a desperate urge to tell her husband, which in essence, is an urge to bring Marija back to a racist way of thinking that would stop the affair. However, at the same time, the neighbors feel the same draw towards Sissie as does Marija. "And Marija's neighbours suddenly became important. For was it not they who were near the drama? And for once in their lives their afternoons were filled with meaning, as they sat and spied on the goings on between the two" (p. 44).

The final confrontation between Marija's desire and Sissie brings out a full explanation of Aidoo's thesis. As Sissie reflects back upon they reasons Marija might have had for fondling and kissing her, she settles on the following conclusion.

Aidoo points out, by use of the poetic style of writing her in this passage, the importance of the word loneliness. Followed by a string of examples of the European colonial experience in Africa, this word defines Aidoo's reason for European colonization. Europe sought something that it lacked. There was some human touch lacking in the European psyche. However, Aidoo's climax of this passage, the last unbroken line, expresses the racist views of Europe that prevented the colonizers from ever finding the human cure to their flaw.

Through the brilliant use of symbolism, Ama Ata Aidoo's novel Our Sister Killjoy makes the claim that the colonization of Africa and other parts of the world by Europeans were as a result of the tragic flaw of loneliness in the European psyche. This flaw, which, when combined with Eurocentric racism, caused the desecration of so much of the world without ever alleviating itself. As perhaps a final note, Aidoo gives us a glimpse of what she sees in Europe's future. Sissie is visiting Germany, a nation which has struggled to separate itself from its nazi past since the passing of the Second World War. In spite of this fact, Marija's son is named Adolph, Aidoo's prediction that Europe will grow up with the same tragic flaw it has always had, and will continue to search frivolously for some fulfillment.

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