Sign Up Now
Get instant access to over 1 million+ study documents
OR
Already registered? click here to login
By creating your account, you agree to our terms of service, privacy policy and student honor code.
¶ … Letter," by Mariama Ba, "Devil on the Cross," by Ngug" wa Thiongo, and "July's People," by Nadine Gordimer. Specifically, it will discuss and explain gender and family in "So Long a Letter," the aspects of Colonialism and Imperialism in "Devil on the Cross," and cultural freedom and integrity in "July's People."
THREE AFRICAN NOVELS
In "So Long a Letter," Mariama Ba writes of Ramatoulaye, a Senegalese schoolteacher in her 50s, whose husband decides to take a second wife without Ramatoulaye's knowledge. Of course, the new wife is younger and prettier than Ramatoulaye, and her husband's selfish move devastates her. The book is written in the form of a touching and emotional letter to her best friend from childhood, someone she feels she can trust. "We walked the same paths from adolescence to maturity, where the past begets the present" (Ba 1).
Family and gender are two of the most important issues in "So Long a Letter." Ramatoulaye married her husband for love, and they had a happy marriage, eventually having twelve children. She thought her position was secure, and did not even know her husband had taken another wife until a group of friends told her. She recognizes her family is never going to be the same, but she chooses to remain in the marriage to keep the family together as much as possible.
She chooses to stay married to her husband, but she is bitter and hurt. "In loving someone else, he burned his past, both morally and materially. He dared to commit such an act of disavowal" (Ba 12). Her family has been irrevocably broken, along with her heart, and she writes out her pain and...
In Africa, it is acceptable for the man to take another wife, but not for the woman. Here is the clear issue of gender out in the open, for the men have more freedom than the women, and the women have little power to stop it. Ba shows the unfairness of the situation, and hopes her writing can help change it.
Devil on the Cross" author Thiongo attacks the problems of Colonialism and Imperialism in Kenya head on.
We all come from the same womb, the common womb of Kenya. The blood shed for our freedom has washed away the differences between that clan and this one. Today there is no Luo, Gikuyu, Kamba, Giriama, Luhya, Maasai, Meru, Kalenjin or Turkana. We are all children of one mother. Our mother is Kenya, the mother of all Kenyan people (Thiongo 234-235).
Thiongo portrays Kenya as in the clutches of "Euro-American conglomerates behind the scenes determining the politico economic destiny of Kenya as a nation" (Mazrui 223). Ever since the country was colonized by Europeans in the 1800s, they have been under white mans rule, and the people are fighting for their freedom, and for their independence from this colonial rule.
This book follows Kenya's struggle to emerge from Colonialism, and follows the protagonist, Jacinta Wariinga, through her trials in postcolonial Nairobi. The white culture is still so indoctrinated she cannot see her own beauty, and tries to make herself look more white, to look more attractive. "Whenever she looked at herself in the mirror she thought herself very ugly" (Thiongo 11). Even though Kenya has gained her freedom, her troubles are not over, for…
Mariama Ba's So Long A Letter. It discusses how the style used by the author hinders her presentation of the whole question of male/female relationships within the entire family structure, not just the nuclear family. It also discusses how the reader only has the main character's opinion and not those of the characters around her. Two sources used. APA. So Long A Letter Mariama Ba in her novel, "So Long A
DEATH AND THE KING'S HORSEMEN The purpose of this paper is to compare and discuss the play, "Death and the King's Horseman," by Wole Soyinka. Specifically, it will discuss the style and language used by the Praise Singer throughout the play, and show how the Praise Singer fits the understanding of oral literature and storytelling. It will also look at the part ritual suicide plays in the story. DEATH AND THE KING'S
authors employ oral styles to convey the voices of individual characters and their unique jargon. Vocal inflections can be heard in print, imagined in the head as the reader loses him or herself in the novel. Kenyan author Ng-g? wa Thiong'o in his novel Devil on the Cross uses at least five different oral styles that contribute volumes to the complexity of his seminal work. The narrator begins and
Social dissent and unrest should not be the result of multiculturalism, the authors point out, but nonetheless those are the social realities, in many instances, of the new global picture. There is now, like it or not, a "blurring of cultural borderlines," the authors report; and as a result, the notion of culture within the word "multiculturalism" no longer refers to habits and customs of a people in anthropological terms.
If anything, the more languages in which a book is published the better. This way there can be as much cross fertilization of ideas and solutions to pressing needs. References Achebe, Chinua. Things Fall Apart. New York: Penguin, 2006. ____African Trilolgy. London: Picador, 2000 Ashcroft, Bill; Griffiths, Gareth and Tiffin, Helen (eds.). The Post Colonial Studies Reader, London: Routledge, (1995) Bassnett-McGuire, Susan. Translation Studies. London: Routledge, 1991. Chevrier, Jacques. "Writing African books in the French
Devil on the Cross, War? nga exhibits meekness and self-hatred. Her self-loathing prompts her to bleach her black skin and iron her hair. When she interacts with her fellow passengers in the taxi, War? nga lacks the resolve she has following her encounter with the Devil on the golf course immediately prior to the Njeruca revolt. Witnessing the circumstances and listening to the speeches at the Devil's Feast was not enough