Indeed Mr. Pembo, I did enjoy Jimenez' review of The African Child. Thank
you for sharing. It reminds me of our very own Momodou Camara somewhere in the
frozen Tundra. A veritable engineer by all accounts. At the risk of focussing
on the inutile, did you say you last read the book in 1969? Where were you
then??
May Allah bless and keep you.
Haruna.
In a message dated 8/12/2008 8:55:42 A.M. Mountain Daylight Time,
[log in to unmask] writes:
Salam Brother Haruna,
Thanks for mentioning Camara Laye(the African Child) in your reply to
Suntou,I last read that book in 1969,so mentioning it here was quite
refreshing,although I suspect the scientist in you is dying to come out in
your ongoing take on Jinns.Suntou,in my opinion is presenting and directing
others who shares his views to writings pertaining to the sunject(allbe it
an Islamic Perspective).
My aim now is to share with you and others members of the Forum who may not
have read the novel,the bundle of contradictions personify in Camara
Laye,since the book is auto-biographical.
I hope you enjoy reading this review of the book.
Best wishes,
Musa.
.
*
Camara Laye's **The Dark Child**: *
*The undecided world of a mental mulatto*
*Deicy Jiménez*
*[log in to unmask]*
*T*he Dark Child by Camara Laye shows the African struggle and search for an
identity in colonial times. Published in 1953, Laye's first novel makes part
of a movement started some years before by writers such as Léopold Sédar
Senghor and Aimé Césaire. The Negritude Movement, as it is known, sought to
explain Africa in its own terms as well as to break down the negative
representations which had led Europeans to an easy colonization. The Dark
Child proves the task to be more complex than it may seem at first sight.
This paper examines the ambivalence that characterizes the autobiographical
novel of the Guinean writer. My purpose is to prove that its
narrator-protagonist is a mental mulatto, a child that gradually moves from
its African traditions to an increasing Westernized education. The result is
an undecided subject who finds himself caught between two cultures, neither
of which he can fully understand.
In the early 30's, a group of African and West Indian students in Paris
established a newspaper called L'Etudiant Noir (The Black Student). Under
the leadership of the Senegalese poet Léopold Sédar Senghor, the groups'
principal objective was to accomplish a reversal of African values.
Traditionally stereotyped as irrational, primitive, uninventive and
oversexed (in direct opposition to European values), African should be
depicted in more positive ways. In these new terms, what could have been
seen as oversexed was instead portrayed as 'healthy sensuality'. Initially,
poetry was the means of expression of Negritude, under a great influence of
Marxism and surrealism. Further writers, like Camara Laye, would prefer
narrative.
The emergence of the movement among francophone writers responds to the
French system of colonization. While British colonizers opted for an
indirect rule in which some tribal order would be kept, French colonies
should be an extension of France and Africans were encouraged to become
black French citizens. In order to avoid complete assimilation, these
writers undertook a defence of African values. However this optimistic
purpose was not a guarantee to avoid contradictions: How representative
and/or authentic could these writers be, bearing in mind the fact that they
made part of an educated elite? This idea is key to analyze Laye's aporia
and will be developed in detail later in this paper.
Lucien Lévy-Bruhl in his book Primitive Mentality presents his theories
about natives from Australia and Africa. The central objective of the book
published in 1923 is "to show what causation means to primitives, and the
inferences derived from their idea of it" (Lévy-Bruhl 12). To achieve this
goal, Lévy-Bruhl focuses on issues such as mystic and invisible forces,
dreams, omens, ordeals and other practices traditionally related with
irrationality. The whole study is permeated by an emphasis on the gap
between the 'civilized west', of which Lévy-Bruhl makes part, and the
'irrational primitives': "An acquaintance with their mental habits, in so
far as they differ from our own […]" (12) (The emphasis is mine). One of his
conclusions is that "the primitive, whether he be an African or any other,
never troubles to inquire into casual connections which are not
self-evident, but straightway refers them to a mystic power"(Lévy-Bruhl 36).
At a time when anthropological studies came to these conclusions, Negritude
needed to be anchored in the reversal of such negative values.
The relation between the rites mentioned above and the African's
primitiveness and irrationality is relevant in the case of Camara Laye's The
Dark Child. Laye's attempt to turn this concept the other way round gives
him an important place in the Negritude Movement. In the novel, the story is
told by a grown-up narrator-protagonist who recalls his years as a young
boy. The autobiographical characteristics of the novel leads the reader to
assume that this boy is the young Camara Laye. The first sentence introduces
this idea: "I was a little boy playing around my father's hut" (Laye 17).
The relationship with his parents is the link between the six year-old boy
and his African roots. Its analysis is key to the purpose of this paper.
Laye's father is a well-recognized blacksmith in his community. The memory
that marks the beginning of the narrative is determined by the knowledge of
his father's spiritual powers. Snakes play an important role in this
respect. The second paragraph tells about the fascination of the young boy
with a snake. As he dangerously plays with it, he is strongly reprimanded
by his mother. This event is a symbolic antecedent of a more important
knowledge: his father's guiding spirit is actually a snake. When young Laye
warns his mother about the presence of a black snake approaching the
workshop, she replies: "My son, this one must not be killed, he is not like
other snakes, […]" (Laye 22).
Through the dialogue between the child and his father, the reader becomes
well acquainted with the importance of the snake in their lives. The father
fully explains this fact and concludes; "It is to this snake that I owe
everything" (Laye 25). There is a strong sense of morality behind this
belief. In the narrator's own words: "there were good spirits, and there
were evil ones" (Laye 23). What could be confined as 'primitive thinking'
allows the community to live under certain order. In this respect,
Christopher L. Miller states that "[…] in a few paragraphs, the non-Mande
reader has already been thrust into a very specific world, and allowed a
degree of understanding of a certain family structure, architecture, and
spiritual belief system" (134). I would add that this world is portrayed
in positive, and even idealistic, ways, showing Laye's need to portray
African values optimistically.
As well as the father, the mother is an outstanding character. The narrator
says, "I realize that my mother's authoritarian attitudes may appear
surprising; generally the role of the African woman is though to be a
ridiculously humble one, […]; but Africa is vast, with a diversity equal to
its vastness" (Laye 69). The highlighting of women's strength was not
common among African writers. However, there is a more relevant
characteristic of this woman, at least for the purpose of this paper. Laye's
mother has supernatural powers as well: "[…] It was due also to the strange
powers she possessed" (Laye 69). Among these powers were persuading animals
and being able to approach crocodiles without getting harmed. These powers
had been endowed to her for being the next child born after twins.
The narrator makes great emphasis on the veracity of these powers. The
narration of these events is accompanied by constant comments such as "they
seem to be unbelievable; they are unbelievable. Nevertheless I can only tell
you what I saw with my own eyes" (Laye 70). He extends this certainty to the
whole community: "No one ever doubted it" (Laye 73). The reiteration of the
testimony seems to be a response to the conclusions made by theorists like
Lévy-Bruhl. Laye is inviting the reader to go deeper into Africans' beliefs
and to avoid the simplistic and comfortable option of the West to label them
as 'primitive'.
However, the narration of these events is obscured by a certain degree of
doubt. The narrator- protagonist of The Dark Child shows confusion towards
the supernatural. When his father asks him if he can understand what the
snake means to their race the answer is yes, but says to himself that he did
not understand very well. He seems to be different. He seems to respond to a
different understanding. His dilemma is precisely related to whether he
should follow his father's steps or continue to attend school. He asks his
father the question: "What must I do if I am to do the right thing?" (Laye
28). But there is no answer. Young Laye seemed destined to be as great as
his father in his African context. But western education takes away this
possibility. His father says, "There is certain form of behaviour to
observe, and certain ways of acting in order that the guiding spirit of our
race may approach you also […] I fear, I very much fear, little one, that
you are not often enough in my company. You are all day at school […]" (Laye
27).
The strong current of doubt accompanying Laye's childhood marks the
understanding of his mother's powers as well. He is well acquainted with the
symbolic meaning of the crocodiles in her mother's life: "The totem is
identified with its possessor: this identification is absolute, and of such
a nature that its possessor has the power to take the form of the totem
itself" (Laye 75). However, he does not know his own: "yes, the world rolls
on, the world changes, it rolls on and changes, and the proof of it is that
my own totem --I too have my totem-- is still unknown to me" (Laye 75). From
my point of view, the phrase included between hyphens is key to understand
Laye's dilemma. After carefully constructing his mother's character, the
narrator needs to recognize these values in himself. When he informs the
reader that he too has a totem, he is reinforcing his difference from his
parents. At the end of chapter five, where this sentence belongs, the
narrator assumes that the reader might not expect him to have a totem. It
also seems to me that he needs to remind himself of this.
According to Miller the name of the Guinean writer also reflects certain
degree of contradiction. He states that among the Mande (Laye's ethnic
group), the family name or jamu is very important and that "Camara is one of
the Mande jamuw; Laye is an Islamic given name, a shortened name of
Abdoulaye. But outside the Mande the distinction is lost and confusion
reigns, a confusion that is symptomatic of the clash between the West and
Africa" (116). What I find relevant in this argument is the fact that Laye,
the name under he is cited, is not associated to his family. This fact
becomes a metaphor of his detachment from Africa.
In my opinion, Miller has a stronger argument when he refers to the
literature as individual production in contrast with the traditional
collective authorship of African oral literature. He reduces the distinction
to orality versus literacy. The relevant point concerning Camara Laye is the
fact that literacy represents an unauthentic means of expressing the African
realities. Miller states that "Africans who have written novels are people
who have detached themselves from traditional society or who were detached
from it, who went to French school and learned to write as individuals"
(115). I Think that this idea is closely related with the dilemma of the
narrator-protagonist analyzed above. The grown-up narrator is trying to
highlight his African roots but from a Western point of view.
In the novel, a gradual transition between Africa and Europe is taking
place. The six year-old Laye is already strongly influenced and confused by
French education as it was analyzed above. But this is just the beginning of
a process in which he gets farther and farther from his African traditions.
Education first takes him away from Kouroussa, his birth town, to Conakry,
the capital of Guinea. When this happens, the now adolescent Laye had been
already initiated in his community through circumcision. This means that he
was now considered to be a man. However, he does not stay to fulfil his new
condition, but rather leaves in search of a higher westernized education.
His mother is still very understanding of this situation, although she
thinks that her son's venture is "rather like going to live among savages"
(Laye 138). This seems to make part of the reversal of values, being that
the city is usually viewed as "civilized".
His confusion increases with this new experience. In the narrator's words:
"I was ambivalent" (Laye 148). Ambivalence is precisely the condition
pervading the mental mulatto: he is racially black but culturally undecided.
In spite of his dilemma, there seems to be no ways to go back. The reason
for this might be that Laye did not acknowledge the wisdom of his African
culture. There are certain abilities he never developed in his own land:
"But I was not old enough nor curious enough to inquire, nor did I become
so until I was no longer in Africa" (Laye 56). Moreover, even when he
already knows all his parents' secrets and supernatural powers and has
experienced some of the most important rites in his community (circumcision
and Kondén Diara), the fifiteen year-old Laye thinks he knows little. When
the praise-singers compliment him, he questions them speaking to himself:
"After all, what did I know? I was still very far from «wise»" (Laye 142).
Undoubtedly, the narrator-protagonist is thinking of wisdom in Western
terms. From this perspective his final departure to Paris was inevitable.
Métissage has been a term used to explain racial or cultural mixtures. In
this respect, Yoder argues that while "assimilation presupposes the total
destruction of African values, the Negritude writers were (at least in
theory) stressing the contributions which the black writers could make to
Western civilization (106). This assumption implies that Negritude writers
saw métissage as a better option than assimilation. I agree with this
position, but some questions come to my mind: To what extent is the exchange
or mixture based on equality?, How can the colonized subject avoid the
possible inequality when he/she is already established in the Western world?
From my point of view, The Dark Child is an example of the tension that such
situation produces. The theory of a harmonious métissage seems to be
difficult to practice.
This idea is especially true when the cultural métissage is not the product
of a racial mixture. The Negritude movement found important echoes among
many Caribbean writers. Following the same general objectives as their
African partners, some of these writers started to acknowledge their African
heritage as an important part of their identity. The Cuban poet Nicolás
Guillén is one of them. Guillén is in fact a racial mulatto: born to direct
black and white parents or grandparents. Métissage for this poet is rather a
happy and celebratory fact. In his poem "Balada de los dos abuelos" ("Ballad
of my Two Grandfathers"), Guillén describes his white and black
grandfathers:
*I bring them together.*
*-Federico!*
*Facundo! The two embrace.*
*They both sigh. They both*
*lift their strong heads;*
*both the same size,*
*beneath the lofty stars;*
*both the same size,*
*black longing, white longing,*
*both the same size,*
*they shout, they dream, they weep, they sing.*
*They dream, they weep, they sing.*
*They weep, they sing.*
*They sing.*
Sardinha says about the two ancestors of the poet: "each in his way is shown
to be equal of the other"(29). Black and white inhabit the poem
harmoniously. This idea is expressed in the three final verses: "They dream,
they weep, they sing./They weep, they sing./They sing". Unfortunately, the
black writers do not find a solution to their dilemma in the happy encounter
of their ancestors.
Frantz Fanon in his book Black skin, white masks deeply analyzes the
condition of the black man as a colonized subject. He is very acute in his
conclusions. For instance, he states that "the black man who has lived in
France for a length of time returns radically changed. To express it in
genetic terms, his phenotype undergoes a definite and absolute
mutation"(19). As I see it, the word mutation has a negative connotation in
this context. The black man has been transformed, he has abandoned his
original characteristics. Fanon also introduces the idea of whitening: "The
Negro of the Antilles will be proportionally whiter-- that is, he will come
closer to being a real human being --in direct ratio of his mastery of the
French language"(18). This implies the idea that the black man needs to
master the white man's culture in order to be acknowledged as a human being.
Fanon adds, "He becomes whiter as he renounces his blackness, his
jungle"(18).
Fanon's ideas are in direct relation with the case analyzed in this essay.
In Camara Laye, there is not only cultural (confusing and undecided)
métissage, but also a process of whitening to certain extent. Education is
its main instrument as it was analyzed before. But, there is another
evidence. It has to do with the girls in the life of the young Laye: Fanta
and Marie. Their names already suggest the African/European dichotomy. Fanta
is the girl that accompanied his childhood games in Kouroussa. She mostly
represents his African world. Marie, instead, is described in more detail:
"Her skin was very light, almost white. She was very beautiful,[…]She had
exceptionally long hair which hung down to her waist" (Laye 158). Her beauty
seems to be related to he white skin. As it could be predicted, this is the
girl who young Laye keeps at the end of the novel, as a sign of his own
whitening.
Camera Laye's novel The Dark Child has been most generally criticized as
being too sweet for not portraying the social injustice of colonization.
Among these critics is the Nigerian writer Chinua Achebe. Other critics
argue that the idealization of reality does not imply the lack of a
political commitment. My conclusion is that Camara Laye's The Dark Child
represents a good example of the colonized subject's dilemma. It shows
his/her struggle for keeping an identity that, in most of the cases, is
discouraged by the colonizer. Westernized education becomes an inevitable
path to be acknowledged in the new order. Negritude proved to have a
well-intended purpose. However, the contradictions did not let the theory to
be a feasible practice. As a result, the cultures that should be highlighted
or recuperated are left behind. Camara Laye's departure to Paris at the end
of his novel is the metaphor of the social and cultural oblivion of his
African roots.
*Bibliography:*
Fanon, Frantz. Black skin, white masks. Translated by Charles Lam Markmann.
New York: Grove Weidenfeld, 1991.
Laye, Camara. The Dark Child.
Lévy Bruhl, Lucien. Primitive Mentality. London, George Allen & Unwin ltd.;
New York: The Macmillan company,1923.
Miller, Christopher L. Theories of Africans: Francophone literature and
anthropology in Africa. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1990.
Sardinha, Carl Dennis. The poetry of Nicolás Guillén: an introduction.
London: New Beacon Books, 1976.
Yoder, Carroll. White shadows: a dialectical view of the French African
novel. Washington, D.C.: Three Continents Press, 1991.
*_________________________________________*
*(c) Deicy Jiménez*
*LA CASA DE ASTERIÓN*
*ISSN: 0124 - 9282*
*Revista Trimestral de Estudios Literarios*
*Volumen V – Número 19*
*Octubre-Noviembre-Diciembre de 2004*
*DEPARTAMENTO DE IDIOMAS*
*FACULTAD DE CIENCIAS HUMANAS - FACULTAD DE EDUCACIÓN*
*UNIVERSIDAD DEL ATLÁNTICO*
*Barranquilla - Colombia*
*El URL de este documento es:*
*http://casadeasterion.homestead.com/v5n19dark.html*
*PORTADA <http://casadeasterion.homestead.com/v5n19.html>*
*VOLUMEN V - NÚMERO 19 <http://casadeasterion.homestead.com/v5n19.html>*
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