Cultural identity in the East African novel

Magisterarbeit von Regina Hartmann

Introduction:

‘As the Black African writers have taught us, we must dance our word, for in human speech as in dance, lies an offering; to speak and to write is also to offer oneself to the other; it is to be reborn together’.

This quotation by M. Rombaut locates African literature close to the performing arts. According to his statement African literature seems to transcend the conventional European conception of writing, which is conceiving literature as something planned and permanent. The idea of a literary performance in African writing places the author much closer to the story-teller, who is dependent on his audience and trying to keep in touch with them. By processing their feelings in his performance he gives expression to a common consciousness. In contrast to the Western author who often wants to stand apart from his society, African authors tend to aim their participation in the formation of a shared identity.

This paper tries to find out how authors from the framework of East Africa conceive of cultural identity. Basically, I will proceed in two steps: part A is dedicated to the development of a pattern within which the complex issue of identity can be adequately discussed in an East African context. In Part B I will then apply this discussion scheme to three novels which as I will explain are representative for East African writing, in far as this term is justified.

Part A starts off from some basic observations about identity, on the foundation of which I want to deduce the structure of my analysis. I will argue that identity is based on ones observation of the environment and on the influence of outsiders. All this is to some extent true for two concepts: individual and cultural identity. The latter develops when a group of individuals feels or is ascribed a common bond apt to correspond to several individual self-concepts. These individuals may then share a feeling of home, which can act as a physical but also mental commitment.

Departing form these ideas I will show that four issues might be interesting in dealing with cultural identity, which can be expressed by some central questions:

1.Identity imposed and adopted: In how far can others influence our identity?

2.Identity rediscovered and reinvented:To what extent does our history work on identity?

3.Identity displaced: How does our feeling of physical or mental bond to a physical or mental space I will call home work on identity?

4.Identity integrated: How does a society of several individuals develop an identity?

But why should these issues be relevant for the quest for cultural identity in novels from the context of East Africa? I will confirm the adequacy of the above topics by means of a short survey over the development of the literary tradition in Africa in general and in the course of this show that the development of African literature can be interpreted as a quest for cultural identity which has been marked exactly by the four issues I have chosen.

In the course of colonialism Western patterns of identity have been imposed on the African people and to some extent have been overtaken. After independence the desire to reconstruct and reinvent the African past marked literature and heigthened in the demands of a new nationalism. This soon began to counteract the demands of Négritude, a global black diasporic movement, which asserted the impact of displaced identities on African literature. This demand for the acceptance of diverse identities at present rises the literary and political discussion how these could interact within a common cultural framework.

Although the four issues I want to discuss appear relevant for the development of African literature, when narrowing down my topic in chapter A.3 I have to deal with several restrictions. It is by no means sure that singular texts will focus on the categories I have worked out or even discuss the topic of cultural identity. I will argue that the concentration on novels from an East African context heigthens the probability that the quest for identity is a central theme.

But in selecting this particular area of reserach new difficulties arise. What does the term East Africa mean? I will sidestep this question by limiting my analysis to three texts that can certainly be called East African as first their authors feel a bond to the area and second the texts are set there. These texts are: A Grain of Wheat by Ngugi wa Thiong’o, The Book of Secrets by M.G. Vassanji and Paradise by Abdulrazak Gurnah. These novels are moreover justified by the wide span of their publication dates (between 1967 and 1994), which might allow me to make out changes in the attitude of authors towards identity from the early years of independence to the present.

In the course of my discussion of the texts, I will show that in Ngugi’s novel identity still appears widely defined from the outside and is strongly rooted in the community. Colonialism has had a strong impact on black identity by both the imposition of Western values and the instigation of an oppositional movement which goes in quest of post-colonial values. This quest has to be determined by an active remembrance and confession of the past as a central determinant of identity. The rootedness of identity in a widely objectively reconstructible history implies that our identity is rather marked by our social environment than self-defined. The firm connection of identity to history and environment again implies its allegiance to a particular home and its destruction in alienation from this space. Cultural identities in Ngugi’s novel remain closed homogenous entities which in the novel can’t be mixed or intertwined.

The later novels deviate from this conservative scheme. Vassanji to some extent accepts the once imposed Western values as cross-cultural influence. He can be optimistic as he trusts in the possibility to actively reinvent and self-define history. Everyone can participate in the renarration and thus co-determine the identity of everyone concerned by this history. Arguing like this the text emphasizes our responsibility in re-narrating history and the necessity to do so. The resulting mulitple representation endows every individual with an intercultural identity: As exiled figures Vassanji’s characters have to actively define themselves in between the cultures to find out about their individual and cultural self-concepts. This in-between-ness allows for an intercultural symbiosis and the formation of a multicultural society of exiled figures who by respecting their difference find some common bond.

Gurnah’s novel is more pessimistic as to the integration of diverse cultural identities. The text marginalizes and demystifies the European colonizers in the attempt to reinvent history from a local perspective and self-define identity. Deprived of a fixed historical bond the central character, Yusuf, can only find out about his identity as a migrant. Though a home doesn’t exist for him he feels the desire for an emotional commitment but has to deny it for the sake of going in quest of himself. The inborn migrancy in which Gurnah places Yusuf has to entail intercultural contact. The novel, on the one hand, denies the possiblity of withdrawing into a fantasy world but on the other hand acknowledges the impossibility of a peaceful interaction between several cultures. Tolerance appears to be the only chance for several cultural identities to coexist.

All in all, from the texts we can make out decisive developments in the notion about cultural identity. While Ngugi in 1967 saw cultural identity as homogenous and rooted in a particular bond to an objective history and society the more recent novels increasingly understand it as a vagrant, heterogenous and self-defined concept as they recognize the subjectivity of history and the fragmentation of social affiliations.

Table of Contents:

O.	Introduction to the topic	6
0.1	An initial approximation	6
0.2	The line of argument	6
A)	The quest for identity and its meaning for African writing	10
1.	Some initial considerations about identity	10
1.1	Some fundamental observations about identity	11
1.2	Deduction of the structure of my thesis	13
2.	The development of African writing as a quest for cultural identity	15
2.1	Identity imposed and adopted - Europe's claim on black identity	16
2.2	Identity rediscovered and reinvented	19
2.3	Identity displaced	20
2.4	Identity integrated?	22
3.	The demarcation of an area of analysis within African literature	20
3.1	The novel as a genre of identity representation	26
3.2	The East African novel as an ideal field of research	26
3.3	The fragility of geographical concepts of identity	28
3.4	The choice of the authors and their novels	29
B)	The East African novel - Cultural identity observed	32
1.	Identity imposed and adopted - The formation of identity by the colonial encounter	32
1.1	The imposition of a Western identity in colonialism in A Grain of Wheat	32
1.1.1	Colonialism superseding traditonal humanity by materialistic values	32
1.1.2	The creation of a new cultural identity out of an ideology of resistance	36
1.2	Colonialization as intercultural affair in The Book of Secrets	34
1.2.1	The war as focal point of colonial suppression	40
1.2.2	Colonialism as a meeting place for two cultural identities	41
1.2.3	The Western influence on East African culture	44
1.3	The demystification of the colonizer in Gurnah's novel	46
1.3.1	The European as essential bit-player	47
1.3.2	The reinvention of Western narrative patterns	50
1.4	The novels' attitudes on colonial influence compared	52
2.	Identity remembered and reinvented - the readiness to confront history as an influence on identity	53
2.1	Remembrance as a path to identity in A Grain of Wheat	53
2.1.1	The demand for accounting for history as a fact	54
2.1.2	The reinterpretation of the past in Ngugi's novel	59
2.2	The tale as a re-explanation of the past in Paradise	60
2.3	The reinvention of history in Vassanji's novel	63
2.3.1	The continuity of history	64
2.3.2	Perspectivity of History in Vassanji's novel	65
2.3.3	Forgetting as an escape from history?	69
2.3.4	On the authority to retell history	70
2.4	The novels' discussion of the impact of history on identity compared	71
3.	Identity displaced - the change of identity by exile and migrancy	73
3.1	The destruction of identity in exile in A Grain of Wheat	74
3.1.1	Displacement as a punishment	74
3.1.2	Detention as mental exile and stagnation of identity development	75
3.2	Migrancy as the way to identity in Paradise	77
3.2.1	Home as a place of mental exile and disorientation	78
3.2.2	Displacement as Yusuf''s chance to find his identity	79
3.2.3	The failure to combine migrancy with emotion	81
3.3	Exile as a way to find a cosmopolitan identity in The Book of Secrets	84
3.3.1	Cultural mimicry as a betrayal of individual identity	85
3.3.2	Cultural in-betweeness as a way to an individual identity	88
3.4	The novels' statements on the influence of exilism on cultural identity compared	93
4.	Identity integrated? - the conflictual coexistence of cultural identities	94
4.1	Cultural identity as homogenous affair in A Grain of Wheat	94
4.1.1	The manifestation of a Black-White opposition	95
4.1.2	The rejection of intercultural merger	97
4.2	Exiled identity and multicultural symbiosis in The Book of Secrets	98
4.2.1	The Book of Secrets as a mulitcultural text on exiled identities	98
4.2.2	The exiled community as protoype of intercultural symbiosis	100
4.3	Tension and tolerance between a plurality of identities in Paradise	105
4.3.1	Impediments to a mulitcultural society	106
4.3.2	An idiosyncratic paradise as fake solution to the identity conflict	110
4.3.3	Chances for peaceful coexistence of diverse cultures	113
4.4	Identity integrated? - the main ideas of the texts juxtaposed	114
5.	Bridging the gaps	116
5.1	A synopsis of the novels' statements on identity	116
5.1.1	A Grain of Wheat	117
5.1.2	The symbiosis of exiled identities in The Book of Secrets	118
5.1.3	Paradise and the deconstruction of conventional identity concepts	120
5.2	The development of ideas about cultural identity	121
5.2.1	Identity imposed and adopted	121
5.2.2	Identity remembered and reinvented	122
5.2.3	Identity displaced	122
5.2.4	Identity integrated?	123
6.	Outlook	124
	Table of illustrations:
	Picture 1: Basic ideas about identity	12
	Picture 2: The development of African literature as a quest for identity	24
	Bibliography	127

Text Sample:

Chapter 3.2.3, The failure to combine migrancy with emotion:

While the other men in the novel remain caught in materialism, Yusuf appears able to live out female, poetic emotions. Yusuf for his emotional, poetic vein becomes the centre of attraction for the female characters of the novel. They all share two central experiences of his: Like Yusuf the women have a share in the world of emotion which is behind the male materialistic strife. As this female quality is not understandable to most of the male characters, the women, like Yusuf, have to live in a form of mental exile in a male world.

But Yusuf’s bond with women can’t be complete: dedicating to a woman would demand of him to overcome exile and settle down in an emotional home. His quest for identity falters from the contradiction which is inherent in Yusuf himself. On the one hand his identity is marked by emotions, on the other it is defined by his exile experience. As Yusuf would deny this latter part of his self by settling down he negates his sentiment, the other half of himself, for the sake of exile. His desire for living a vagrant life denies him the final commitment to love. All his relations to women have to end in his lonely escape.

Yusuf’s first contact with women is Ma Ajuza’s strange desire for him, which is probably motivated out of her feeling that Yusuf is the only male capable of sharing her emotional capacity.

When Yusuf had not seen her, she stalked after him until she was near enough to squeeze him into her arms. Then, while he struggled and kicked she ululated with triumph and joy. On occasions when she could not sneak up on him, she approached with exstatic cries, calling him my husband, my master.

At that stage Yusuf can’t explain for or cope with her behaviour. He only wishes to escape and can’t fulfill Ma Ajuza’s need for emotions.

Similarly, during his stay with Hamid Yusuf immediately recognizes the lack of a garden, a place for emotions, there. His story of Aziz’s garden awakens Maimuna’s emotional desire, which is expressed by her wish for a similar paradise. On this level Yusuf establishes a special bond to Maimuna which of course can’t be understood by the materialist Hamid, who calls his wife a poet, like all her female relatives. Hamid fails to create the graden as he caught in material strife can neither give the garden the necessary care nor Maimuna the desired emotion. Maimuna has to discourage Yusuf’s desire for a garden and simultaneously his desire for affection: ”You will have to get used to the bushes and snakes, and just keep dreaming about your garden of paradise, until your uncle comes back for you.”She sends him back into an exiled existence.

Like Maimuna, also Aziz’s wife has to live in the exile of a male world where she can’t live out her sentiments. Her physical exile – she has been dislocated form her place of birth by Aziz – illustrates and aggravates this mental exile experience. In a male world, of course, her desire for sentiment is not understood. Khalil declares her crazy and fears her for her otherness; equally her husband keeps her in physical as well as emotional isolation. Symbolically, her sufferance from this mental exile shows in a wound. ‘To begin with it was only a mark, but as time passed it bit deeper and deeper until it reached her heart.” Perhaps because of this shared exile experience and their joint emotional desire, Yusuf feels increasingly attracted by the Mistress in the course of his stay in the house. Equally the mistress feels their affiliation and hopes to be cured by Yusuf touching or kissing her wound. In this symbolic demand she again expresses her affliction from a lack of sentiment. Yusuf, though warned by Khalil and Amina, admits clandestine encounters with the mistress perhaps because he feels they might discover the emotional element in their identities together. In one of these meetings it comes to a similar scene as Yusuf experienced with Ma Ajuza.

Yusuf could not be sure what she wanted him to do, but he could not mistake the look of passion and longing on her face. She pressed the palms of her hand on her bosom and then rose to her feet. Whe she put her hand on his shoulder he shivered. He began to retreat from behind and she followed. He turned to flee, but she clutched his shirt from behind and he felt it tear in her hands.

But Yusuf doesn’t manage to fulfill her emotional demand as it is coppled to her quest for affection and home. He escapes her grip and breakes away from her as he can’t bear to abandon his exile, which makes out the other half of his identity.

Also with Amina Yusuf can’t live out his emotions. She, like the mistress, has been physically displaced from her home, to be Aziz’s second mistress.In Aziz’s house her emotional desires are neglected. She and Yusuf, perhaps sharing the experience of physical and mental exile and emotional desire, fall in love. As Yusuf’s desire for a life in exile stops him from creating a home with her, he intends to encourage her to escape with him and share his exile:

If this is Hell, then leave. And let me come with you. They’ve raised us to be timid and obedient, to honour them even as they misuse us. Leave and let me come with you. Were both in the middle of nowhere. Where else can be worse?

But Yusuf never arrives at pronouncing these sentiments and rather gives way to his desire for a lonely escape. Their love-affair is broken off when Yusuf runs after the soldiers into certain exile in the end.

Gurnah here stereotypically repeats the same pattern four times: Each time Yusuf is attracted by a woman living in mental exile in an un-emotional, materialist, male world. In spite of a communality of sentiments and a joint exile experience Yusuf doesn’t dare to dedicate to female desire as this would be coupled to the confinement of his identity to an emotional home. This notion contadicts the other vagrant part of Yusuf’s identity which feels committedto exile.

This argument declares Yusuf alone responsible for his mirgancy and lack of emotional fullfillment. Some parts of the text nevertheless make us doubt whether society would have allowed for the fullfillment of Yusuf’s emotions even if he had agreed to settling in a home. If he had given in to Ma Ajuza he would have become the laughing stock of the village, if he had built Maimuna’s garden he would have incured Hamid’s jealousy, giving in to the Mistress he could have been assured of Aziz’s hatred. His final negation of Amina’s emotion can be justified by his vocation to save his people from colonial violence. To some extent it appears to be not only Yusuf’s personal decision but social pressure which forces him to continue to live in exile.

All in all, Yusuf is born an exiled figure, who can only find access to his identity in displacement as not even his birthplace can mean home to him. In exile he finds out about his emotional inclinations and learns to cope with material life. Nevertheless, Yusuf’s identity remains contradictory: on the one hand, he can only exist as a vagrant character, on the other hand he has a strong desire for emotional bond. As the first quality seems to dominate his identity in the end, he can never live up to the female demand for affection and leaves the women in emotional exile in a male world. Yusuf himself remains an exiled figure who can never live up to the emotional part of his identity. This failure is increased by the demands of society which appears to force him into exile.

Gurnah thus acknowledges that exile may be the only way to find out one’s identity. He nevertheless seems to argue that migrancy can’t be the final goal if we want to live out our emotions. Their fullfillment depends on the bond to a mental or physical home. Without the readiness to end migrancy by reaching a certain place of belonging we are bound to miss the emotional part of our character. To some extent Gurnah appears to make social pressure, not only the individual decision responsible for the failure to seek emotional bond and the escape into exiled loneliness.