The Image of Women in African Literature: Nabutanyi Edgar

Abstract

In a paternalistic society, women are treated as inferior beings to whom all the negative shortcomings of society are attributed. Is this the case in the image of women in African literature? This is the question that this article attempts to answer. Jung (1959: 27 – 28) States that, “The anima – image is usually projected upon women --- and she is the serpent in the harmless man with good resolutions and still better intentions.” However, he acknowledges that the anima projection is not always negative. In some cases, as in Faust, the anima can appear as an Angel of light, a psycho pomp who points the way to the highest meaning.

The projection of the anima on women means that the human psyche is bisexual in application to man. The anima is the Eve in every man who is responsible for all the problems that a man has to undergo. Jung and Guerin et al consider figures like Helen of Troy, in The Iliad, Dante’s Beatrice in The Divine Comedy, and Milton’s Eve in Paradise Lost as personification of the anima.

This attitude to these historical female figures as the anima means that any woman in literature who has more than unusual significance or power over the male character is likely to be the symbol of the anima. Nnolim (1975: 120) says, “In literature the anima image is usually projected on woman. The explanation is that every man has his own Eve within him.” The Eve in Everyman, he argues brings about war, causes suffering and confusion in the hero’s world, whether wittingly or unwittingly. This shows that the heroine is the character projected as the anima. In this respect two types of the anima archetypes are explored in this article. These are the unwitting anima and the witting anima.

The Accidental Temptress
In this article six African novels are selected and the image of women examined. The examination is carried along the concept of the anima. The anima in No longer at Ease is Clara. She is one of the female characters in the novel who have a profound effect on Obi. Clara in No longer at Ease becomes Obi’s Eve within him. This is because she is the character that is the cause of both Obi’s happiness and suffering. It should be noted that she takes this route unwittingly and if anything, she wants the best for Obi, to the extent of sacrificing her own happiness and even money for his sake. For the catastrophe that Achebe expertly and brilliantly highlights in No Longer at Ease, to be understood Clara’s role as the unwitting anima is vital. Palmer (1972: 82) says, “Is part of the painful process of adjustment that society, as a whole must make as it looks for new values to replace those so regrettably destroyed with the old society.” Prominent among these new values, is the issue of being free to marry an Osu. Obi’s failure to marry Clara, not withstanding Clara has been instrumental in projecting him to the right direct. Even if Clara has gone out of his life, Obi remains hopeful. He writes to Clara thus:
I can understand your not wanting ever to set eyes on me again. I have wronged you terribly. But I cannot believe that it is all over. If you give me another chance, I shall never fail you again. [142]
This means that as an anima, Clara has not only caused Obi suffering but has opened his eyes to the reality of his double heritage and the courage it takes to adjust.

From the first moment they meet on the ship in the docks at Liverpool, she assumes that role that Jung (199:28) assigns the anima, “She is the serpent in the paradise of a harmless man with good resolution and still better intentions.” She is aloof to his advances. When they finally come to face the reality, Clara says, “We’re only being silly. You’ll forget it in the morning.’ She looked at him and then kissed him violently. Now I’ll hate myself in the morning.” [25-6]. From this moment, Obi is constantly hurting from her procrastination. Even when she informs him that they cannot marry because she is an Osu and Obi disregards it and formally proposes to her.

It is true that Clara’s decision, that she will change anyway, is taken in Obi’s best interests. That is not to alienate him from his family. It is because of Clara, in the President’s words (a girl of doubtful ancestry), that Obi breaks up with the union without taking the four-month respite in repaying his debt. His condition would have been better if he had accepted the grace period. But Clara and his pride make him not to and the results are the suffering he faces. In abandoning the union for Clara, Obi betrays the people who had taxed themselves to educate him. As Joseph points out, he sets a bad example. Obi is aware of this and suffers as well.

The opposition of his family to the marriage, when he informs them, especially the mother’s suicide threat intensifies Obi`s suffering because of Clara. His mother says, “If you want to marry this girl, you must wait until Iam no more … But if you do the thing while I am alive, you will have my blood on your head because I shall kill myself.” [123]. This intensifies his suffering, forcing him to shut himself in his room, cutting short the leave and driving back to Lagos in a daze that almost culminates into a fatal accident are all symptoms of his suffering.

When he breaks the news to Clara and the engagement is broken off, it does not mean his suffering is over. In the first place he has to get thirty pounds for her abortion, refund her fifty pounds and go through the hassle of getting a willing doctor to perform the abortion. His suffering is summarized in the statement; “… he sat in the driver’s seat, paralysed by his thoughts, the doctor and Clara… After about half an hour of this mad and aimless exercise Obi pulled up by the road.” [134] This lunatic driving about clearly shows the extent of suffering that Clara has caused him. Willingly or unwillingly, Clara has alienated Obi from his kinsmen, family and caused suffering for him because whatever he has done is not enough to keep the woman who had taught him how to love. His disintegration at the end
Mercifully he had recently lost his mother and Clara had gone out of his life. The two events following closely on each other had dulled his sensibility and left him a different man, able to look at words like ‘education’, and ‘promise’ squarely in the face. [2]
If Obi’s frame of mind is thus explained, Clara as the anima has entangled Obi’s life to the extent that he loses his original idealism and promise that the secretary of the Umuofia Progressive Union outlines in his speech during Obi’s welcome.

Achebe confesses to Oheato that one female student in Ghana accused him of sabotaging education by not letting Clara get married to Obi. Such an assertion would imply that the real purpose of the novel was to show the successes of education. Since this is not the case, Clara is most useful to the understanding of the novel as the unwitting anima.

In A Man of the People it would seem there is a double anima. This is to do with Elsie, who is in one-way or another responsible for Odili’s suffering. But owing to the little space that Elsie occupies in the novel and the way she is not developed by Achebe, it suffices to say that she is deliberately created to introduce the anima problem and it is Edna who is the cause of Odili’s suffering in the novel.

The woman that has profound influence on Odili in A Man of the People is Edna. She is according to Jung (1959:26-27) that woman who:
…makes us believe incredible things, that life may be lived. She is full of snares and traps, ordered that man should fall, reach the earth, entangle himself there and stay caught, so that life should be lived ….

It should be pointed out that her ensnaring and trapping of Odili is unwilling on her part, for it is Odili who seeks her out as part of his plan to get even with Nanga. After Nanga has taken away Elsie from Odili, it becomes clear to Odili what the best revenge would be:
What mattered was that a man had treated me as no man had a right to treat another not even if he was master and the other slave; and my manhood required that I make him pay for his insult in full measure. In flesh and blood terms I realised that I must go back, seek out Nanga’s intended parlour wife and give her the works, well and proper. [76]

Even if the original motivation is revenge, Odili soon finds himself entangled with Edna to a point of no return. He confesses that Edna has become the central part of his political campaign. This is vividly portrayed in the sense that, throughout the campaign, his political actions and thoughts are half- hearted as compared to his pursuit of Edna. In fact, it should be observed that he does more chasing after Edna than campaigning.

His chasing after Edna exposes him to danger and humiliation. Edna’s father calls his car a tortoise and Odili himself a tick on a bull. He further threatens to kill him because Odili seems to jeopardise the good fortune of having chief Nanga as a son-in-law. The foolhardy way and disregard for danger that Odili’s show in going to Nanga’s house on Christmas eve and later to Nanga’s rally, show his naivety but a naivety that is a consequence of his obsession with Edna.

A close analysis of the reasons he gives in attending chief Nanga’s inaugural campaign meeting are not convincing. The fact is he does not attend the meeting to learn new campaign tricks or out of sheer curiosity. It has to do with seeing Edna. The consequences of attending this meeting are disastrous:
He pulled the microphone away smartly, set it down, walked up to me and slapped my face. Immediately hands seized my arms… By this time blows were falling as fast as rain on my head and body until something heavier than the rest seemed to split my skull. [140]

When Odili is seen next after this point, he is in the hospital recovering from the beating he got from Nanga and he has not been nominated. It is clear that Odili has suffered both mentally and physically and that his political ambitions have come to naught. However, the person who gets him into politics and this mess is none other than Edna and since she is the cause if his suffering, albeit unwittingly, she qualifies as Odili’s anima.

More significantly is that Edna, as Odili’s anima, is responsible for his total disillusionment and loss of idealism. At the start of the novel, he is disillusioned by the way the country is run. However, when he briefly tries to rationalise the decay because of his stay with chief Nanga, he soon drops this position. He joins politics not only to take revenge against Nanga but also because he feels he would make a good representative of his people. The fiasco of the elections and the Edna factor at the end of the novel leave him as cynical as the rest of the people. The initial struggle for the good of the common society has been cast overboard by Odili and his using the party funds to pay for Edna makes him no different from the Nangas who have recently been ousted. It can clearly be seen that Edna has such an influence on Odili, either for good or for bad that she is the sole important woman in Odili’s life and hence his anima.

Like it is the case with Clara in No Longer at Ease, Edna’s role as the anima is not only in terms of suffering but also in the opposition of the real evils in society. As Palmer argues, Odili’s project is to wrestle Edna from the grasp of chief Nanga to revenge for the loss of his girlfriend. Palmer (1972:82) says:
…remembers his initial idealism and enters politics determined to wreak revenge by contesting chief Nanga’s seat. The outcome of the political fray is that a coup is staged and the ministers rounded up.
It can be argued that Edna as an anima plays an important role in changing not only Odili’s life but the life of the society as well. This is because she makes him participate in national issues, issues that have far reaching consequences. Whether the change symbolized in the rounding up of the minister will be good is hard to know. But what is clear is the people are challenged to take their destiny in their own hands and not let the army act. The ballot could have ejected the Nanga’s only if the people were not cynical.

Unlike Catherine in The Poor Christ of Bomba who is designed as a witting anima, Marguerite plays the role of the unwittingly anima. She is the one who unwitting reveals the rot in the sixa. Unlike Catherine, Marguerite takes just a section of the chapter. But her revelations in this short space are really profound. She is reluctant to tell her story. She is antagonistic as well when asked by Drumont, how long she has been in the six. She replies, “Oh, no, Father, no, I’m feeling fine. But as soon as you knew my name, you had only to look at your register to see exactly how long I’ve been in the sixa” [178] Surprised and annoyed, Drumont orders Anatole to cane her into submission. But after twenty strokes she is unmoved and only reacts to the sneaky stroke that takes her by surprise.

She is unwillingly forced to reveal the truth. It is Anatole’s whipping in the end that makes her talk. When asked why she has stayed a whole year without getting married, her reply to Drumont is an eye opener. She says, “… there’s one thing you don’t seem to understand at all. In giving Raphael the sixa to direct, you as good as said to him: “Here are your wives. Do with them as you will.” [180] The above passage in essence blames Drumont for what happens in the sixa. It also reveals his naivety and blindness. Her revelations are astounding. Raphael, the in charge of the sixa blackmails her and sells her into prostitution to Drumont’s number one boy under the very eyes of Drumont. Her remonstration to Father Drumont as why he was torturing her is really an eye opener. She says, “When I came to the sixa things were already just the same as they are now. You cannot blame me for bringing bad morals here. You are unjust” [183]. It is true Drumont is being unjust and the only person to blame is himself. The mental suffering that she inflicts on Father Drumont is contained in the repeated statement “what a race” indeed it is what a race when he realizes that the roadside Christian by their hypocrisy have hoodwinked and exploited him.

If Father Drumont returns with a wish that Catherine’s indiscretions are a simple anomaly, then Marguerite’s testimony proves him wrong. By revealing the truth, Father Drumont loses faith in his mission. Marguerite therefore becomes a woman who has more than profound effect on Drumont. This definitely makes her the unwitting anima.

Eliza in Mission to Kala plays a similar role to that played by Marguerite. She is described to Medza as a proud and obstinate woman. This is because she has refused to sleep with any of the young men of Kala. When she shows interest in Medza, Medza in the eyes of the Kala- youth becomes the weapon of their revenge.

However, when she practically offers herself to Medza, Medza is rendered impotent. His rationalization is empty talk as he honestly admits to himself. This is because the mission sets out to transform him as Fencer (1998:1) observes, “They arrange speaking opportunities give him gifts but most of all, make him aware of his sexual inexperience.” Eliza as the unwitting anima is the one responsible for this revelation. Medza says, “The realization that Eliza was probably wearing perfume had the effect of making me even more frigid than before.”[72]

This may sound as a clever excuse but the true fact is that Medza realizes he is a virgin and his education has not prepared him for such an encounter. His desire for a virgin with whom to lose his virginity is in line with Medza’s attempt to discover the idyllic past of the Blacks. Eliza makes him conscious of the inadequacy of his education and colonial experience.

The limited attention Beti focuses on Eliza is likely to divert attention to her role as an unwitting anima. The simplification assumes she is used to show the immaturity of Medza and his need to grow to a self-realization, which is the central focus of the novel. This is partly true. Medza is immature and his adventure in Kala leads to his growth both in the physical and psychological sense.

If Medza’s temporary impotence is to be read as a rejection, then he rejects Eliza. The reasons why she is rejected are not hard to arrive at. She is a stranger to Kala as her sophisticated scents and perfumes indicate. This means she is an assimile like Medza. Therefore, Medza who has come to Kala according to Gikandi (1987:44) to, “Medza in writing of his past experience, is motivated by desire to understand what has become [of his life]” Must reject everything French and superficial and Eliza is the two rolled in one. Self-interpretation is not possible with Eliza and that is why she should be rejected.

The Delilahs
Delilah is the women in the Bible who tempted Samson to reveal the source of his strength. In this article she is used as a personification of the woman who deliberately conspires to lead the heroes of the selected text to doom. Catherine may be said to be the anima character in The Poor Christ of Bomba. Catherine is what Jung (196:28) calls the serpent in the paradise of the harmless man with good resolution and still better intention.

In The Poor Christ of Bomba, Catherine is the force that destroys the “good works” of Farther Drumont. Catherine’s role as the anima is seen from two levels. She is the temptress per excellence when it comes to her subversion of Denis. Catherine is responsible for Denis’ fall by introducing him to sex:
She took me in her arms; I thought she was going to pass me over her but she rolled on to her back and pushed me against her. She opened her legs and once more grabbed hold of my sex. And all at once my sex disappeared…and I moved. Now I did everything she had told me. All the same I moved a certain number of times. [86]

Catherine’s seduction of Denis is nothing but an induction into unholy activity that the Father has impressed upon him as satanic. The confused guilt and longing he feels after this episode does not only reveal his own suffering but is also a loss to the Father of his innocent, naïve and true Christian according to the Father’s doctrine of Christianity, which is to replace the African values with French values. The torment and anguish that Denis feels after the seduction makes Catherine his anima.

At the same time the seduction of Denis is a big blow to the Father’s scheme of Evangelisation. Up to this moment, it is only Denis who unquestioningly believes in Christianity. He supports the Father’s policies whole-heartedly. The fact that it takes him long to confess the sin and that he does not even in confession renounce Catherine’s induction and still desires for her, shows that he has become a hypocrite just like the other roadside Christians. The Father’s loss is that of a dream (pure) convert and in this case Catherine is the Father’s anima.

At the next level, Catherine’s escapade with Zacharia is the ultimate end of Father Drumont’s mission. He realises that for over twenty years he has toiled for nothing. This is given explosive impact because Catherine and the girls of the sixa have turned it into a brothel under the very eyes of Father Drumont. Father Drumont laments:
“Oh! Perhaps for good-and-all. But before that, I must drive myself to know everything. For twenty years I’ve known nothing in reality. After a story like this, I feel that I’ll go back having learnt something useful, at last.” [187]

Catherine, as Drumont’s, anima represents all the girls in the sixa on the one hand and the Africans on the other. What the Father concedes is that he has not been realistic in his dealing with the Africans and that accounts for his failure. Catherine as the anima, therefore, accounts for the Father’s failure and suffering in trying to convert Africans to Christianity.

Father Drumont’s interjection after listening to Catherine’s story reflects the disgust and helplessness he feels. The people he has spent twenty years to evangelise have now turned into an incomprehensible race. But this transformation, he acknowledges has been due to his own shortcomings:
‘What is so surprising about it? I acted like everyone else; is that what astounds you? Father, if you stay long here, you will meet lots of other Missionaries of my generation.’[206]

From the above honest self- acknowledgement, Catherine as the anima becomes a woman who has a profound effect on the Father and she acts as a mirror through which the Father comes to realise the futility of his efforts. Thus Catherine as Drumont’s witting anima is created to cause havoc in the life and aspirations of Father Drumont.

A woman who has a profound effect on Medza’s life in Mission to Kala is Edima. As such she is the anima archetype in Mission to Kala. Gakwandi (1977:38), in reference to Medza’s elevation of Edima to the position she does occupies as the most important woman in the novel comments, “This kind of hollow pontification is made upon a wide range of subjects … adolescent school leaver obviously can lay little claim to having knowledge.” It can surely be taken as pontification but hollow it is not. Among the many lessons that Medza learns from Kala is love and this is in line with his symbolic rejection of the town sophisticated Eliza for Edima. Medza:
‘I was thinking about that’ I said, untruthfully. ‘What I really want is a nice young… who does not know her way about at all, if you get me one as long as she’s young, sweet and innocent, I don’t care a damn about her looks. I am sick to death of old experienced hags.’ [76]

The rejection of Eliza whom he refers to as an old hag symbolises Medza’s hope to find the innocence that he associates with rural life. Edima supplies this innocence and peace. As the orphan’s lament suggests, Medza is an orphan of the pristine African past that he tries very hard to recapture through Edima and Kala unsuccessfully.

Although Edima, unlike Kala, which is characterised by selfishness and exploitation, is the best thing to happen to Medza, she becomes the cause of his suffering and final disintegration. The chief into marrying her blackmails him and when he does he realises that his maturation cannot be complete with her.

Edima turns Medza’s world upside down in the sense that after marrying her he realises he cannot be the person he was and fears the rejection of his father. This is portrayed in the fact as when the date of the bride’s arrival comes nearer; he escapes and spends all the time drinking until the wine kicks some courage into him that leads to the final confrontation with his father. Medza narrates, “After a half-mile walk, and what with the fear and mental agony I now felt inside me, I had sobered up quite a bit by the time I got there. “[175] The agony and fear is in the anticipation of what his father’s reaction would be. It could be argued that without Edima, Medza would have probably found a way of co-existing in the prevailing statusquo. It is because of her and through her that he makes the final break not only with the world of his father and alienation but also with the idyllic Kala that she symbolises.

This break, which is a must for Medza, is unfortunately, categorised with suffering. He concludes:
It obsesses me so completely that at times I even fear I may never find any other theme as long as I live. I am haunted by the story of my love for Edima, which is also the story of my first, perhaps my only love; the absurdity of life. [183]

The word “haunted” clearly reveals the profound effect that Edima has on Medza’s life in Mission to Kala. His abandonment of Edima is also the rejection of and the end of the honeymoon with Kala. It is a conscious but painful action he has to take in order to reach maturity. Maturity, painful as it is to him, means the rejection of the past as well as the present without a firm glimpse of the future or an idea of the ideal values. Disillusionment with the values of his society does not only result into alienation but pessimism as well. The end result is the meaninglessness and absurdity of the life of those affected by the various configurations of societal values.

If Obi is to be believed, his disintegration is because of the loss of two women in his life. Hannah Okonkwo and Clara are the two women. They represent Obi’s sense of idealism. This position is forced on Clara. In the case of Hannah, his mother it is deliberate. Hannah is a witting anima to both Obi and his father. When Isaac Okonkwo says to Obi that he has suffered to be a Christian, his wife causes part of this suffering. The case in point is when Hannah kills a he goat belonging to one of the deities and the family is ostracized. This more than profound effect is what Guerin w etal (1999; 181) refers to, as, “In this sense, anima is the contra-sexual part of man’s psyche, the image of the opposite sex that he carries in both his personal collective unconscious.” But the person on whom she has more than profound influence is Obi. This is so extreme that she stops being a mere projection of the anima but a part of Obi’s inner feminine soul. The projection of Hannah as the witting anima is not only restricted to Obi but extends to his father as well. She is the first to cut the cake on their wedding, which made her a senior partner in the marriage. She had killed a he goat dedicated to a deity when her husband was still a catechist the narrator says, “Obi’s mother sat in the background on a low stool… But she never took part in the family reading.” [54]This deceptive description may not emphasize her role in the family. For example even though her husband had forbidden her to tell ‘heathen’ stories, she breaks this order when Obi asks to be told a folktale to retell in class.

The link between Obi and Hannah is very strong. This is suggested in the fact when Obi is born, Hannah is henceforth called Obi’s mother. But more revealing is the statement that, “Whenever Obi thought affectionately of his mother, his mind went back to that shedding of her blood. It bound him very firmly to her” [69]. The critical importance in the above passage is the word “bound”. This action makes Obi and his mother one and the same entity. This explains why Obi fears only his mother’s objection to marrying Clara. If the objections of Joseph, Isaac Okonkwo and the president of the union to Obi’s marrying an Osu are as strong as his mother, then why does he heed the later and ignore the former? Further still, her objection is a threat and the others advance valid reasons. His father for example feels the time is no right. Why does he give in to a threat and not to logical deductions? The answer to the question lies in the fact that Hannah, as an anima is part of Obi and there is no way he can say no to a part of himself without self destruction. In this sense Hannah becomes the witting anima representation who causes havoc in Obi’s life.

La Guma’s intention and message in the two novels, A walk in the Night and In the Fog of the Season’s End, does not leave room for an anima archetype character. The dependence on the central consciousness rather than central characters means that the characters created have to represent the major ideological conflict. In the same line, a clear depiction of these two sides and the need to clarify them again leaves little room for the anima because the cause of the hero’s suffering is already the determined shadow in the apartheid system.

Apart from intention and the message in La Guma’s novels not providing for anima like characters, the lack of female characters in his novel is another explanation. In A Walk In The Night Hazel, Gipsy and Franky Lorenzo’s wife are the only female characters in the novel. But they are not well developed and as such play no important role in the novel. This means that there is no character to take the anima archetype. In The Fog Of The Season’s End, there are women characters who live at sides. Even a character like Frances, has no effect whether positive or negative on Beukes in his fight. Buekes’s engagement in the struggle is not specifically for uplifting Frances’ wellbeing but all the oppressed.

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