The Feminist Impulse in Beyala`s Writings: an Existentialist Over

DEMOCRATIC AND POPULAR REPUBLIC OF ALGERIA
MINISTRY OF HIGHER EDUCATION AND
SCIENTIFIC RESEARCH
EL HADJ LAKHDAR UNIVERSITY- BATNA
FACULTY OF LETTERS AND HUMAN SCIENCES
DEPARTMENT OF ENGLISH
The Feminist Impulse in Beyala’s
Writings: an Existentialist Over
viewing
Presented to the Faculty of language and Literature at the University of Batna in Fulfilment of the
Requirements for the Degree of Doctorate in Literature
Presented by
Mohammed Seghir HALIMI
Supervised by:
Mr. Omar GHOUAR (Professor University EL Hadj Lakhdar-BATNA)
Co-Supervised by:
Mrs. Chantal MASSOL (Professor University Stendhal- Grenoble III)
Jury members:
Prof. Mohamed Salah NEDJAI
Prof. Omar GHOUAR
Prof. Chantal MASSOL
Prof. Abbes BAHOUS
Prof. Fatiha KAID
Prof. Noureddine GUERROUDJ
(Batna University)
(Batna University)
(Grenoble University)
(Mostaganem University)
(Laghouat University)
(Sidi-Bel-Abbès University)
President
Supervisor
Co-Supervisor
Examiner
Examiner
Examiner
Dedication
To my parents,
To my wife
And
My kids: Khouloud Salsabil, Khalil Errahmane and Djouri Assil
I
Acknowledgements
First of all, I have to thank God, then I hav to thank my supervisors Professor. Omar
GHOUAR, and Professor Chantal MASSOL, respectively, in Hadj Lakhdar-Univerity-Batna
(Algeria) and Stendhal University- Grenoble 3 (France)
In fact the Thesis writing process has been a long journey for me that would not have been
possible without the love and support of so many people, none more important than my wonderful
Wife ZAHRA; she has encouraged, coaxed and sometimes even goaded me into sticking with my
project even though the chances seem slim that it become a ‘realizable. ’ For that, and for being the
best husband and father. Thank you. I need, also, to thank Dr. Kaouli Nadhir, University of Batna,
Mr. Meliani Rouag, Mr Bourahla Djelloul and Dr Chaouki Noureddine, Rahma Antir, University of
Ouargla, Professor Berrahal Fatiha, University of Laghouat, Abdelhakem Slimane, Ghardaia
University Centre, Professor Ahmed Bouterfaia, University of Ouargla
and Professor Mechri
Benkhalifa,Univesity of Ouargla, who helped me through the dark days after my baby son, Khalil
Arrahmane had become so desperately ill. My relatives and friends flew in from almost all over
Algeria to help me and my wife while things were still stabilizing; certainly without their physical
and moral support, I might never have been able to finish with my thesis. At the time, I was blessed to
be teaching for the English department at the University of Ouargla and of Laghouat and was so
touched and grateful for my colleagues’ outpouring of help. I have to thank as well Professor
Spandling Dona Andréolle and Professor Daniel lançon for their assistance, guidance and patience.
I have to thank so much, my god given brothers, Abdelkader Amri, and Younes Tidjani, Stendhal
University- Grenoble 3 (France) for their help and their devoted time.
II
Absctract in French
Résumé
Pierrette Herzberger-Fofana explique qu’au XXème siècle les mouvements féministes se sont surtout
développés à cause des évènements sociaux qui ont bouleversé notre siècle. Parmi ces événements, la
question féminine demeure au cœur du débat et donne lieu à de vives controverses. Parti des EtatsUnis d’Amérique et d’Europe, ce courant, le “Women’s Lib,” a déferlé sur le monde entier pour
finalement échouer sur les côtes d’Afrique dans la seconde moitié du siècle dernier.
Les revendications en faveur des droits des femmes ont aidé les écrivaines à être acceptées parmi les
grands du monde littéraire, et donc mettre en valeur et en avant leurs talents que chaque zone
géographique du monde a fini par concevoir. Cette étude nous introduit au monde littéraire de
l’auteure Camerounaise Calixthe Beyala et sa vision universaliste. En réalité, son appartenance à un
pays ou région de la francophonie fait à ce qu’elle préserve les liens existants entre les membres des
pays francophones, telle que La France, la langue (culture occidentale) et valeurs universelles. Sa
position en tant qu’intellectuelle l’incite à annihiler toutes les frontières entres les races, les origines,
les idéologies tout en retraçant d’autres schémas sociaux. Elle montre à travers ses romans son
ouverture sur le monde, les religions et les différences d’ordre raciale, religieux et donc culturel, tout
en adoptant un schéma social prônant la valeur humaine au détriment de toutes autres considérations.
En réalité, Calixthe Beyala trace un trait d’union entre les visions humanistes et les liens psychiques
qui puissent exister entre les femmes dans le monde entier. La question du « soi » et de « l’autre »
fait l’essence de son travail, parce que le « soi » réel tel qu’il est reçu par la femme n’est plus une
conception de la femme sur soi même, mais il est le produit du system patriachal, de la culture
traditionnelle, et donc fruit de l’autre. L’auteur opte pour une nouvelle identité basée sur des
nouvelles conceptions de soi même. Le “ Soi attendu ou Idéal ” est une nouvelle identité commune
III
dont Beyala montre les bornes, et qui semble très importante vu qu’elle est révélatrice d’une
expérience collective dont la femme avait toujours tendance à prouver l’existence. La vérité est que
des efforts sont fournis pour pouvoir éventuellement expliquer la nature de l’expérience commune de
la femme et pour finalement prouver qu’elle est un être humain tout comme les autres êtres humains
qui ouvrent droit à la vie et à ’existence. Cette dernière est approchée différemment par Beyala car
elle trouve dans le libertinage sexuel une nouvelle forme expression. Pour Beyala la sexualité n’est
pas une fin, mais un moyen efficace pour exprimer ses idées ouvertement, et donc atteindre son
objectif qui est la transcendance de la valeur féminine.
Les dialogues générés par Beyala, et le choix de l’appareil critique philosophique semblent adéquats
pour mieux déceler les éléments relevant des actes libérateurs. Son dialogue est très intéressant, dans
cette étude, dans la mesure où il montre que les personnages féminins, leurs comportements et leurs
relations dans un monde intrigué par les anormalités d’un monde d’homme (genre), peuvent être
aussi vu par l’homme.
IV
Absctract in Arabic
‫ملخــــــص‬
19
Pierrette Herzberger-Fofana
“ Women’s Lib ” "
Calixthe Beyala
V
Beyala
VI
Table of Content
Dedication …………………………………………………………………………………………….i
Acknowledgements …………………………………………………………………………………..ii
Abstract in French (Résumé) ………………………………………………..….......................…….iii
Abstract in Arabic ……………………………………………………………………….….....……..v
Table of Content ……………………………………………………………………………..……..vii
List of Abbreviations ……………………………………………………………..…………………ix
General Introduction …………………………………………………………………..……………10
Chapter One: postcolonial Theory and the dialectics of change
Introduction ………………………………………………………………………………….…..….31
I. 1. Feminism and Identity in a Postcolonial Context …………………………………….……..…33
I. 1. 1. Postcolonial theory …………………………………………………………….….33
I. 2. The Issue of Cultural Identity between Hybridity and Originality …………………………....47
I. 3. Culture: The Component of both Individual and Societal Progress. ………………………..…53
I. 4. Controversial Perception of Feminist Principles ……………………………………………....59
I. 4. 1. Women’s Movement: Reactions to Gender Discrimination………………..……...62
I. 4. 2. The Feminists’ Echo …………………………………………………….…………68
I. 4. 3. Inersectionality and Miscellaneous Black Feminist Views …………….….…...….70
Conclusion ……………………………………………………………………………..……..……88
Chapter Two: Re-Writing African Women: African Feminists’ Insertion in Postcolonial
Context
Introduction …………………………………………………………………………………….......93
II.1. Towards the Construction of a Sturdy Platform between Feminist/womanist criticism and postcolonialism …………………………………………………………………………….……………95
II.2. The Study of Black Feminist Criticism and the question of “racism” and “sexism”..
..........................................................................................................................................................103
II.3. Beyala’s critical opinion within a homogenous and confusing receptive world......................126
II.4. Beyala’s Protagonists facing the Incongruity of life ………………………………………....135
Conclusion ……………………………………………………………………………….…….….162
VII
Chapter Three: Effective African women: Beyala’s Journey towards Feminist Writing
Materialization
Introduction ……………………………………………………………………………….…..…...167
III.1. Beyala’s Romanesque World: an author dominated discourse …………………….………..170
III.2. Beyala’s Liberal-humanist orientation and the true self discovery ……………………….....184
III.3. Beyala’s forms of representation: ideologically laden characters ……………………..…....194
III.3.1. The deconstruction of a confessional schema ………………………………..…..196
II.3.2. The construction of a social schema ……………………………………….….….213
III.3.3. The Shared identity Vs the Self conception be …..……………….………......….219
III.4. Beyala the creator of her “New-woman” character..….……………………………...............225
Conclusion ......................................................................................................................................231
Chapter Four: The Unrevealed Thoughts of a Woman Writer: New Way to the Social Arena of
the Time
Introduction ……………………………………………………………………………………..…235
IV.1. quest for the self: a theory of self awareness…………………………………….………..…237
IV.1.1. simultaneous existence of the dangling African ……………………….………...238
IV.1.2. The African woman between mystery and hope …………………………………239
IV.2. Affinities between Sartrean Existentialism and Beyala’s Feminist Orientation …………….243
IV.3. Questioning the Patriarchal World: Ateba's Remedial Endeavour..........................................251
IV.4. Transgressing Boundaries and Creating Universal Solidarity in Beyala’s novelstic World...263
IV.4.1. C’est le Soleil qui m'a Brulée ………………………………………………….…263
IV.4.2. Tu t’appelleras Tanga ……………………………………………………..……..267
Conclusion ……………….………………………………………………………………….……..291
General Conclusion ………………………………………………………………………………..293
Bibliography…………………………………..…………………………………………………....301
Annex 1……………….………………………………………………………………….………...320
Annex 2 ……………….………………………………………………………………….………..324
Annex 3……………….………………………………………………………………….…….…..340
Annex 4……………….………………………………………………………………….……….. 352
VIII
List of Abbreviations
C'est le soleil qui m'a brûlée (CSQB)
Tu t’appelleras Tanga (TTT)
Seul le Diable le savait. (SLDS)
Le Petit Prince de Belleville. (LPPB)
Maman a un amant. (MAM)
Assèze l'Africaine. (AZAF)
Lettre d'une Africaine à ses sœurs occidentales. (LASO)
Les Honneurs perdus. Paris: (LHP)
La Petite Fille du réverbère. (LPFR)
Amours sauvages. (AMSG)
Lettre d'une Afro-française à ses compatriotes. (LAFAC)
Comment cuisiner son mari à l'africaine. (CCSA)
Les arbres en parlent encore. (LAPE)
Femme nue femme noire. (FNFN)
La Plantation. (LPT)
L'Homme qui m'offrait le ciel. (LQMC)
Le Roman de Pauline, (LRP)
IX
General Introduction
It was as if Maanan's face was all I would ever need to look at to know that this was a
woman being pushed toward destruction and there was nothing she or I could do about it.
She was smiling at me, but in myself I felt accused by a silence that belonged to millions and
ages of women all bearing the face and the form of Maanan, and needing no voice at all to
tell me I had failed them, I and all the others who have been content to do nothing and to be
nothing at all all our lives and through all the ages of their suffering. So much of the past
had now been pushed into the present moment at the edge of salt water (1968, 72-73)
(Ayé Kwei Armah: The Beautiful Ones Are Not Yet Born)
Within a world full of challenges, man is required to question certain political, economic, and
social structures which are susceptible to change. Yet this can never be easy to deal with since
conflicts would inevitably rise. Immersed in an abstract dehumanized world, designed by his
intelligence, but foreign to his senses, man gets himself between two conflicting/ conflictual forces.
On the one hand, he is intoxicated by the thunderous noise of machines, and therefore carried away in
the whirl of machinery; on the other hand he is terrified by the hydra that threatens his reason and
sensibility. This pushes him backward as to reach the terrors of his childhood through the depth of his
unconsciousness.
Emptiness and loneliness are man’s aspiring landscape, even in the heart of crowded cities.
More than ever, the companion provides the antidote against the abstraction of the machine and
against prehistoric monsters made secret by its fear. Man, aware of his limitations and discomfort,
can hardly develop hope to reach self-definition. Integrated into natural forces that his/her genius has
transformed into energy, one is forced to rethink, in a world shaken by the advent of the industry, his
relations to the world and his relation to other individuals within the same society. Man and woman,
as members of this society, are seen always to view each other as different individuals with divergent
opinions.
10
It would be, in this sense, evident to question the social pressure exerted by the truism to
which anyone would really assert forces that break the balance of the social order, and to think in
terms of harmonious relationship. The transformation of the feminine archetype is a key in
suggesting new social views and developing critical opinions vis-à-vis man/woman relationships.
It is therefore almost impossible, when studying the literature of the countries having
witnessed colonial experience, to deny the question of ideology. Among these countries, the African
countries have gone through a very long process of cultural assimilation and stigmatisation. Yet this
literature deserves being given a deal of importance not only as a sociological document but as a
literary specificity1. This is why the consideration of the external (sociology) and the internal (theme)
sides of a work of literature is important.
The African social reality as well as the social consciousness have pushed complains asides,
and urged the African intelligentsia to think in terms of literary production, the reason why the
modern African novel has moved from the theme of anti-colonial argument to the sixties that began
to concern itself with the theme of the great dream of independence. Over the course of these years,
whether striving for the creation of new independent nations or participating in nation building,
francophone and non-francophone African writers have been catalysts for both social and political
change through their contributions to the body of literature which voices the belief in the viability
and effectiveness of one monolithic monumental African national cultural identity.
Actually, the theme of the African novel, as shown by Charles Larson in the Emergence of
the African Fiction (1978), deals with five major subjects that reflect a series of cultural upheavals
that all African societies had to undergo. The first concern is with novels portraying the initial
1
Since no distinction is made between the African nations in terms of the colonial experience apart from its nature, it is
then worth quoting Assia Djebar. So in an interview, Assia Djebar explains that she is seeking to « créer des œuvres
littéraires qui s’imposent en tant que telles, car jusqu’ici on s’est intéressé à la littérature maghrébine comme document
sociologique » (mentioned by Regaïeg 1995 :333)
11
exposure to the west. The second type of novel concerns the problems of adaptation to the western
education. The third one concerns the question of urbanization and modernisation. The fourth one is
about novels concerned with the problems of politics and national building. The last type is the most
significant one in that it deals with novels dealing with a more individualized life style with a growing
emphasis on the individual and his relationship towards a group from which he has become estranged.
This is certainly why the premises of liberation and the prospects of nation building were no longer
enough. Issues concerning politics, gender roles in society, the reality of racial and cultural hybridity,
and class locations were now too obvious to ignore. Social justice, freedom of speech, women’s
rights, equality of chances and most importantly the fighting of corruption in these centralized
authoritarian post-colonial states are all themes which began to appear in literary writings.
One of the literary phenomena is the one of African feminism that appeared as a reaction
against the western one to capture truthfully black women’s experience and sufferings. It focuses on
the status of the African woman as an individual who suffered from “alienation, marginalization,
stigmatization, and violence and -above all- men’s supremacy”. Consequently, African women writers
felt a necessity to struggle in order to write their stories by themselves and from their perspective.
This is raise a sense of dignity and awareness of their situation as women and as human beings. And
because of racial question, African woman literature has usually been viewed as a discrete
subcategory of world literature, and that many black critics did much to keep it alive long before it
had become a subject to white critics. This is undoubtedly because there was no political movement to
empower or support the initiative of those who want to study and examine black women's experience
through studying their history, literature and culture. There was certainly no political presence that
requires the least level of consciousness and respect from those who write or talk about black’s lives.
Finally, there was, perhaps, no developed body of black feminist political theory whose assumptions
12
could be used in the study of black women's art. This is in fact one of the issues, that the African
women writers want to deal with in addition to the question of misogyny.
The issue of misogyny is in the minds of past and contemporary feminists; it is quite aligned
with present-day studies of feminism, perceivable in the African social view of mainstream culture,
and projected into essays and writings. Thus, the objective of the black African feminist writers is to
credit their works as praiseworthy additions to the growing library of transnational feminist literature,
and to add to the history of cooperation between genders in attaining the liberation of the individual.
By doing so, they may reach interconnected new human directions. To talk about feminism is to talk
about a diverse collection of social theories, political movements and moral philosophies, largely
motivated by the experiences of women, especially in terms of their social, political and economic
situation. As a social movement, Feminism largely focuses on limiting or eradicating gender
inequality and promoting woman‫׳‬s rights, interests, and issues in society.
Within Academia, some feminists focus on documenting gender inequalities that oppress
women and change the social position as well as the positive representation of women. Others argue
that gender and even sex are social constructs; therefore, they see it is much better to develop
alternative models for studying the social relations inorder not to fall in the trap of discrimination.
Some feminist scholars have posited that the hierarchies in business and government and all
organizations need to be substitued by a decentralized ultra-democracy. Some argue that having any
central leader in any organization is derived from the andocentric family structure (and therefore
needs reform and replacement), and thus such scholars see the essence of feminism as beyond the
surface issues of sex and gender.
The past three decades in Africa have been marked by a growing body of literature authored
by women alongside and as a result of such writing has evolved a significant body of theoretical
13
works. Such theories as African Feminism, Stiwanism2, Black Feminism, womanism3and Africana
womanism4have been vigorously espoused in response to perceived anomalies exhibited by
mainstream feminism, particularly in its inability to address the cultural specificities out of which
African Feminism is theorised. Also the project of theorising this literary phenomenon has not gone
far beyond the issue of naming. This leads to argue that the debate on theorising this type of literature
has made it evident that the notion of “Africanity” manifests itself in the development of an African
Feminist theory in the post colonial era.
The failure of Western feminism seems then clear, in that the western philosophy of
questioning the African woman issues proved unsatisfactory. This is undoubtedly owing to the
differences holding in between both black and white issues in feminism. Among those female
African writers who deal with the woman’s issues, there is Flora Nwapa, who was joined by Buchi
Emecheta and Adaora in the mid 1970s, and in the 1980s Ifeoma Okoye and Zaynab Alkabi, Calixthe
Beyala and others. Their endeavour converge towards the position African women writers take vis-àvis feminism, in so far as it sketches essentially violence, alienation and exploitation of the African
woman and enhances the collective consciousness of the Africans.
The end of the eighties and the beginning of the nineties, a period during which the
Cameroonian Calixthe Beyala had given birth to her novels, was a period of literary production in
postcolonial Africa both qualitatively and quantitatively. According to her, all facets of society as well
as order have to be conventional before considering them to be correct. On the other hand, she judges
that this situation cannot continue since it is irregular and asymmetrical and most often punitive of
women for the simple reason that the male domination of all aspects of life in the society still exists
despite the endeavours to enhance changes.
2
Stiwanism is coined by Ogundip Leslie. An acronym of (STIWA: Social Transformation Including Women in Africa.
This term was coined by Alice walker to refer to African women.
4
Emphasizing the Africanity of feminism.
3
14
Not only is Beyala a prolific writer, but she is also one of the most successful women writers in
Africa. In her novels C’est le soleil qui m’a brûlée (1987), Tu t’appeleras Tanga (1988), Seul le
diable le savait (1990), Le Petit prince de Belleville (1992), and Maman a un amant (1993) , Assèze
l’Africaine (1994), Les Honneurs perdus (1996), Femme nue femme noire (2003), La Plantation
(2005), L'homme qui m'offrait le ciel (2007) or even in Le Roman de Pauline (2009), she intensely
provides answers to questions asked about women all over the world and showing her commitment to
women’s universal cause, and she unveils the very significance of the female body, in terms of a
woman’s self awareness. She evokes, more widely, the question of the “self” and the “other”, “home”
and “displacement”, “integration” and “alienation”. She endeavours to draw attention to factors
affecting, in reality, cultural change both at “home” and “abroad”. Her question, over representation
and exclusion, gender and sexuality as well as differences of both geographical and social space,
remains overtly opened. Beyala as any African woman writer, at home or abroad, is “undoubtedly”
crucial broker between the western and the African opinion of feminism.
Specifically, Beyala’s writings offer an original perspective on the manner in which society
attempts to influence women’s conception of the female body and identity, and her narratives propose
unique, if somewhat radical responses to the situation women find themselves in, in traditional
African society. Obviously, this keen interest in the lives of women and children put Beyala in direct
contrast to the pioneers of the Cameroonian literary consciousness at the dawn of independence in
1972. This is certainly why Philombe Bjornson, a populist revolutionary figure, believes that a “writer
can best address problems of universal human concern by speaking to his own people and on their
behalf” (148).
Beyala’s novels focus is on portrayal of the African woman’s issues as a human being who
suffers from being deprived the right of existing, unfortunately, in a postcolonial context (post
colonial Africa). Her protagonists, in general, are microcosms of all the human beings: (African and
15
non-African), (males and females), (blacks and non-blacks), (Christians and non-Christians),
(intellectuals and non-intellectuals). Beyala has, in reality, modeled her characters in her likeness.
Through the variety of characters, the author tries to get deep inside the social strata of a world full of
misery and injustice made by human being himself, in order not to say just males. She evocates the
violence exercised by men and sometimes by women against women and the exploitation of women
and children through prostitution. Calixthe Beyala does not lament the situation of her female
characters, but seems to have given a certain deal of importance to the pleasure a woman might have
found in sexual acts. The latter, Beyala has demonstrated, is a form of expression; it is another way of
expressing oneself; a way of saying I do exist. Therefore, the existential question is an important
point in Beyala’s works, and it is given a crucial of importance. This explains, perhaps, why sexuality
from a Beyalean perspective is likely to be different and even particular to her.
Here, the Cameroonian writer Calixthe Beyala conceives of the notion of women’s bodies as
sites of resistance. In reality, Beyala’s thesis is based on the idea that certain individual women’s
choices and activities regarding their bodies are linked to power and the resistance of that power in a
social world, or as Luce Irigaray says, “the female body does not remain an object of men’s discourse,
nor their many arts, but it becomes the principle for a female subjectivity that is experienced and
chosen by women” (2000: 68). The bodies, conceptualized as sites of resistance, then become for
women, either individually or in groups, ways through which they challenge the ideologies that
perpetuate the unequal power distribution or the way power is implemented in a society.
In postcolonial Africa, likewise the African women writers, Calixthe Beyala’s task is to reveal
reality and exorcise minds, especially that feminist literary criticism has boosted up women writings
to become conspicuously a very specific literary field of study; it is, undoubtedly, how and why
Beyala has become widely read.
16
The main concern of this thesis is to make clear some “new perceptions” of the African
female to underline personal or collective identities that might be viewed as social constructions
with no basis of givenness in any anthropological essence and, most importantly, to examine African
societies from a Beyalean perspective, with a small emphasis on the Cameroonian society and, the
female body that is considered an empty space, because Beyala’s writing interest was women, and
her motive for writing was to correct the disparaged image of women in male-authored novels. Her
starting point is the grass-roots where her women characters are situated in the village environment
with its masculine supremacy and dominance, and where gender roles and relationships were strictly
circumscribed by norms and tradition. In this sense, and in a very specific Beyalean perspective,
many questions could be set forward; questions which, actually, deserve a thorough scrutiny.
1.
What is Beyala’s position, as a feminist African writer, since the novelistic creation
oscillates between imagination and reality?
2.
Do social order and patriarchy have an intrinsic nexus with gender in the lives of
women?
3.
Can woman’s identity be seen as a process of global social, cultural and political
struggle for hegemony among individuals?
To answer these questions, I see it necessary to entitle my thesis the feminist Impulse in
Beyala’s writings: an existentialist overviewing. Although Calixthe Beyala cannot – alone- represent
the diversity of the African woman’s view, yet her writings, in so far as I deal with in this thesis, will
allow me to state, at least, a wider vision of her efforts in bringing together women’s visions all over
the world regardless of their divergence.
One should not deny the reality that many people have read Beyala, and have written about
her. Therefore, the question of woman and the theme of woman’s rights in the writings of the target
17
writer as well as her faculty in communicating her vision through her written novels and essays is not
something new or original. Among those who have realized a work on Beyala, I mention those who
consider the cause of Beyala as a Black African cause, and ask the Balck élite to defend the human
rights and to struggle courageously to conquer the human degnity. They find that the Balck man has
to be conscious of his situation and to be responsible for his engagement. They, as well, praise the
action of revolt as being the very adequate form of expressing the self and of getting control over
their actual situations. Many research papers have been realized in this sense: Magala Muzazi’s, Le
féminisme dans C’est le soleil qui m’a brûlée de Calixthe Beyala, in (2000), Kambale Mutsindwa’s,
Assèze, l’Africaine de Calixthe Beyala: Approche stylistique, in (2005), Lumpemepe Misenga’s,
Calixthe Beyala: Héritage et dépassement de Kourouma dans les techniques romanesques à travers
Les Arbres en parlent encore, in (2005), etc. Also In Question de droits de la femme et son discours
dans Tu t’appelleras Tanga de Calixthe Beyala (2008), Donatien Mazambi, in a very sytematic way,
treats the question of woman, a part of the human constellation, and her rights as a human being.
Also there is Ohlmann, Sinanga Judith (2006) who, in La femme chez Calixte Beyala et Lopès:
objectivation et sublimation du corps, says that:
Beyala, en revanche, semble faire de ses personnages féminins des outils de honte,
de dénigrement. Elle matérialise l'être humain pour dire le mal de vivre, pour
peindre les maux de la société. Cependant, quoique procédant de manière
différente — Beyala empruntant le chemin de l'objectivation du corps et Lopes celui
de la sublimation —, le but visé semble être le même chez ces deux auteurs: la
libération de la femme africaine5.
5
Judith Sinanga Ohlmann « La femme chez Calixthe Beyala et Henri Lopes : Objectivation et sublimation du corps »,
Nouvelles Etudes Francophones, Vol.21, No.1, Printemps 2006,
http://www.jstor.org/discover/10.2307/25701951?uid=7469448&uid=3738016&uid=2129&uid=2&uid=70&uid=3&uid=
40048&uid=67&uid=62&uid=5909928&sid=21101828045363 ( retriever the 27th of Mrach, 2013
18
Therefore, the general objective of my thesis concerns is the ways in which Beyala’s feminist
tendency breaks out new ways of writing about the subject of woman: she eradicates the concept of
stereotype woman, destroys the notion of geo-cultural differences, brings a new approach to the
study of social relations, suggests alternative social schema to the one that is basically determined in
terms of ideological difference, introduces a new model of woman called the universal woman,
instead of “African” or “Black” woman and more importantly provides a new idea about sexuality
and religion. Because, like many other researchers, Kuosmanen, Vanamo shows, in La liberté de la
femme dans cinq œuvres de Calixthe Beyala (2010)6, that Beyala deals with sexuality and male as if
they were synonyms and they talk about religions, culture and tradition in a very transitive way. So
deciding for one’s sexuality is a very necessary condition for liberty. Therefore women, who are
unable to decide for their sexual acts, are not fully free. Most often it is the family or the husband
who decides for the nature of the sexual relationship and for the woman’s sexuality and for the extent
to which the latter (woman) can expose her sexuality, for instance, in public. She says:
Selon Obioma Nnaemeka, spécialiste des études de la femme et des études
afroaméricaines, les femmes écrivaines en Afrique font souvent une distinction
claire entre l’amour et l’amitié, l’amour et la relation sexuelle entre les hommes et
les femmes dans le mariage et hors de celui-ci, et l’amitié fortifiante entre les
femmes, aussi dans les mariages polygames. (Ibid : 11)
Shirley Ardener (1978) explains that affection and passion are rarely shown in Africa because of
religion and that for women, sex is most often accepted only to satisfy their husbands or to get
children (31). Moreover, Vanamo Kuosmanen adds that:
L’Islam comprend des règles qui ordonnent comment il faut vivre pour être un bon
musulman.Un stéréotype sur l’Islam est aussi que c’est une religion violente, à
6
[https://jyx.jyu.fi/dspace/bitstream/handle/123456789/23282/URN:NBN:fi:jyu-201004281606.pdf?sequence=1]
retrieved the 26th of March, 2013),
19
cause du terrorisme. L’Islam est aussi connu comme religion où la position des
femmes est inférieure à celle des hommes (Op.cit :46 )
In addition to the objectives, I have mentioned above, an explanation and interpretations to these
allegations as far as religion in general is concerned, seem important, because the target religion for
Beyala, in her novel Tu t’appelleras Tanga, is not only Islam, but all the monotheist religions; I am
not pretending that what both Vanamo Kuosmanen and Shirley Ardener have said is wrong in a
time they themselves have referred to Beyala’s works to provide this interpretation which remains
always personal, yet I, hereby, try to account for sexuality in so far as it is linked to culture,
traditions and religion. These points are considered as a plat form whereby I have started thinking of
other new interpretaions to the human relationships in the writings of Calixthe Beyala, and provide a
different view based, obviously, on my own understanding and reading of Beyala’s works, and a
different conception of religion and of ideological confession in so far as it is linked to both men and
women; this conception which, I do not pretend exact or convincing for some people, must have
been certainly existing but only occulted owing, perhaps, to the lack of mastery of religious readings
and understandings. This very opinion urged me, in a sense, to be more objective in reading Beyala
and to frame my work and contextualize Beyala’s works by reference to some theories such the
postcolonial theory and the feminist theory. Therefore, it saw prerequisite to arrange my ideas and
my discussion under four major headings which are as follows.
Chapter one, entitled Postcolonial Theory and the dialectics of change, is devoted to a
discussion of the theoretical and critical writings on the intersection between Post colonialism and
modernism as well as culture and literature. It, therefore, serves as the theoretical basis for the rest of
the thesis. Beginning with feminism and identity in a postcolonial context, and postcolonial theories,
I discuss the issues of cultural identity and the perception of the feminist principles as well as
women’s different positions.
20
Chapter two, entitled Rewriting African Women: African Feminists’ Insertion in Postcolonial
Context, is rather an attempt to expose the state of the African woman who has long been relegated
to the position of "Other"; it shows woman’s effort to get logical and thoughtful answers to some
questions in an absurd world controlled by man’s senseless acts.
Chapter three, entitled Effective African women: Beyala’s journey towards Feminist writing
materialization, in which l examine gender differences and provides possible alternatives to the
"difference" which is unfortunately conceived as "unequal”. One will be introduced to the question
of woman’s eternal value; one will be acquainted to a new literary discourse, a feminist discourse
which puts an end to allegations, and which triumphs over males discourse via tone. It suggests also
new readings of the human social relations in a world, alas, dominated by chauvinism, bigotry,
intolerance, etc.
Chapter four, entitled The Unrevealed thoughts of a woman writer: New way to the social
arena of the time, is rather devoted to a new reading of Beyala’s novels. A philosophical reading
through which I try to underline the essence of the human being and the question of the self, in so far
as it is linked, in the works of Beyala, to theory of self awareness. I consider chapter four as a
recapitulative chapter because it reproduces almost all the ideas dealt with in the previous chapters.
Writing a thesis on Beyala (a woman writer) is not something new because so many critics
and researcher have done it before in different places in the world. Stating the point of view remains
a personal matte, because myself, I have my own reasons, and thus my own reading and
interpretations of her works. I believe, a very important personal motive is that people in our society
think that because one is either teaching or studying the subject of African literature in the
department of English that he/she is supposed to deal just with Anglophone African literature. It is
wrong since African literature does not only concern Black, Sub-Saharan, and/or Anglophone
21
African literature, but concerns the whole continent. As a teacher of African literature, I decided first
to deal, in my class, with African literature as one body, obviously considering the racial and the
linguistic difference, and secondly to make concrete this belief through writing a thesis on
Francophone woman writer and not compulsory Anglophone.
Sure, it could be worth being to select any African literary work that deals with the African
woman‫׳‬s issues written by either man or woman because of the belief that men and women are the
same, and that what is dealt with by the African authors being ‘Black’ or ‘ White’, from the ‘North’
or from ‘Sub-Sahara’, ‘Francophone’ or ‘non-Francophone’, seems to a great extent essential if it is
to be looked at as being a Western fashion and not as an African tradition. I choose a woman writer,
because the active role the African woman has played in public life, as well as her participation in
political affairs have radically changed the African society in the way that it helped both emancipated
man and women to germinate within themselves a sense of dignity and consciousness of,
respectively, their duties and rights.
In this case, my choice of Beyala is not only based on an eager desire for her geo-cultural and
linguistic difference, but, as I have previously mentioned, I believe she has broken out new ground in
terms of the way she deals with theme of woman discrimination. Although Beyala’s themes are not
new, sexuality, in her novels, is not translated as being a mere sexual satisfaction, but rather as a selfaffirmation. The selection of both the author and “some of her novels” is, however, dictated by the
fact that Beyala has, in my mind, well expressed the issues associated with the question of woman all
over the world, no matter what would be the geo-cultural difference, and no matter what would be
confessional dimension. Beyala, considering her overall historical significance, is also one of the
female francophone writers from Sub-Saharan Africa who are counted among the most important
francophone African authors of all time; those authors who gave much importance to the questions of
22
hybridity (racial, ethnic and cultural), plurality (multilingual/cultural societies), the failures of the
post-colonial state, as well as caste, class and gender issues.
To read her novels and being able to bring something, I do not pretend, new or very original,
and because of the connotation I have come by when reading Beyala’s novels, and also because of
the semantic loads the textual elements essentially bear, I decided useful to make appeal to different
theories and thus approaches, because theories, in general, informs methodology and therefore, the
questions I have already set about Beyala’s novels will determine which tools I am supposed to use
so as to analyze her novels. I believe theories in general can be defined as sets of elaborate, ordered
and consistent categories which facilitate the systematic exploration and explanation of phenomena
in a given study area; they can help me identify small and often minute facets of the novels in
question and also help me analyze them and communicate my findings to others. In reality there is no
reading of and no thinking about texts, in general, without theory7
Psychological and psychoanalytical approaches, feminist approaches as well as the reader
oriented approach are very important in this study, because my reading process of Beyala’s novels is
considered from psychological, psychoanalytical and even socio-analytical points of view. I also
want to highlight the differences between Beyala’s writings from other males’ in terms of style,
topics and structures. More importantly is that I think that feminist approaches have opened up to
more general gender studies where gender roles and gendered perspectives in literary texts come
under closer scrutiny.
Reading Beyala from a feminist orientation is dealing with the subject matters dealt with by
this author who appears, through the novels I have so far consulted, to be well informed by a critical
7
For more explanation, see : Basics of English Studies: An Introductory Course for Students in Literary Studies,
Developed at the English Department of English of the Universities of Tübingen, Stuttgart and Freiburg, by Stefanie
Lethbridge & Jarmila Mildorf. Pdf document, http://www2.anglistik.uni-reiburg.de/intranet/englishbasics/PDF/Prose.pdf,
retrieved September, the 6th 2010
23
analysis of her position in society as a woman; what is imminent, at least in the novels I have read, is
what Maitland Sara shows to be the identification (of character, language, concern, imagery or
concept); identification is with oneself, when “oneself” cannot be separated from ”being a feminist”,
and where, there is some agreement that this is not a private hankering, but is the feeling of other
“selves” who are also feminist selves (1979: 204). I am compelled to fill gaps or blanks while reading
Beyala’s texts and contribute to the construction of their meaning; there are certain points that
deserve being given a deal of importance, especially that she is an ideologically oriented female
writer, and that , me as a reader, I have another ideology completely different. Here, it is significant
to point out the importance the process that occurs in the act of reading; Robert.C Holubs states that:
“The literary work is neither completely text nor completely the subjectivity of the reader, but a
combination or merger of the two” (1984: 84).
As a male reader, I am not forcibly neutral, impersonal interactive machine but an entity
encumbered with all the baggage of daily life, likes and dislikes, prejudices, histories, other reading
experiences, various knowledge, gaps of knowledge needs, aspirations, etc, somewhere within all this
will be the experience of a sexed body, as sexual identity and socialization in which gender plays an
important part. In short, I, as a reader, am a highly complex individual. One therefore, has to resist
any simplistic view that men and women read with fixed group identities and that the way women
read utterly debates in reading theory-feminist or otherwise- is the belief that the reader plays a crucial
and active role in the production of meaning: I am not merely a passive recipient of ideas and
imaginative projections created by the author, because Wolfgang Iser argues that the reader’s
involvement coincides with meaning production in literature (1974: ix); he keeps on saying that:
…the literary work cannot be completely identical with the text, or with the
realization of the text [by the reader], but in fact must lie halfway between the two.
The work is more than the text, for the text only takes on life when it is realized, and
furthermore the realization is by no means independent of the individual disposition
24
of the reader…The convergence of text and reader brings the literary work into
existence, and this convergence can never be precisely pinpointed, but must always
remain virtual, as it is not to be identified either with the reality of the text or with
the individual disposition of the reader (Ibid: 274-5)
Albeit the gender is important in the construction of the reader and of the reading process, and
although the reading of a woman remains to a great extent different from a reading of a man, I have to
underline that a feminist reading is not compulsory produced by a woman, or linked imperatively with
the experience of being a woman.
It is true that “any text may be said to presuppose an “Ideal” reader who has the particular
attitudes (moral, culture, etc) appropriate to that text in order for it to achieve its full effect” (Chris
Baldick, 1990: 108), yet, in my case, I can neither read the text as a woman (state of being a woman)
nor even like a woman (the way a woman does), for, simply, I am not a woman. This point raised
many critical views over my feminist reading of Calixthe Beyala’s novels, but I believe as long as I
am conscious of the tradition of woman oppression in patriarchal system, I kept on defending my
conviction and developing my subject in question, backing my choice of reading and justifying my
argument by referring to Robin R.Warhol and Diane Price Herndl who argued that:
Feminist reading, then, would be the perception and processing of texts by a
reader who is conceived of not only as possible female, but also as conscious of the
tradition of women’s oppression in patriarchal culture. The feminist readerwhether in fact male or female is committed to breaking the pattern of that pattern
of that oppression by calling attention to the ways some texts can perpetuate it
(1991: 489).
In reality I am called just to be feminist reader, conscious of woman oppression, but I do not really
need to have a personal experience of that oppression.
25
It is not really effortless to write a Doctorate thesis on feminism and being too overt in my
presentation of the facts as they appear in Beyala’s novels because of the subjective interpretation
people may have; talking about sexual acts, providing pornographic portraits or even providing an
objective personnel point of view as far as these portraits are concerned might be itself a taboo in my
culture; I do not expect the readers or even some examiners to accept easily certain provided portraits
though they are essential to the understanding of my analysis. Another point which deserves also
being underlined is the difficulty I found during the writing process. Sometimes, I feel like confusing
between French and English: if you find some French words within an English syntagma - not the
words spelt in French and put between inverted comas, but the words that make part of an English
sentence- it is because the first hand works are all written in French, and that I am called to read in
French. It is not really easy to read in a language (French) and produce in another language (English).
Indeed, I could have chosen the translated version of the novels such as the Tu t’appelleras Tanga (in
English, Your Name Shall be Tanga), or C’est le soleil qui m’a brûlée (in English, The Sun Hath
Looked Upon Me), but because of methodological question, my supervisors asked me to choose the
French version because Beyala’s novels are not all translated8 into English; I can not work on just
two novels in English and the rest of the novels I have worked on (more than six) are in French.
If my work is so limited, it is that because I did not want to widen my corpus; Beyala is still
alive and if I keep on working on all the novels she writes and edits, then I would have never finished
with. This why I chosen C'est le soleil qui m'a brûlée (1987,) Tu t’appelleras Tanga (1988), Seul le
diable le savait (1990), Le Petit prince de Belleville(1992), Maman a un amant (1993) and Assèze
The translator of Beyala’s novels is Marjolijn de Jager. She was born in Indonesia, raised in the Netherlands, and has
been living in the US since 1958. She is a literary translator from French and Dutch to English, with a special interest in
francophone African and Middle Eastern women writers. She has been awarded several NEH grants, a NEA translation
grant, and is a Silver Winner of Foreword Magazine’s Book of the Year Award (2007). She is retired from a 30-year
career of teaching French language and literature, as well as literary translation at NYU, where she continues to teach
Dutch and French language.
8
26
l'Africainev(1994). In the thesis, I have not imited my reading to the above mentioned novel, because
the nature of the subject I deal with requires from a wide reading. You my find, therefore, in addition
to the already mentioned novels, other essays and novels written by Beyala. I used to have a fifth
chapter which deals with l’Homme qui m’offrait le ciel (2007) and Le Roman de Pauline (2009); it
was rather about the re-adaptation of Beyala’s characters to the social norms and standards in a
modern society, but I have removed it by dint of time and exhaustion, and it will make certainly a
good subject of publication.
It is also important to say that it was difficult to find a consistent relevant bibliography, here in
Algeria, to realize an acceptable work; yet the easy access to French libraries helped me a lot in
reshaping my subject and providing the appropriate reading I was looking for. Another point which is
important is the “females’ testimony” ; I found difficulties to convince Algerian ladies to state frankly
their point of view about their situation as women in Algeria, and when they accepted, they refused to
mention their names, and confined themselves to the writing of age and region however. Yet for the
foreigners, I mean the friends I have abroad, in the USA or in France or even in Turkey, they have
shown no objection to mention down their names and the place where they come from or live in. I
have put their points of view in the Annex 3 without making any modification or correction to give a
certain authenticity to these women’s authentications, even those written in Arabic; I have preferred
scanning/photocopying them and joint them to the others.
Another interesting point which really deserves being mentioned is that I seized the
opportunity to meet Calixthe Beyala’s Friend, the Cameroonian famous singer Beko Sadey, in
January 2010, after getting in touch with her via Facebook and having her as a friend; she did not
hesitate a single iota to accept meeting me in Paris; she accepted because I informed her about my
subject which concerns her closest friend Calixthe Beyala, and also because she is a feminist.
Another important thing is that on Saturday the 2nd of March 2013, I have succeeded to get in touch
27
with Calixthe Beyala on Facebook; we had an on line graphical interview (see Annex 4) in which she
has not only welcomed my initiative but even my questions; another point is that I had the chance to
attend a conference entitled Comment définir l’être humain by Albert Jacquard in Privas, Ardèche
Departement, “salle du champ de Mars”, on Friday 21st of March 2007 at 20h30; I had the
opportunity to talk to him personally and have a close debate about the human value and the concept
of liberty and of human existence by reference to religions. This helped me a lot in developing a
philosophical critical apparatus.
28
Chapter One
Post Colonial Theory and the Dialectics of
Change
Introduction
1. 1. Feminism and Identity in a Postcolonial Context
I. 1. 1. Postcolonial theory
I. 2. The Issue of Cultural Identity between Hybridity and Originality
I. 3. Culture: The Component of both Individual and Societal Progress.
I. 4. Controversial Perception of Feminist Principles
I. 4. 1. Women’s Movement: Reactions to Gender Discrimination
I. 4. 2. The Feminists’ Echoes
I. 4. 3. Intersectionality and miscellaneous black feminist views
Conclusion
Introduction
Colonialism, for better or worse, provoked social, cultural, economic and political changes
and thus change is a prevalent theme in postcolonial literature9. Cultural change had been inevitable.
Indigenous and foreigners had constantly changed by colonialism and reciprocal influence with other
cultural ideals. The colonized had to struggle with the new culture and all of its beliefs, values and
customs that had inevitably become assimilated in their own lives. But, it is more than a question of
people adjusting to changes, it involves the relationship between the changed and the changer, the
one and the other, for it is a discourse of oppositionality which colonialism generates as Ashcroft
explains (1995).
At the very heart of post colonialism resides essentially the lasting effects of unconscious
assimilation, sometimes purposefully imposed through education by the colonizers upon the
colonized people. The latter has to evaluate the extent to which the change brings benefits notably,
self-sufficiency through education, advanced medical technology, increased trade and economy, and
evils such as a complete disintegration of a whole system of original culture and of cultural values
Besides, the gradual unrest of the former colonies from the second half of the twentieth century
towards independence, the emerging political self-determination and cultural self-esteem of previous
colonies produced a plethora of so–called new literature. Though postcolonial writers were imitating
the Europeans, their literature remains rather a self-conscious literature of otherness and of resistance.
Cultural critics raised many questions over the changes brought about by post colonialism including
established concepts of cultural authority and self-identity.
Postcolonial literature seems to label that literature written by authors living in former
colonies. Yet, it also denotes works written after colonization, i.e., after independence. It would be
9
Wole Soynka in Aké-The years of Childhood (1986) pays much attention to the word change which is a key term in the
autobiography's overall theme work. It figures with great emphasis, printed in capital block letters, and plays a great role
in themes on the subject of death, religion, tradition, individual self fulfillment, gender issues and the politics of
independence. However, in Anthils of Savannah (1987), Achebe's message which states that postcolonialism as a
recognized need for progress, seems clear: cultural growth is the true hope of a post colonial future.
31
necessary to say that postcolonial literature has emerged after the end of colonization in the fifties
and the sixties of the past century. It comes out as a reaction against what is known as "colonialist
literature". The latter is created to illustrate the superiority of the European culture, and the relation
between the colonizer and the colonized owing to the former's perspective, in which he portrays the
colonized as primitive and sub-human (Boehmer, 1995: 03).
The colonialists distorted the image of the colonized in that they used to represent the
colonized as "secondary, object, weak, feminine and other to Europe, and in particular to England"
(Ibid: 80). These features have, unfortunately, participated in subliming the image of the colonial
power. Therefore, postcolonial literature works on reconstructing the image of the colonized after
centuries of misrepresenting it by colonialist writers. Again the postcolonial critic Boehmer defines
postcolonial literature as being a platform to give a voice to the voiceless, the colonized, after the end
of the colonial context. She adds that postcolonial literature is a tool "to resist the colonialist
perspective" and to be a "part of that process of overhaul", the process that includes "a reshaping of
dominant meanings" (Op- cit). Another prominent postcolonial scholar, M. Keith Booker, defines
postcolonial literature as the literature that is “produced by writers from nations that achieved
independence from European rule in the major wave of decolonization that occurred after World War
II, a designation that would apply primarily to African, Caribbean, and certain Asian literature.”
(2003: 222)
In The Empire Writes Back, Bill Ashcroft, Gareth Griffiths and Hellen Tiffin describe
postcolonial literature as a literature that " covers the culture affected by the imperial process from
the moment of colonization to the present day" (1989 :02). They highlight the mission of postcolonial
literature as "the broad movement of resistance and transformation to colonial societies" (Ibid: 184).
Booker, again, considers postcolonial literature as "the collective term used to indicate the literature
produced by writers from nations that were formerly the colonies of European imperial
powers."(Op.cit.)
32
I.1. Feminism and Identity in a Postcolonial Context
I. 1. 1. Postcolonial theory
The dimension Imperialism/colonialism was shown by Frantz Fanon in his book entitled The
Wretched of the Earth (1961), in putting an accent on the situation of the colonized people in Algeria.
But one can get the beginnings of an analysis of Imperialism as devastating effects on the dominated
subjects and their cultures:
Analysis of the cultural dimension of colonialism/imperialism is as old as the
struggle against it; such work has been a staple of anti-colonial movements
everywhere. It entered the agenda of metropolitan intellectuals and academics as a
reflex of a new consciousness attendant on Indian in dependence (1947) and as
part of a general leftist orientation to the ‘Third-World’ struggles (above all in
Algeria) from the 1950s onwards. (Selden et al 1997: 221)
Undoubtedly, the most famous theorician in this field of interest is the Palestinian Edward
Said who, in his book Orientalism (1978), examines the image of the other in so far as it was made or
built by the Orientalists throughout many generations. The function of this other is to be the negative
side of all the positive characteristics of the white western man. The Arab is therefore narrow
minded, lazy, savage, etc.
England considered itself as the powerful, military, economic and academic center of the
British Empire the colonized natives was submitted to the “authority of the observer, and of
European geographical centrality to hold a secondary racial, cultural, anthropological status” (Said,
1994: 70). The tyranny of the native cultures of the colonized territories kept the centrality and
superiority of the British culture; that culture was one which included imperial and colonial ideology
and encouraged “canonical inclusion and exclusion”. Such canons, shaped by “reading practices and
33
individual and community assumption” (Aschroft, 1989: 189) affirm British imperial primacy over
marginalized distorted representations of colonized cultures and individual natives.
The ‘Postcolonial’ is a concept which is far from being definitional. Despite the problems and
restrictions or limitations in terminology, this notion may be defined with issues attached to it for a
more complete understanding. Such a term which may have its roots in Western language, is used
customarily to apply to a recent phenomenon that has passed (post) to a period that usually supposes
French, British, Spanish and Portogueese physical departure from former colonies in Africa or Asia.
Does the concept in this case substitute basically the cognate terms of commonwealth and
Third World? It is a transmutation that deserves being mentioned. And does it induce a kind of
uncertainty as to what it denotes exactly? If Post colonialism is a tool for investigating, mainly
through literature, what rises when two cultures clash, based upon one culture’s assumption of its
superiority, then what does the concept post-colonial literature include? Is it a literature written by
people living in countries formerly colonized by the leading nations, or a new literature completely
different? To answer those questions, it would be wise to refer again to Ashcroft, Griffiths and Tiffin.
Justin K. Bisanswa shows that these three critics in the very beginning of their book published in 1989
define the postcolonial literatures. He says that: “l’expression ‘postcolonial literatures’ désigne tous
ces textes nés après la période coloniale” (2009: 42); he adds: “on peut comprendre l’incidence de la
période coloniale sur la période d’après les indépendances. Ce qui invalide la pertinence de toute
classification fondée sur des périodes historiques” (Ibid). Their book, Justin K. Bisanswa underlines:
“concerne, de leur propre aveu, les littératures des peuples anciennement colonisés par la GrandeBretagne, la France, le Portugal et l’Espagne” (Ibid).
Ashcroft and the others seem to have enhanced the semantic content of the term “postcolonial” which covers, according to them, all the cultures which have been affected by the imperial
34
process since colonization up to now. They, moreover, enumerate these literatures which belong to the
category of post-colonial: literature of Africa, Australia, Bengladesh, Canada, Malta, the West Indies,
India, Malasia, New Zealand, Pakistn and Singapor. They write that literature of the USA and of
Canada could, however, make part of this set. But, for the situation of the USA and Canada, Justin K.
Bisanswa says that: “peut-être, précisent-ils, à la suite de leur position actuelle de super puissances, et
du rôle de décolonisation qu’ils ont joué, leur nature post-coloniale n’est plus reconnue” (Ibid). One
understands in this stance that the domination or categorization is relevant to both economical and
political considerations rather than strictly and purely literary ones. It is however, the naming ‘Third
World literatures’ which they have found strictly limited and derogatory. It is this fact which admits
the nature and the economic criteria determining the categorization. They must have observed the
continuity of the preoccupations through historical process started by imperial aggression, and
examined its effects on contemporary literatures.
These theorists have mentioned the characteristics which might have brought together these
different literatures. They view Language as one of the major elements in that it is seen as an
inevitable condition of alienation; since pre-colonial culture and period were done with by conquest
and slavery, language remains so until it is substituted or simply adopted by the reader. Moreover, the
obsessive fear from the centre makes another characteristic. Finally the idea that of post colonial
theory was an alternative to the failure of the European theories to take, as it should, into charge the
complexity and the miscellaneous cultures emerging from the postcolonial literatures. According to
them the common themes between the postcolonial literatures is the resistance to imperialism of the
centre, the connection between colonizer-colonized, exile, etc.
Although postcolonial studies originate in Western "culture", they have more appeal to nonWestern writers both inside and outside the Western world. Some of those famous non-Western
writers are, inevitably, African writers. The postcolonial African writers have been, and currently are,
35
engaging a major intervention in counter discursive and revisionist projects impacting the academic
world since the fifties. Grasping the multiple coordinates of their intense investigations, deliberations,
and debates underlying their literary productions involves an equally challenging, often
overwhelming, but increasingly gratifying task. The central principle of their works is postcoloniality
as it is reflected in their literary achievements (prose fiction, poetry, and drama). They are major,
minor, and emerging writers from diverse countries of Africa, including Representative North and
South African writers and, sometimes, writers of the Indian Diaspora born in Africa, both male and
female, Anglophone and Francophone. They, almost all, share the experience and consciousness of
postcoloniality, such as concerns with the issues of emerging identities in the postcolonial climate,
neocolonialism and new forms of oppression, cultural and political hegemonies, neoelitism, language
appropriation, economic instability, or the politics of publication and distribution, on his or her artistic
imagination. Among those postcolonial African writers: Chinua Achebe, Taybe Saleh, Ama Ata
Aidoo, Zaynab Alkali, T.M.Aluko, Ayi Kwei Armah, Kofi Awoonor, Mariama Bâ, Calixthe Bayala,
Driss Chraïbi, David Mandessi Diop, Assia Djebar, Buchi Emecheta, Aminata Sow Fall, Nadine
Gordimer, Tahar Ben Jelloun, Mohammed Khaïr-Eddine, Ungulani Ba Ka Khosa, Alex La Guma,
Camara Laye, Doris Lessing, Muthoni Likimani, Dambudzo Marechera, Micere M. Githae Mugo,
Ngugi wa Thiong'o, Flora Nwapa, Gabriel Okara, Christopher Ifeanyichukwu Okigbo, Ben Okri,
Ferdinand Oyono, Alan Paton, Jean-Joseph Rabearivelo, Tijan Sallah, Leïla Sebbar, Léopold Sédar
Senghor, Wole Soyinka, Amos Tutuola, to mention just a few,
Almost all these writers discuss the impact of colonization on colonized people during the
period of colonization after independence. They use literature as a tool to fight against the tyranny
that the colonizer practiced on the colonized. Postcolonial writings aim to prove that the colonized
have history and tradition, which defy the colonizers' claim that the colonized people do not have
36
cultural identities that distinguish them. Boehmer describes the mission of the postcolonial and
nationalist writers through their works. She says:
Indian, African, and Caribbean nationalist writers focused on reconstituting from
the position of their historical, racial, or metaphysical difference a cultural identity
which had been damaged by the colonial experience. The need was for roots,
origins, founding myths and ancestors national form others and – fathers: in short,
for a restorative history. (Op-cit: 185-6)
Therefore, post-colonial African literature is regarded as a means to represent and give a voice
to the African in a post-colonial context, since the African society, as any society, is flexible and,
therefore, it is been subject to change. One may wonder why?
It would be important to show that pre-colonial African literature was not to answer the
African's questions over the self. It includes the oral literary traditions of Africa. Oral literature (or
orature), including songs, poems, and folk tales, was used to entertain children and to pass on histories
through generations. Storytellers in Africa sometimes use call-and-response techniques to tell their
stories, while praise singers called "griots" would tell their stories with music.
One alleges that the failure of colonial African literature is recognizable because the African
did not have to expect a lot from the one-dimensional anti-colonial literary view (political view), for
Colonial African literature is written during the colonization of Africa. The time of colonial literature
formulates the themes of this period, in which, declares Gikandi, the African writers deal with the
themes such as theme of liberation, Independence, and Négritude such as Senegal and Leopold
Senghor (2003 : 12-13).
The1950s and 1960s was the period of the African nations’ liberation, therefore, African
literature "celebrates the coming of a new African nation and the assertion of a new culture and
37
identity" (Ibid: XI). African writers wrote in Western languages, notably English and French, and in
native languages. The African postcolonial writers deal with remarkable literary themes such as the
encounter between the traditional and Western cultures, cultural identity, corruption problems, the
economic disparities in newly independent countries, the rights and roles of women. Here, one may
allude to the most important postcolonial term which is Neocolonialism, a term coined by Nkrumah,
the first President of independent Ghana. He explains that Neocolonialism is "more insidious and
more difficult to detect and resist than the older overt colonialism"; it also indicates the gloomy
economic and cultural conditions that the colonies suffered and are still suffering after the colonial
military troop's withdrawal (Ashcroft et al, 1998: 162-3).
Colonialism did, in fact, provoke a change among the Africans themselves and thus enhanced
changes in prevalent literary themes10 in post colonial literature.11 Cultural change is unavoidable.
Indigenous and foreign people had constantly been changed by colonialism and reciprocal influence
with other cultural ideals. The colonized people had to struggle with the new culture and all of its
beliefs, values and customs that had inevitably become assimilated in their own lives. In reality, it is
more than a question of a people adjusting to changes; it involves the relationship between the author
10
The concerns of the African fiction are reflected in the following:
- Novels portraying the initial exposure to the westr; Achebe' Things fall Apart and Ngugi's The River Between
- Novels concerned with the problem of adaptation to western education; L'aventure Ambiguë, by Cheikh
Hamidou Kane.
- Novels of urbanization best typified by Cyprian Ekwensi's lagos novels
- Novels concerned with the problem of politics or national building, either prior to independence or in a post –
independent situation; Peter Abraham's A wrath of Udomo and Achebe's A Man of the People.
- Novels concerned with more individualized life style, with a growing emphasis on the individual and his
relationship towards a group froim which he has become estranged; Armah's Fragments and Ezekiel Mphahlele
'sTthe wanderers (Ch.larson, 1978: 114)
11
Wole Soyinka in Aké-The Years of Childhood (1986) pays much to the word change which is a key term in
autobiography’s overall theme work. It figures with great emphasis, printed in capital block letters, and plays a great role
in themes on the subjects of death, religion, tradition, individual self-fulfilment, gender issues and the politics of
independence.Vera, in Nehanda (1993) illustrates this perspective that success derives from resistance to change, i.e., precolonial culture cannot be eradicated; it must persist, if the people are to survive.
But in Achebe’s Anthills of the Savannah (1987), the message which states that post colonialism as a recognized need for
progress, seems clear: Culture growth is the true hope of a post colonial future .
38
of change and the undergoer of this change, the one and the other, for it is a discourse of
compositionality which colonialism generates (Ibid, 1995).
In fact, the concept post-colonial is applied to the stakes that follows colonization. In practice,
it is much loosely used; it is not only the period after the departure of the imperial power but also that
before independence. It is claimed that most former colonies are far from being free of colonial
influence or domination and thus, cannot be post-colonial in any genuine sense. (They are still
colonized countries under foreign control). In all of these senses, the post-colonial, rather than
indicating a specific historical event, seems to describe the second half of the twentieth century in
general as a period in the aftermath of the heyday of colonialism. Moreover, the term is used to mean
a position against imperialism12and Eurocentrism13, and evokes a combination of diverse range of
cultures, experiences and problems. It could, however, be argued that the resultant confusion is
predictable and the key issues range from (post-) feminism14 and post-colonialism, to the body and
performance, to identity and ethnicity, to language and history.
12
Imperialism is the policy of forcefully extending a nation's authority by territorial gain or by the establishment of
economic and political dominance over other nations. (see: http://www.allwords.com/word-imperialism.html); Also
Imperialism is the highest stage of capitalism according to those of us following Lenin and his book by the title of
"Imperialism: The Highest Stage of Capitalism."
Imperialism is characterized by monopoly corporations and the compulsion to export capital abroad (for higher profits).
Unlike capitalism in earlier stages, in the imperialist stage, capitalism has no more progress to bring the world, only the
continuous threat of extinction through world war and environmental catastrophe. Historically, the term before Lenin
often referred to colonialism (the direct rule of other countries by a mother country) or conquest of other countries. Lenin
also meant for the term to continue that connotation. According to Lenin, the countries with the highest stage of
capitalism (imperialist countries of Europe and North Amerika) would periodically re-divide the world through world
war. World War today is only the political extension of the economics of competition inherent within capitalism. (see:
http://www.etext.org/Politics/MIM/faq/imperialism.html
13
Centered or focused on Europe or European peoples, especially in relation to historical or cultural influence. (see:
http://www.thefreedictionary.com/Eurocentrism). Also centered on Europe or the Europeans ; especially : reflecting a
tendency to interpret the world in terms of western and especially European or Anglo-American values and experiences.
(see: http://aolsvc.merriam-webster.aol.com/dictionary/eurocentrism )
14
I will not discuss and deal here with the first generation feminists pioneers among whom Virginia Woolf and Simone
de Beauvoir are to be mentioned (see for example Selden et al, 1997). The focus would be rather on the division between
the feminists of the second generation and the post modern feminists.
Centered or focused on Europe or European peoples, especially in relation to historical or cultural influence
39
Bill Ashcroft, Gareth Griffiths and Helen Tiffin show post-colonialism to be linked to the
colonial experience. In The Post-Colonial Studies Reader (1995), they affirm:
Post-colonial theory involves discussion about experience of various kinds:
migration, slavery, suppression, resistance, representation, difference, race,
gender, place, and responses to the influential master discourses of imperial
Europe such as history, philosophy and linguistics, and the fundamental
experiences of speaking and writing by which all these come into being. None of
these is “essentially” post-colonial, but together they form the complex fabric of
the field. Like the description of any other field the term has come to mean many
things, as the range of extracts in this reader indicates. However we would argue
that post-colonial studies are based in the historical fact of European colonialism,
and the diverse material effects to which this phenomenon gave rise. (Op.cit: 1989:
02)
In his book entitled Beginning Postcolonialism (2000), John Mcleod defined Postcolonialism by
assimilating this term to a set of texts dealing in a literary context with the following subjects:
Very basically, and in a literary context, postcolonialism involves one or more of
the following: reading texts produced by writers from countries with a history of
colonialism, primarily those texts concerned with the working and legacy of
colonialism in either the past or the present. Reading texts produced by those that
have migrated from countries with a history of colonialism or those descended from
migrant families which deal in the main with Diaspora experience and its many
consequences. In the light of theories of colonial discourses, re-reading texts
produced during colonialism; both those that directly address the experiences of
Empire, and those that seem not to. (Mcleod: 33)
The definition supplied by Mcleod joins a prodigious the one supplied by the other three
critics; their definitions of colonialism do converge in that the central element of human anxiety is
“the colonial experience”. Yet it is noticed that they limit the scope of postcolonialism to literature.
40
It is of utmost significance to underline that postcolonialism goes beyond the literary field to cover as
well history and philosophy. John Mcleod attributes essentially three characteristics to
postcolonialisation: this movement consists in

Texts dealing with Colonial heritage.

Texts produced by a Diaspora that had been undergoing colonization in the past.

Texts inciting a rereading or the questioning of all the theses advanced by the colonial
ideology as a sort of justification and legitimization of imperialist.
One has to talk as well about Leela Gandhi (1998) who provides another definition of
postcolonialism. For her, it is a discipline that assigns itself as objective; the reflection over the past
of the nations that have been subject to colonial occupation. Gandhi establishes a distinction between
the postcolonialism and postcoloniality. The former refers to the theory whose object is to project a
retrospective look on the past of the countries touched by colonization and to make of the colonial
discourse and the ideology of domination that lag behind it very critical. The latter, postcoloniality,
refers to a condition, to a state of being. This condition is linked to realities which are concretely
lived and experienced by peoples who had undergone colonial occupation in the past.
Postcolonialism is, therefore, seen as object to conceptualize and to think on the one hand over the
past and on the other hand over the sequels left by this historical fact on the political, cultural, social
and economic life of the countries in question. So Leela Gandhi explains:
The theory may be named postcolonialism, and the condition it addresses is best
conveyed through the notion of ‘postcoloniality’. And, whatever the controversy
surrounding the theory, its value must be judged in terms of its adequacy to
conceptualise the complex condition which attends the aftermath of colonial
occupation. (1998: 04)
She adds:
41
In response, postcolonialism can be seen as a theoretical resistance to the
mystifying amnesia of the colonial aftermath. It is a disciplinary project devoted to
the academics task of revisiting, remembering and, crucially, interrogating the
colonial past. The process of returning to the colonial scene discloses a
relationship of reciprocal antagonism and desire between coloniser and colonized.
(Ibid)
Postcolonialism takes into consideration three historical periods: the pre-colonial, colonial and
the post colonial one. In other terms the origin, the causes as well as the consequences engendered by
the colonial fact are all examined. Postcoloniality refers to a very actual situation, to situations which
are empirically lived by given populations. Another aspect of postcolonialism is presented by Ato
Quayson (2000). This one anchors postcolonialism as well in empirical reality of the ancient colonial
subjects. He affirms:
A possible working definition for postcolonialism is that it involves a studied
engagement with the experience of colonialism and its past and present effects,
both at the local level of ex-colonial societies as well at the level of more general
global developments thought to be the after-effects of empire. (2000: 02)
Ato Quayson15 joins Gandhi in the sense that he excludes postcolonialism as movement from the
abstraction in which it could be confined, especially when it is assimilated to a university /academic
discipline. This movement could not only be limited to reflections or debates imported in some
American or European universities and raised by intellectuals from the third world nations. For it is
overtly underlined by Ato Quayson that postcolonialism is subscribed in the furrows dictated by the
15
Ato Quayson is Professor of English and Director of the Centre for Diaspora and Transnational Studies at the
University of Toronto, where he has been since August 2005. Prof Quayson has published widely on African literature,
postcolonial studies and in literary theory. Some of his publications are: Strategic Transformations in Nigerian Writing,
Oxford and Bloomington: James Currey and Indiana University Press, 1997, Postcolonialism: Theory, Practice or
Process? Oxford: Blackwell, 2000, with (Tejumola Olaniyan) African Literature: An Anthology of Theory and Criticism,
Blackwell, 2007, etc
42
movements of decolonisation. These movements are initiated by activist intellectuals such as Frantz
Fanon, or Albert Memmi.
Among the factors which consider the object of postcolonialism further beyond the mere
academic university discussion, there exists the affiliation to postcolonial ideas, which deals with
decolonization. In fact, as it was argued through the supplied definitions, this stream of ideas is seen
to be concerned essentially by the effects on given individuals; effects of a specifically politicohistorical act that is in fact nothing but colonization..
Now, these effects have an influence on the concrete aspects of life of these individuals in
question. Precisely, these aspects lead to cultural, political and linguistic perception of themselves.
Moreover, if the term postcolonialism has come about, as certain intellectuals affirm, in correlation
with poststructuralism or postmodernism, and if these different movements are mutually influenced
to formulate their establishing idea, the reality that covers again the term is far from being given
birth in neither American nor even European Universities.
Consequently, the central questions that could be generally associated to this movement are not
exclusively dealt with by intellectuals whose names are synonymously used with the term
postcolonialism. These questions represent subject of reflection raised by intellectuals who do not
only live outside America, but as well and specially have –perhaps- never heard about the term
postcolonialism in the value generally attributed to, i.e., as a university discipline. This situation (the
very reality) makes the intellectuals (postcolonialist intellectuals) think to set forward adequate and
better strategies to reach and achieve a political, economic, cultural and linguistic independence
within the old colonies, or as well to turn to contemporary questions proceeding from the colonial
experience.
43
Furthermore, notion of hybridity, cosmopolitism, abrogation, appropriation or internationalism
(that flourish or abound in discourses generally associated to postcolonialism) do not figure in their
texts from the moment these intellectuals start treating problems engendered by colonial heritage;
they are subscribed automatically in the postcolonial movement, no matter what would be their
approach. That they praise nationalism, rehabilitation or remedy of traditional cultures, or that they
advocate an international, hybrid attitude, they are all postcolonialist intellectuals.
In reality, hybridity is an important concept in post-colonial theory, referring to the integration
or the mingling of cultural signs and practices from the colonizing and the colonized cultures
("integration" may be too orderly a word to represent the variety of stratagems, desperate or
cunning or good-willed, by which people adapt themselves to the necessities and the opportunities
of more or less oppressive or invasive cultural impositions, live into alien cultural patterns through
their own structures of understanding, thus producing something familiar but new). The
assimilation and adaptation of cultural practices, the cross-fertilization of cultures, can be seen as
positive, enriching, and dynamic, as well as, as oppressive16
However, it would be undoubtedly more important to underline the danger that may raise to
conceive postcolonialism as being the only relevant force leading to all the literary or artistic
production from countries whose history is marked by colonization. Such vision of things would
define the field of interest of writers or intellectuals belonging to the countries in question as being a
description of colonization's after-effects. What about those who are not subscribed under this
heading then? Are they less native for the simple reason that the ideas associated to this movement
do not really figure in their writings? In parallel to the literary approaches gravitating around the past
colonial experience and its ramifications on the present of given population, could it not exist
from Dr. John Lye’s General Literary Theory, copy right 1997, 1998
http://www.brocku.ca/english/courses/4F70/postcol.php (taken: January, the 3rd ? 2011°
16
44
literary movements that are far from all postcolonial preoccupation? In this perspective, can a griot
that praise and sing the deeds of a very ancient king be subscribed in the postcolonialist movement?
Do the preoccupations linked to this movement influence him? If the answer is negative, then is this
to argue that the griote belongs less to these ancient colonized countries? And will his literature be,
to some extent, less representative and less relevant to the literature from those countries?
To this effect, the critic Aijaz Ahmed in his book entitled Theory: Class, nations, Literatures
has underlined the same danger of enclosure and of generalization in some comments mentioned by
Frederick Jameson. (1992: 10-11). F. Jameson had affirmed that all the literatures of these countries
had been nationalist tales. Aijaz has shown the limits of such assertion relying on the socio-cultural,
historical and political diversity and particularity of those countries that Jameson intended to
uniform.
These meticulous details are very important in the present study, for I believe that some critics
have unfortunately reduced and limited this movement to the only intellectuals who treated the notions
of hybridity, and of multiculturalism and whose profile was only Anglophone teaching and residing in
Northern America. These critics have occulted the view that intellectuals who do not forcibly
correspond to the profile in question can deal with this issue (hybridity, multiculturalism) perfectly. In
fact, the danger that should be avoided in all the apprehension of reality that this term covers is
generalization.
In reality, the investigation of postcolonialism is not limited just to questions related to
multiculturalism and to hybridity. In fact, it is more than to be conceived as that; it touches the essence
of some questions related to feminine conditions within the postcolonial universe and scope.
Concretely, up to a recent date, the dominant postcolonial social and literary discourse has been a
discourse of man. Yet, this discourse will be questioned by women who feel marginalized.
45
The question that is raised over the relationship that might be holding between hybridity, and
woman’s situation, particularly the African woman’s, is substantially philosophical. African woman
appears to be the epitome of hybridity that stands bestride two worlds; her world as African woman
and the surrounding patriarchal and matriarchal world, and most of the time the world of man
Albeit, in general, when women meet in the global ground, they do not meet and appear as
equals, yet their sameness as well as their difference are key bound. The important thing beyond their
bound is that they are socially conscious of their oppression as a second level citizen, while the first
level citizen is man. This very situation urged the feminist writers to constantly ask themselves if this
issue deserves being studies as an essential subject matter in post colonial era? And they ask, as well,
whether they are sufficiently emancipated from social constraints and absolutely decolonized to
engage the subject matter meaningfully.
Another point seems of utmost significance which is that women and those peoples of different
origins, or those, most of the time, considered as natives, are minority groups who are irrationally
defined and disdained by the intrusive disturbing ‘male gaze' , which is one of the characteristics of
both patriarchy and colonialism. This is to say that both woman and native have been subject to
reduced stereotypes such as virgin, whore, savage, pagan, etc., and denied an identity by the system
that entraps them.
Any attempt to make a cut between feminist discourse and post colonial theories is rejected
for the simple reason that they are linked. Both fields have long been thought of as associative, even
complimentary, in that likewise imperialism, patriarchy is a phallocentric, supremacist ideology that
subjugates and dominates its subjects. In this sense, an oppressed woman is similar to a colonized
subject, and, essentially, exponents of post-colonialism are reacting against colonialism in the
political and economic sense; in the mean time, feminist theorists are rejecting colonialism as appears
46
in its sexual form and nature. In other words, both discourses are predominantly political and their
concern is about the struggle against oppression and injustice. Moreover, both of them reject the
established hierarchical, patriarchal systems, which are dominated by the hegemonic white man, and
vehemently reject the imposed and alleged supremacy of masculine over feminine power and
authority over subordination.
Here, women are relegated by the double position of ancient colonial subjects and of women.
Therefore, this situation will certainly provide one with another orientation to postcolonial movement
since cultural aspect is seen as an essential element in the very existence of conflicts between people
of different origins and between genders (males and females).
I.2.The Issue of Cultural Identity between Hybridity and Originality
The cultural identity, undoubtedly, belongs to the contingent order of realities. It would be
situated in the centre of a multiplicity of miscellaneous sources. All discourse, as the one of Senghor
(Negritude writer), aims at the description of either the black civilization or the black soul is
considered as essentialist17. One dares not talk about white or black civilization. For the overlap
between the two annihilates the frontiers and the limits of both: the point whereby one stars, and the
point where the other ends. Or as well how can one identify the properties of the two so-called
different civilizations, especially, when it is known that the indigenous society (culture) has been
subject to foreign erosion (Influence). That is how Hommi Bhabha, in his book entitled The Location
of Culture (1994), denies categorically the existence of a culture which is not only pure and
homogenous, but which can escape from all the foreign influences as well. According to him, every
17
the practice of regarding something (as a presumed human trait) as having innate existence or universal validity rather
than
as
being
a
social,
ideological,
or
intellectual
construct
(see :
http://www.merriamwebster.com/dictionary/essentialism )
47
culture is determined according to a space that he qualifies as a third space18. He further argues that
every act of linguistic enunciation, articulation or performance would be founded on the presence of
three discursive authorities: "hybridity", "third space", and "mimicry”. (1994: 77)
To be more involved in these controversial terms, it is appropriate to define such concepts:
"hybridity", "third space", and "mimicry" regarding to Bhabha’s understanding. "Hybridity" is one of
the most debatable and disputed terms in postcolonial discourse. The importance of "hybridity" and
"third space" come from carrying the burden and the meaning of "culture" as Bhabha illustrates (Ibid:
37). Moreover, he shows that it is almost impossible to get a pure culture for the simple reason that
the colonial presence is always ambivalent, split between its presence as original and authoritative
and its articulation as repetition and difference" (Ibid: 107). Thus, he suggests that hybridity is:
Colonial representation and individuation that reverses the effects of the colonialist
disawal, so that other 'denied' knowledges enter upon the dominant discourse and
estrange the basis of its authority -- its rule of recognition [. . .] This partializing
process of hybridity is best described as a metonymy of presence." (Ibid: 114-5)
Bhabha also comments on the concept of the "third space” by saying that it is a place where
two different cultures blend to create a new one. In fact this new culture is seen as a way for the
invention of a hybrid identity, whereby two groups conceive themselves to partake in a common
identity relating to shared space:
The non-synchronous temporality of global and national cultures opens up a
cultural space -- a third space--where the negotiation of incommensurable
differences creates a tension peculiar to borderline existences. . . Hybrid
hyphenisations emphasize the incommensurable elements as the basis of cultural
identities. (Ibid: 218)
18
Homi K. Bhabha reconstructs the philosophical, sociological, geographical, and political meaning of the theory of the
third space of enunciation with attention to the special advantages and ambiguities that arise as it is applied in practical-as well as theoretical--contexts. The idea of "third space" conceives the encounter of two distinct and unequal social
groups as taking place in a special third space of enunciation where culture is disseminated and displaced from the
interacting groups, making way for the invention of a hybrid identity, whereby these two groups conceive themselves to
partake in a common identity relating to shared space and common dialogue.
48
The encounter of two distinct and unequal social groups may intensify the clash of
civilizations within a given society, in that the great divisions among humankind and the dominating
source of conflict is cultural. Civilizations-the highest cultural groupings of people-are differentiated
from each other by religion, history, language and tradition. These divisions are deep and increasing
in importance. If the clash in a given society (African society) is between two natives, then Samuel P.
Huntington's hypothesis of the clash of civilizations that the cultural and religious identities are the
reasons behind the clash of civilizations rather than ideological and economic ones 19, is validated.
For, sometimes, two individuals from the same society, and/or closely linked may represent two
different cultures, i.e., a culture which represents the Western thought and another which represents
the traditional thought. Huntington observes:
in this new world the most pervasive, important, and dangerous conflicts will not
be between social classes, rich and poor, or other economically defined groups, but
between peoples belonging to different cultural entities. […] 'Cultural conflicts,'
Vaclav Havel has observed, 'are increasing and are more dangerous today than at
any time in history,' and Jacques Delors agreed that 'future conflicts will be
sparked by cultural factors rather than economics or ideology.' (1996: 28)
Huntington differentiates in his book between the word "civilizations" in the plural form and
the singular one. The word "civilizations" illustrates the idea that there are many "civilizations" and
there is not an ideal one (Ibid: 41). Huntington's view raises a series of questions which are related
essentially to colonial and post-colonial issues, given the great variety of cultures including
languages and religions in Africa. Increased exposure to foreign western culture may influence
cultural change existing identities of both women and men. Therefore change is perceived either as
unpleasant and threatening, provoking psychological discomfort and disturbance arising from cultural
19
See Samuel P. Huntington's book The Clash of Civilizations and the Remaking of World Order, 1996 :13
49
differences; or connected closely to freedom, it becomes an essential value term in the western
culture, leading force to enhance self-criticism and abstain from being close –minded criticism.
The analysis of culture requires criticism of the foreign and own cultural norms and standards
as a pre-requisite basis for a positive intercultural negotiation. If any form of acculturation is
conceived to be neo-colonial in nature as it results in enculturation, the loss of one's own culture is to
lead to the decay or annihilation of one's own traditional social order.
Since Identity is in fluctuation, individuals are then subject to different processes of
fragmentation and reconstruction which are absolutely in disagreement. It matters little if uprooting is
the result of voluntary immigration (Diaspora), because it entails experiences ranging from despair,
alienation, contestation to awareness and fulfillment. Either at home or abroad, the question of
hybridity is rather a complicated one. Particular subjectivities manage to enter the space of the other
through their physical or intellectual existence.
Representation is therefore a much debated topic in literature, i.e., a constructed image that
needs to be interrogated for its ideological content. Post-colonial writers try to challenge the status
quo representations as the latter act to reinforce systems of inequality and subordination. They
embody a cross-section of those who concern themselves with questions of essentialism and
authenticity. The expressions of cultures, the specific nature of the narrative identity in the fiction of
post-colonial or Diaspora African writers could be better understood by examining, to some extent,
the related conceptual apparatus, notably culture and post colonial literature.
The concept of culture is highly abstract. Anthropologically speaking, it aims at the
production of concepts and other elements that are universal, objective and theoretically significant.
For instance, anthropology, as a discipline, as compared to linguistics had developed very little
internationally agreed terminology. Any attempt a research may do to compare cultures could be only
50
appropriate tentative, as the conceptual framework does not yet exist to allow it to remain at all
definitive. In fact, behind such generalization lies the firm verity that there are the rival schools of
cultural anthropology20. Among them, the Functionalist school which suggests that each culture is a
unique reality and that cross cultural comparison does not make sense
Indeed, this might be a respectable theoretical position to hold. When one tries to translate a
target culture into the original one, he/she can neither avoid comparing the two cultures nor even help
judging how far such a translation has been successful. Hence one will find oneself ineluctably
predisposed towards those schools of anthropology which allow cross-cultural contrast at the level of
individual action, attitude and decision making. Such analysis in encouraged by the Configurationist
school. This school was founded by Ruth Benedict (1887-1948); she believes that cultural patterns,
configurations of a given society select particular character types out of the range of possible human
behavior that society encourages, while restraining opposite types.
20
a)-Functionalism -according to functionalists, all cultures are set up to deal with the universal problems that human
societies face (physical or psychological needs)
 -societies must have a set standard of laws and practices to provide stability. These are referred to as social
institutions
 -functionalists investigate the social function of institutions, i.e., what is the purpose? How are they run? Etc.
 -a fundamental belief is that society is a logical institution and functions in the best interest by the needs of the
majority
 -Culture then must be logical ----although a society’s practices may at first seem strange to the outsider,
functionalists believe that the role of anthropologists is to explain not judge
b)- Structuralism - The human mind functions on the principle of binary opposites
• Binary opposites – humans tend to see things in terms of 2 forces that are opposite to each other, such as night
and day, good and evil, male and female
• Everyone notes a difference between people born “here” and elsewhere, normal days and holy days, boys
clothing and girls clothing...
• Each culture has a logic to its view of binary opposites
• Anthropologists must seek out and explain the rule that tell us where/when items are good and where/when they
are bad
– Shoes are good outside, but bad on the table
Understanding how different cultures view binary opposites helps us understand the logic behind the culture
c)- Cultural Materialism - Technology and economic factors are important in moulding society
• Determinism – types of technology within a society determine the type of society that develops
• Founded by Marvin Harris in The Rise of Anthropological Theory
– Material factors are the starting point to understanding a society
– Material factors determine social structure (classes, distribution of wealth)
– Material factors determine the superstructure (music, recreation, arts)
• We must analyze society’s decisions regarding technology and economic reproduction
51
Benedict (1934) explains that, over the ages, each culture had developed a distinctive
psychological type or orientation towards reality called culture configuration and that this set
determines how its members see and process information from the environmental. Culture is
distinctive; it changes from one society to the other, as it plays a great role in structuring the social
actions of its members and it affects the way in which the mind functions and works. Yet, this state of
fact remains too simplistic, in that it is lacking a frame and a scale through which one can measure
his individual culture, in a time the universal cultural need obliges him to change his native culture.
In the paper entitled The Interrelationships of Individual, Cultural and Pan-human Values,
C.R. Welete shows that the authors locate values which are liked to culture; he says:
If cultural values are viewed as abstractions, their place in human motivation and
processes of cultural change will be misunderstood. If they are viewed as elements
of underlying cognitive structure, their importance becomes evident, but a full
analysis of the cultural processes we have reviewed is required to assess their
content and functions (George G. Haydu: 1979: 281)
This point seems to be in the very heart of the decision-making process since cultural values
are involved in cognition, emotion and connotation. Many thinkers have dealt with the link that exists
between culture and emotion. They have shown that culture is vital to emotions. Carl Ratner, in his
article entitled A Cultural-Psychological Analysis of Emotions, says that: “while socialization
inculcates socially sanctioned emotions, it is also the potential basis of creative thinking which can
analyze and alter emotions and the broader culture” (Culture and Psychology, 2000). Carl Ratner
backs his point by reference to L. S. Vygotsky who believed that “proper socialization stimulates the
development of thinking, creativity, and imagination” (Vygotsky, 1997b: 153). A. Schore enhances
this point because for him, “the cortex reflects social experience and thinking, it acts as the internal
representation of external human relationships in biologically regulating emotions and other
52
psychological processes (1998: 69). E. Armstrong concludes that: " In short, the cortex allows culture
to organize emotions (1999: 269-270). What could be mentioned is that culture as one of the
collective concepts could be explicable in psychological terms for F. Allan Hanson, in his article
entitled Meaning in Culture, says that:
If collective concepts like culture are merely abstractions from individual behavior,
then cultural phenomena ought ultimately to be explicable in psychological terms.
Such in the view of Melford Spiro who has argued the “culture heritage” does not
refer to anything that is not already covered by the term super-ego” (Spriro,
1951:36; George G. Haydu, 1979: 296)
The psychological basis of a culture resides in the aptitude to transcend what has been
learned, and as well resides in the capacity for change, reorganization and creativity. It is therefore
important to view culture as a vital element in human life in that it is seen as the essence of any social
development.
53
I. 3. Culture: The Component of both Individual and Societal Progress
Originally culture is a constructive force, yet it has now become disruptive to contemporary
society. Such a claim may sound dissenting, because in some social circles culture is generally
considered to be a unique and crowning characteristic of humanity. The question that might be raised
is about the extent to which culture could be seen as the component of both individual and social
progress.
Many debates have been held on the constructive role of culture in the human career has run
its course. Indeed, far from boosting further development and openness on the world differences,
culture has become an obstacle to the evolution of human society. The objective from any study to
culture is the establishment of proposition and the making of suggestions to the reasons why. One
may notice that one common manifestation of culture in contemporary society goes by the decidedly
unconstructive term "culture differences."
Culture differences explode and erupt, therefore, not just here and now, but in many times and
places. It appears that they are a systemic and universal component of ideological diversity,
whenever and wherever that occurs. This view is consistent with James Davidson Hunter, who
considers cultural conflict very simply as political and social hostility rooted in different systems of
moral understanding that has a character of ultimacy to these systems which are basic commitments
and beliefs which provide a source of identity, purpose, and togetherness for the people who live by
them. (1991)
Since society is an organized miscellaneous plurality of interacting individuals, therefore
culture is the sum total of all to the languages, beliefs, meanings, symbols, mores, and customs that
are shared by members of human groups. Both society and culture worked well together in the
conditions of pre-human and early-human social life. Many ethnographic accounts of hunting-and54
gathering peoples from Australia, Africa, and the Americas have described the marvelous variety of
their social and political organizations in terms of religious and magical beliefs, and knowledge as
well as folklore and mythology. But what deserve being given a mention, in this sense, is the “trouble
making” nature of culture mainly when an individual refuses to abide, by his culture including
traditions, beliefs and customs of society, into an ongoing conflict between him and the rest of other
individuals belonging to the same social group. In a time it is useless to break free from them. The
thing that makes one thinks this way is the nature of society itself. One may wonder how?
F. Allan Hanson explains that the cultural diversities are determined by the width of
societies: the more society becomes larger and internally complex, the more culture changes as well.
(Haydu. G. G: 1979) So a very large society, inevitably, brings a number of diverse subcultures into
close proximity, which is defined along any of a variety of lines, such as ethnicity, class, wealth,
religion, gender, sexual preference, etc; beneath such conditions, culture becomes more outwardlooking. It becomes a land-mark of identity owing to the regulating relations among its adherents
who are no more than people from different constituencies who define themselves in terms of the
distinctive cultural characteristics that classify them and set them apart, one from the other.
I believe this situation remains absurd and devastating in that individuals would certainly lack
the very languages and the shared concepts that are the essential element for communication,
interaction and thus cohabitation. This means simply that culture must open to the point where people
can gain critical understanding of and control over their cultural principles and concepts rather than
being held to them. To reach this very advanced stage in cultural diversity and to celebrate it, it
would be of paramount importance to recognize the common ground among the most basics of
cultural premises, and juxtapose and accept cultural differences in a rational way that may encourage
and boast the construction of new ideas and strategies. Yet, it is true that this cannot occur unless
55
individuals see differences as complementary elements and components instead of contradictory
principles.
I have to come back to say again that the very frustratingly vexatious side of culture is that it
is believed to be compulsory and unquestionably imposed upon individuals. George Simmel argues
in his essay entitled The Sociology of Sociability (1910), that: “The great problems placed before [the
ethnic forces of society as it is] are that the individual has to fit himself into a whole system and live
for it.” (Freud, 1948:01)
The problem arises when this system which is supposed to be protective demonstrates to the
individual that his life is but a means for the ends of the whole for culture, “assumed to be the
training development, and reinforcement of mind, tastes, and manners: the condition of being thus
trained and refined “ (OED: IV: 121), becomes the generator of absurdity, meaninglessness and
chaos in certain people’s lives; they are those people who choose rebellion and struggle to face those
generated effects of culture. It seems quite sound to refer to literary work to delineate this very fact
about culture and society since fiction is but representation of reality. This idea about fiction is well
clarified by Sir Francis Bacon who argues that fictions "give some shadow of satisfaction to the mind
... in those points wherein the nature of things both deny it” (1997: 96).
In this vein, several twentieth-century writers made great efforts to deal with the basis of
social solidarity. Through their works, in modern times, they question the classical notion of culture
integrity through unveiling the cultural similarity that constitutes human solidarity: societies with a
complex racial, sexual or religious divisions are held together by their internal differences: man
depends on woman and vice versa, the white (European) needs the black (native) in that the latter can
be a mediator between white and the autochthones, while the latter needs the European to discover
the modern world through studies for example, etc. This situation shows, however, that a common
56
culture could be possible. In this sense Emile Durkheim, in his classic The Division of Labor in
Society (1933), shows that the freedom and the autonomy, as well as the expression of individual are
determined by the nature of culture. According to him:
The more culture is closed, the more it limits the latitude and expression of
individual judgement that is released to develop when culture opens to the point
that people are not imprisoned by its tenets but can regard them disappassionately
and rationally consider alternatives, and that occurs primarily in the conditions of
regular contact between different societies and within large, culturally
heterogeneous societies (356-357)
To reach culture of human development it would be of paramount importance, however, to
bring together effort in order to shape the subsequent generations’ views and way of conduct,
because culture of human development finds expression as lifestyles to be actualized over the life
cycles of their participants. Erikson in this context uses the term "life-historical" as a synonym for
"developmental," with an emphasis on development as a living process rather than a matter of extent
or static degree. (1982: 96).
In this perspective, one has to underline that the last century witnessed many crises over the
modalities of independence which include self-reliance, as it was a cradle for the new emerging
philosophies over new foundations for culture of human development. In this case if human beings
all walk uniting in the movement for culture development and thus global justice and equality, then
the humanist movements remain paramount in transnational discourse for it is, certainly, the only
policy and, undeniably, the only way individuals can transform their world into a more human place,
and deal with global issues like equality, development, and peace. It is here where the reasonable and
right questions about power reside. This is as it cuts through race, gender, religion and social class,
and implies consciousness of all the sources of oppression and it resists all of them.
57
In the second millennium, the notion of feminism went beyond the agreed upon female
consideration and translation of social matters and gender relationships, in that both feminist men and
women have forged this interdependent relationship, as the power in question, the globalizing forces
of transnational corporations, cuts through race and class and, indeed, through gender as well. Sandra
Bartky argues that Feminist men are not simply compassionate sympathizers to the dilemma of
inequality that women and minorities face; they are also active participants in today’s model of
global feminism because “the imposition of male gender identity can be as painful and as shot
through with ambiguity and confusion as the imposition of feminine identity” (1998: xii)
Feminists are all too familiar with making paradigmatic shifts in practice to modernize
alongside development and social transformations as well as globalization, as they have, as a matter
of course, reacted to internationalism by using the very developments set up for exploitation to call
attention to the movement’s farther-reaching concerns.
The feminist writers were involved in “implicitly guaranteeing the overall coherence of each
of their major single-author manuscripts “Homogenization”, in this sense, means the allencompassing process whereby different individuals become similar and on equal footing no matter
what would be the sex, the race, or the religious belief. The representation of the “self” and of the
“other” is but the first step towards appropriation of a universal denunciating discourse of a
dominantly male field intended to promote classic patriarchy. Kevin Brownlee, as “the first
professional writer”, has challenged the notion that writing was a man’s pursuit and generated a
European wide readership for her groundbreaking feminist works (1995: 339). Another feminist
Mary Wollstonecraft, by her deconstructive theory of feminism, showed significant evolution, in that
globalization and the means for communication made her aware of a surprising number of
sympathetic men whose alignment with feminists broke down the archetype of the unwavering and
hardened man (1996). This push of feminist rethinking is evident in discourse by transnational
58
feminists, whose vision of transnational feminism builds on global networks of communication,
which bring about a ‘shifting of borders’ that allows for the emergence of transnational dialogues
between feminists all over the world.
What could be said thereafter is that feminism as a movement is so attentive to equal rights
for men and women of every race, nationhood, and economic background on a world scale, and that
women could have the right to get enough information to make informed choices about their lives. It
is very important to mention that some sort of allegiance between women and men is also an
important component of equality. After all, equality is a balance between the male and female with
the intention of liberating the individual, and thereafter, the female experience has to take on a
positive affirmation. The appearance of female Aesthetics is but an attempt to express a unique
female consciousness and a feminine tradition in literature and it is, undoubtedly, to celebrate an
intuitive female approach in the interpretation of texts written by women. In this case how could
women writers deal with the meaning of sexual difference which substantially makes the essence of
the patriarchal social and ideological mind in a time making cut between the imagination from a
socially, sexually, and historically positioned self seems impossible? In theories of feminism one can
deal with some negative posture of activist feminists21, and try as well to find an adequate answer to
this puzzling question
21
Feminist activism is often discussed as a series of "waves." The first generations of feminists were active and dedicated
abolitionists: Grimké sisters, Lucy Stone, Elizabeth cady Staton, Luvretia Mott, and Susan B. Anthony. This does not, of
course, imply that abolitionists were always remarkably sympathetic towards feminism. Frederick Douglass and Henry
Blackwell were, Garisson too; but plight of Lucy Stone is fairly typical-she was encouraged to speak on the rights of
balcks during weekends for larger crowds, but allowed to devote herself to the rights of women only on weekdays, lest
her spousal of latter detract from public support for the former. The Woman’s Movement in America was officially
inaugurated with the Seneca Falls convention of Jully 19 and 20, 1848. This meeting also grew out of abolition, for the
World Anti-Slavery Convention held in London in 1840.
( Kate Millett, 1970: 80)
59
I. 4. Controversial Perception of Feminist Principles
It is true that white society has historically oppressed black people, men have damaged the
environment, and women indeed have been silenced by native men, yet this does not mean that
everyone today is liable to inherit a simple identity or is personally guilty of everything his or her
predecessors did. In fact, critics are confronting a new dogma which sanctifies a reversal of privilege:
instead of the old privileges accompanying the status of "white" truth, righteousness, and automatic
justification in the world of African women's studies now reside with "women of color." But in the
compensation for past oppression, postcolonial African women writers cannot challenge or gainsay
the original version of reality because they believe that earthly justice cannot be won by means that
are themselves unjust, for justice must be pursued case by case.
To stress the self esteem, the African feminist writer did not mark her departure from the bad
old ways of "white patriarchal hegemony," but preferred to replicate to those ways, pure and simple:
Old forms, new contents. Feminism has, however, infused this new conception with a particular tone
of moral superiority. Likewise white working-class heterosexual, the black feminist activist writers
are likely to engage in rhetorical maneuvers that are rapidly acquiring the status of incantation. This
position may lead nowhere and do nothing, unfortunately, to change the world, and it certainly
carries the black feminists’ aura to self-righteousness. Like these Feminists are may be drawing
themselves in a maze when talking about identity politics, for they are going to lose the battle before
even taking the field as Ralph Ellison once said.
Albeit feminism has been wrought with and shaped by controversies and schisms since its
inception and foundation, its principles remain the elbowroom for dissension and the embrace of
open communication. The “second wave” feminist writers came to feminism as conscious
60
intellectuals, perhaps through a “personal experience”22 that converted them. Their stories are often
very different, but usually share the same themes. According to Dicker and Piepmeier, this wave
tended to focus on gaining full human rights for women: some of its central demands were equal
opportunities in employment and education, access to child care and abortion, the eradication of
violence against women, and the passage of the Equal Rights Amendment (2003: 09). But, how can
the young women of today23 be looked at and what is their position vis-à-vis feminism? They were
born into feminism with many different, and often seemingly contradictory, images24. I believe they
qualify and identify themselves as the "third wavers". For this wave, as Dicker and Piepmeier again
explain, represents a reinvigorated feminist movement emerging from a late twentieth-century world.
Many of the goals of the third wave are similar to those of the second wave, though some, such as its
insistence on women's diversity are new (Ibid: 10).
The success of the second wave of feminist writers resides in their great effort to overtake,
enforce, and reinstate legislation to prohibit social sex discrimination. They worked intensely so that
women could have free control over their bodies and access to full reproductive care. Their very
lesson is that work is never over. Nowadays all the feminists are in the trench together fighting to
remove the threats to these basic freedoms. In this orientation to talk about feminism in its general
conception is to talk about a diverse collection of social theories25, political movement and moral
philosophies, largely motivated by, or concerning, the experiences of women, especially in terms of
their social, political and economic situation. As a social movement, Feminism largely focuses on
22
Through personal experience some writers try to deal with woman. Calixthe Beyala is a very good example for herself
declared this on the French Tv channel Fr 3. "Interview de Calixthe Beyala ", Le Monde, Supplément TV, Dimanchelundi, October, the 25th , 1996
23
They called the woman of today simply they did not contributed in the concretization of feminist principles and they
did not see the different steps feminism has gone through to reach its present status; some learned feminism from the
media and others learned it from a teacher, read about it in a books, discovered it from a mothers , sisters or a friend, etc
24
The term "second wave" is used to describe the resurgence in feminist awareness and activism that occurred in the
1960s and 1970s; the term "third wave" feminism first appeared in 1992 in an essay by Rebecca Walker in Ms. magazine,
and was used to describe a new kind of feminism that was born out of the second wave but also adapted to the needs of a
new generation of feminists. Yet third wave feminism is not conceived as distinct entity or wave, for they are using
consciousness-raising in similar and different ways to how rhetorical scholars have defined consciousness-raising
25
Read the different theories of feminism ( Annex 2)
61
limiting or eradicating gender inequality and promoting woman‫׳‬s rights, interests, and issues in
society, but this does not in any case imply hating men or simply wanting to be just like them. This
situation has been always attributed to the feminists who have alternately accused of their hatred to
man. Feminists are in need of changes just to create a society where women can live a full and a selfdetermined life. They certainly do not wish they were men; what is noticeable throughout all feminist
writings is the assumption that these feminists celebrate their womanhood through the female voice.
Within Academia26, some feminists focus on documenting gender inequalities that oppress
women, changes in the social position and the positive representation of women. Some critics argue
that gender, and even sex, are social constructs, so they see it better to develop alternate models for
studying the social relations in order to avoid falling in the trap of discrimination.
Some feminist scholars have posited that the hierarchies in business and government and all
organizations need to be replaced with a decentralized ultra-democracy. Some argue that having any
central leader in any organization is derived from the endocentric family structure (and therefore
needs reform and replacement), and thus such scholars see the essence of feminism as beyond the
surface issues of sex and gender.
Feminist political activists commonly campaign on issues such as reproductive rights
(including, but not limited to, the right to choose an abortion, the elimination of legal restrictions on
abortion, and access to contraception), violence within domestic partnership, equal pay, sexual
harassment, discrimination, and sexual violence. Themes that are explored in feminism include
patriarchy, stereotyping, and oppression.
26
Academia is a collective term for the scientific and cultural community engaged in higher education and research, taken
as a whole. The word comes from the akademeia just outside ancient Athens, where the Gymnasium was made famous
by Plato as a center of learning.
62
I.4.1. Women’s Movement: Reactions to Gender Discrimination
To account for the organized feminist revolt, one has to go back to Britain in the early
nineteenth century, during which women had started questioning their fundamental roles in society.
Unhappy with their social status, they were determined to make their own ways in the world to be the
way they wished rather than what society had inclined upon them. In order to have a better
understanding of women’s quest for their identity, one should have a look at how society endorsed
discrimination against women.
The condition of women during the early Victorian era was indeed deplorable as women were
regarded no more than objects whose sole use was to indulge the whims of men. A woman was
regarded as being inferior to man in all aspects and was obliged to accept this lowly status from the
moment she was born. Martha Vicinus claims in her book Suffer and be Still: Women in the Victorian
Age (1972) that the role of women was wrought in simple terms, always in reference to man, his
demands and desires. (102)
During the Nineteenth century, the ideology of women adhered to strict rules; they were
obliged to display ideal characteristics and behaviors such as submission, sacrifice, silent resignation
and docility. John Stuart Mill27 in his criticism of the way society differentiated between the two
genders states:
The female sex was brought up from the very earliest years in the belief that their
ideal of character was the very opposite to that of men; not self-will, and
27
John Stuart Mill (20 May 1806 – 8 May 1873): British philosopher, economist, moral and political theorist, and
Member of Parliament, who was the most influential English-speaking philosopher of the nineteenth century. His views
are of continuing significance, and are generally recognized to be among the deepest and certainly the most effective
defenses of empiricism and of a liberal political view of society and culture. Among his most well-known works are: A
System of Logic, Principles of Political Economy, The Subjection of Women, and his Autobiography ( Microsoft Encarta
2005)
63
government by self control, but submission, and yielding to the control of others; to
make complete abnegation of themselves, and to have no life but in their affections.
(1869: 66)
Without a doubt then, women had no rights whatsoever in deciding for their fate. Rather, they
were regarded as passive creatures and every aspect of their lives was decided for them. “Woman in
the abstract was as radiant as an angel, as dainty as a fairy. She was a picture on the wall, a statue in a
temple, a being whose physical processes were an inscrutable mystery” (Wojtczak, 2002: 78).
Moreover, women were put under the pressure of social guidelines. Various manuals of
etiquette and conduct instructed young girls in manners of society and the home (Basch, 1974: 03).
These books stressed on the ideals of virtue and chastity. It was believed that as long as women
followed these guidelines they preserved their sobriety, modesty, propriety and conformity and most
certainly fulfilled their duty which was to sacrifice themselves for the sake of those around them even
if this was at the expense of their own happiness. As showed by Rev. E.J. Hardy in Manners Makyth
Man, (1887):
Sweetness is to woman what sugar is to fruit. It is her first business to be happy - a
sunbeam in the house, making others happy. True, she will often have "a tear in her
eye", but, like the bride of young Lochinvar, it must be accompanied with "a smile on
her lips." Girls and women are willing enough to be agreeable to men if they do not
happen to stand to them in the relation of father, brother, or husband; but it is not
every woman who remembers that her raison d'être is to give out pleasure to all as a
fire gives out heat.(http)28
Women had suffered under the burdens of social and cultural patriarchal laws for centuries,
but it was not long before they began to demand for equality. Women’s liberation and suffrage
28
http://www.victoriaspast.com
64
movements had commenced to emerge as a reaction to this social marginalization and women were
becoming more conscious for the need to revolt. This created a reaction among the female
constellation. As early as 1792, women were striving to obtain legal equality and to rectify the
wrongs done to them. In response to the continuous marginalization and oppression experienced by
them, women banded together in collective action which was later dubbed as the feminist movement.
The western Feminism discourse has began with women questioning their place in a
patriarchal society. “The control men had over women was examined and this established the ground
on which women stated their concerns about being subjugated to men” (Lerner, 1993:62). Hence,
feminist consciousness was initiated by women.
Feminism as used in scholarly circles has grown to have a multiplicity of meanings
depending on its implications for different schools of thought. Lerner articulates her beliefs of a
feminist consciousness:
I define feminist consciousness as the awareness of women that they belong to a
subordinate group; that they have suffered wrongs as a group; that their condition
of subordination is not natural, but is societally determined; that they must join
with other women to remedy these wrongs; and finally, that they must and can
provide an alternate vision of societal organization in which women as well as men
will enjoy autonomy and self determination.(1993: 14)
According to Freedman:
Feminism is a belief that women and men are inherently of equal worth. Because
most societies privilege men as a group, social movements are necessary to achieve
equality between women and men, with the understanding that gender always
intersects with other social hierarchies. (2002:07)
65
In this perspective, feminism is seen as a social, cultural and political movement, which involves
both women and men acting, speaking and writing on women’s issues, rights and identifying social
injustice to which women are subjected.
The publication of Mary Wollstonecraft’s book A Vindication of the Rights of Women in 1792
marked the starting point of the feminist movement still known at the time as the Women’s
Liberation Movement29 or Women’s Rights. In her book, Wollstonecraft drew attention to the state of
ignorance in which society kept woman and demanded for equality between the sexes. She
understood women and men to be equal in their humanity and believed that if women were not
properly educated men would also suffer (Wollstonecraft, 1994:102).
Initially, the Women’s Liberation Movement strove towards gaining equality. The quest for
the right to vote or suffrage remained the primary cause of the movement30. Melinda Tims (2002:
189) maintains that the first-wave of feminism was led by women who were called “suffragettes”.
They were mostly white, middle class women who were principally preoccupied with the right to
vote.
From the beginning of the nineteenth century, many women had campaigned for suffrage
forming several organizations and societies the first of which was the Sheffield Female Political
Association established in 1857. However, these associations did not gain much support until the
cause was taken up by John Stuart Mill, who was elected to parliament in 1865.
29
Women's Movement: A campaign to obtain political, social, and economic equality between women and men. Among
the equal rights campaigned for were control of personal property, equality of opportunity in education and employment,
equal suffrage (the right to vote), and equality of sexual freedom. Women’s rights movement, also known as feminism
and women's liberation, first discernibly arose in Europe in the late 18th century
30
The earliest form of feminism was concerned with women’s suffrage, i.e the right of women to share on equal terms
with men the political privileges afforded by representative government and, more particularly, to vote in elections and
referendums and to hold public office. Unlike second and third-wave feminists which concerned themselves with equal
pay; equal education and equal opportunities in work; financial and legal independence; free 24-hour nurseries; free
contraception and abortion on demand; a woman’s right to define her own sexuality and an end to discrimination against
lesbians; and freedom from violence and sexual coercion, first wave feminists concerned themselves primarily with
suffrage (Microsoft Encarta Encyclopaedia 2005
66
Later that year, Leigh Smith Bodichon, a prominent feminist, formed the first Women's
Suffrage Committee and soon many other committees were established throughout the country.
Members began collecting signatures for petition in support of female suffrage to parliament which
was indeed presented to parliament in 1866 by John Stuart Mill. Despite the fact that his amendment
was rejected in an all male parliament, after events were to show that this was the beginning not the
end of the struggle.
In 1869, John Stuart Mill published The Subjection of Women31 which also played a
considerable contribution to the movement. It was one of the nineteenth century's strongest pleas for
opening to women opportunities for suffrage, education and employment. Mill believed that the only
way to establish moral and intellectual development of mankind was to allow both men and women
to vote with the exception being barbarians and uneducated people. John Stuart Mill declared in the
Subjection of Women that “Under whatever conditions, and within whatever limits, men are admitted
to the suffrage, there is not a shadow of justification for not admitting women under the same” (2008:
66)32
Although the fight for women’s suffrage was the fundamental aim of the movement, many
other issues were opening up as battlegrounds including marital and property rights, education rights,
and domestic violence. However, it was doubtful how influential these campaigns were, other than
creating awareness and causing debate these campaigns showed little signs of victory and were
continuously defeated in parliament. Nevertheless, women benefited from this political experience
and became more determined to continue the struggle.
31
The Subjection of Women (1869): An essay written by John Stuart Mill in 1869, possibly jointly with his wife Harriet
Taylor Mill, stating an argument in favour of equality between the sexes. At the time it was published, this essay was an
affront to European conventional norms of views on stature of men and women.
32
Republished in 2008 by forgotten books.
67
By the end of the century, women’s demands were finally met. In 1882, the Women’s
Property Act was passed granting women control over their property and wages upon marriage. Other
successes included the accession of women in the government’s 1870 Education Act and the right for
women over the age of 21 to vote which was eventually passed in 1928.
In the 1960s and 1970s, much of Feminism and Feminist theory was concerned with
problems faced by western, white, and middle-class women while claiming to represent all women.
Since then, many Feminist theorists have challenged the assumption that women constitute a
homogenous group of individuals with identical interests. Feminist activists emerged from within
diverse communities, and Feminists theorists began to focus on the intersection between gender and
sexuality with other social identities, such as race and class.
Many Feminists today argue that Feminism is a grass-root movement that seeks to cross
boundaries based on social class, race, culture, and religion. It is culturally specific and addresses
issues relevant to the woman of that society (for example, female genital cutting in Africa), and
debate the extent to which certain issues, such as rape, incest, and mothering, are universal. One of
the most serious implications of feminism is violence against women and children. Violence against
women and children, physical, emotional, and/or sexual is a product of the social construction of
masculinity, which often condones male dominance over women, and this was the point that many
feminist departs from in their claims. In African literature, male writers attempted in most their
literary works to restrict the African woman’s role as it was already restricted in reality so they did
not bring something new the reason why many African women writers come to the floor to give the
woman her share in being positively included in African literature. Among the African female writers
who deal with such issues, there is Flora Nwapa, Buchi Emecheta, Ama Ata Aidoo, Susan Andrade,
Chandra Mhanty, Susan Gubar, Calixthe Bayala and others.
68
I.4.2. The Feminists’ Echo
Feminists have struggled to overcome power-based barriers throughout the movement‫׳‬s
history, including women‫׳‬s suffrage; broad employment for women at more equitable wages; the
right to initiate divorce proceedings; the right to keep children from their fathers, the right to obtain
safe abortion; the right to not allow men to face a woman who accuses them of rape.
But it is worth mentioning that feminism is a pro-choice movement33, although there are
some exceptions. The National Organization Feminists for Life, for instance, condemns the act of
abortion, claiming that the reason that abortion is so common is because women do not have access
to alternate resources and information.
Feminism has had a great effect on many aspects of religion. In liberal branches of
Protestant Christianity, women are ordained as clergy, and in Reform, Conservative and
Reconstructionist Judaism34, women are ordained as rabbis35 and cantors36. Within these Christian
and Jewish groups women have gradually become more nearly equal to men by equal obtaining
positions of power, their perspectives are now sought in developing new statements of belief. In
Islam women have historically contributed to all aspects of Islamic life, from religious edicts to aid
on the battlefield. Large portions of the sayings of the prophet Mohamed-peace be upon him- are
taken from his wife Aisha, whom men often consulted on religious matters. In this day, one will often
see many women scholars on Arabic satellite Television answering Islam-related questions, asked by
both genders. The leadership of women in religious matters has also resisted within Roman
33
Pro-choice is a common self-description used by people who believe that women should have the legal right to have an
abortion, or that one should be able to choose on issues relating to the life or death of themselves or any part of their
body.
34
Reconstructionist Judaism is a movement of Judaism with a relatively liberal set of beliefs.
35
Rabbis are Jewish religious leaders.
36
Cantors are persons who lead the singing in a synagogue.
69
Catholicism. Roman Catholicism has historically excluded women from entering priesthood and
other positions in clergy, allowing women to hold positions as nuns or as laypeople.
Feminism also had an important role in embracing new forms of religious like Neopagan37
religions that tend to emphasize the importance of Goddess spirituality. Opponents of feminism claim
that women‫׳‬s quest for external power to affect other people‫׳‬s ethics and values, has left a vacuum in
the area of moral training, where women formerly held sway. Some feminists reply that the
education, including the moral education, of children has never been, and should not be, seen as the
exclusive responsibility of women. Paradoxically, it is also held by others that the moral education of
children at home in the form of home schooling is itself a women‫׳‬s movement.
Feminists argue that language directly affects perception of reality. Thus in most cases they
advance their desired use of language either to promote what they claim is an equal and respectful
treatment of women or to affect the tone of political discourse. This can be seen as a move to change
language which has been viewed by some feminists as imbued with sexism. One example is the case
with English language in which the word for general pronoun is he or his are replaced by she ∕he and
her ∕his. Another example is the ironic use of the term her story instead of history and humanity
instead of mankind.38
The Feminists movements have certainly affected the nature of heterosexual39
relationships in many societies. Therefore, in some of these relationships there has been a change in
the power relationship between men and women. In these circumstances, women and men have to
37
Neo-Paganism is any of a heterogeneous group of new religious movements, particularly those influenced by ancient,
primarily pre-Christian and sometimes pre-Judaic religions. Often these are Indo-European in origin, but with a growing
component inspired by other religions indigenous to Europe, such as Finno-Ugric, as well as other parts of the world. As
the name implies, these religions are Pagan in nature, though their exact relationship to older forms of Paganism is the
source of much contention.
38
This so change in concepts are a clear reference to feminism. The possessive pronouns are given a deal of importance
to the point whereby the word itself starts taking another signification. The reference is rather to woman more than man
in that they stress the women’s existence even in language.
39
Heterosexuality is the scientific name for sexual attraction and/or sexual behaviour between animals of the opposite
characteristic sex, or "being straight". It is the fifth element of the classic quinto-modal continuum of sexual orientation,
which consists of asexuality, autosexuality, homosexuality, bisexuality, and heterosexuality. Some theorists extend the
continuum to include such concepts as "allosexuality", but these have not yet been accepted by the academic community
as actual sexual orientations
70
adapt to a relatively new situation, sometimes causing confusions about role and identity. Women
can now avail themselves to more new opportunities, but they have suffered with balancing their
career and family. So many socialist feminists, in response to a family issue, have advocated that men
should partake in the responsibility in managing family matter, including child care and domestic
responsibilities.
There have been changes also in attitudes towards sexual morality and behaviour:
women are then more in control of their bodies, and are able to express sex with more freedom than
was previously socially accepted for them. This sexual revolution that women were then able to
experience was seen as positive as it enable women and men to experience sex in a free and equal
manner. However, some feminists felt that the result of the sexual revolution were beneficial for men.
I.4. 3. Intersectionality and Miscellaneous Black Feminist Views
Intersectionality has recently become prominent in critical literature, while feminist
attention to intersections is not a new phenomenon. To consider the mutually constitutive relations
among social identities, or the interaction of multiple identities and experiences of exclusion and
subordination, is to turn, in a way, to the central tenet of feminist thinking. In his article entitled The
Complexity of Intersectionality (2005), McCall shows that the intersectionality perspective further
reveals that the individual’s social identities profoundly influence one’s beliefs and experience,
respectively, about and of gender. Consequently, feminists have come to the idea that the individual’s
social location - presented in the scope of intersecting identities so far as- must be a priority in any
investigation of gender. This is, may be, why Collins, in his book Black feminist thought: Knowledge,
consciousness, and the politics of empowerment (2000), stresses that particular gender must be
understood in the context of power relations embedded in social identities. But if the phenomenon of
intersectionality could be seen as the notion that social identities and social inequality, based on
71
ethnicity, sexual orientation, sex/gender, are interdependent and mutually constitutive, then how can
black feminist writers respond to this phenomenon?
Undoubtedly, the different strategies for responding to the phenomenon of intersectionality
could be seen through the different ways and dimensions that form the “matrix of domination”,
which are woven together to shape Black women’s social, political and economic lives that Patricia
Hill Collins mentions as follows:
(1) A structural dimension (i.e., how social institutions are organized to reproduce Black women’s
subordination over time) (Ibid: 277)
(2) A disciplinary dimension, which highlights the role of the state and other institutions that rely on
bureaucracy and surveillance to regulate inequalities;
(3) A hegemonic dimension, which deals with ideology, culture and consciousness; and
(4) an interpersonal dimension, the “level of everyday social interaction” (Ibid).
What could be deduced from Collin’s matrix of domination is that intersectionality includes,
effectively, attention to historical and cultural dimensions in addition to other structural dimensions
such as, textual, discursive and institutional, which shape and curve the intersection of race and
gender among other social phenomena. In short, the different dimensions, ineluctably, shape
everyday life. The feminists’ efforts converge, and on, almost, a quite similar tone, but within
different social context and thus different perceptive, social views fight for the liberation and the
eradication of domination. Feminism, as liberation struggle, Bell Hooks40 argues, must exist apart
from and as a part of the larger struggle to eradicate domination in all its forms (1989: 22)
40
Bell Hooks is distinguished Professor of English at City College in New York. She Born in Hopkinsville, Kentucky in
1952. Although Hooks is mainly known as a feminist thinker, her writings cover a broad range of topics on gender, race,
teaching and the significance of media for contemporary culture.
72
An African woman living in Africa is seen differently from a European woman or even an
Africa woman living in Europe or elsewhere (outside Africa), because the succession of crises41, in
Africa, have, unfortunately, affected negatively women’s life and created pitiful living conditions for
women. This reality has created divergent opinions as far as social and literary criticism is concerned.
In Africa, women’s movement reached maturity from a very special dynamic than in the West; it was
influenced and shaped by the activism against colonial rule and racist ideologies. This activism can
never be considered out off the social context of oppression and stigmatization, for the simple reason
that a woman in Africa thinks in terms of a female integration within a cultural constellation and
collective social structure. These aspects make the African women’s movement different to the one
started in the West, where women’s movement sprang into action from middle class individualism
and the patriarchal structure in postindustrial societies. The inherent difference between both the
African woman and the western woman led some some critics, in their studies of the woman’s
situation, to taken into consideration both cultural and social dimensions, as well as the religious
orientation42. In this case, to talk about a white or black woman as well as African and European
woman, on the same tone, is tantamount to say that they are subject to same social situation, for the
question of divergence and convergence between the perceptible views, over woman, remains
debatable.
Various views have been put forward by critics over the role of both European and African
women writers in society and the way they transcribe their pains and sufferings. The African woman,
however, has undoubtedly become mature enough to differentiate between the way her
41
The failure of male multiparty politics or state nationalism after the independence, coups and military dictatorships, economic
instability, the pushing of western-steered development programs and pressure to install democracy, rethinking geographical
borders as they were put up during colonial reign, pressure from the technologically advanced West and the development of
new states in a global world (economy). This is taken from Mikkel Gwendolyn, African Feminism, the politics of survival in SubSaharan Africa, p 1-50
42
The religious orientation is an important point in my work. It would be dealt with separately in the coming part of the
thesis, for I will deal with the woman in Beyala’s works and three monotheist religions : Judaism, Christianity, and
Islam
73
European/western female counter part writer deal with her issue and the way, herself, is called and
supposed to deal with; it is, in a sense, a sort of a centrifugal view and synthesis that the African
woman need in order to vent her situation in her likeness. In this perspective Buchi Emecheta says:
I will not be called a feminist here, because it is European. It is as simple as that. I
just resent that […] I don t like being defined by them. It is just that it comes from
outside and I don’t like people dictating to me. I do believe in the African type of
feminism. They call it womanism, because, you see, you Europeans don't worry
about water, you don’t worry about schooling, you are so well off. Now, I buy land,
and I say, 'OK, I can't build on it, I have no money, so I give it to some woman to
start planting. That is my brand of feminism. (1988: 175)
Buchi Emecheta’s above mentioned passage is clear enough to enhance the different ways a
European and African writers alike do follow to deal with their common issue. Yet, a seek for a
consensus among both the writers and critics seems prerequisite; and because of the continent’s
peculiar problems, even while Africans fight for their own independence, the fight should be linked
to the struggle in order to free the continent from social calamities, namely poverty, senseless ethnic
wars, hunger and all the worst of it.
The universality of female oppression is, for sure, the reason why women are expected to be
united across cultural boundaries. Although there is certainly something white and black women have
in common being women, it is something totally different to be black and female; now, diversity has
mutated into fragmentation. This is owing to the race, class, gender and other dimensions of social
inequality and difference which are central to feminists’ concerns. Possibly, the double
marginalization that is implied by being a black woman has something to contribute to the feminist
theory that “seeks to explore representations of black women’s lives through techniques of analysis
which suspend the variables of race, class, and gender in mutually interrogative relation.” (Smith,
1997: 318) Or, as Hooks argues:
74
We are in need of more feminist scholarship which addresses a wide variety of
issues in Black life (mothering, Black masculinity, the relationship between gender
and homicide, poverty, the crisis of Black womanhood, connections between health
and our conceptions of the body, sexuality, media, etc.) – work that could have
transformative impact on our future. (Hooks, 1989: 56)
So, the question that might be asked, whether this praxis does explain the ways in which
feminism in the West is different from that in Africa. Here Alice Walker stresses:
Feminism is the political theory that struggles to free all women; women of colour,
working-class women, poor women, disabled women, lesbians, old women - as well
as white, economically privileged, heterosexual women. Anything less than this
vision of total freedom is not feminism, but merely female self-aggrandizement
(Kolawole 1997: 21)
Yet, Walker enhances the idea that it is prerequisite to constitute a specific concept that
deals with and focuses on black women’s identity and commitment to gender issues. This is, may
be, how she came to conceptualize womanism. For her womanist is to feminist as a purple to
lavender (1983: xi-x); what does this allegory mean? What does Walker refer to? It seems that
Walker is trying to say that there exist common points, if not common foundation and framework,
between womanism and feminism. Semantically speaking, womanism and feminism are similarly
linked under the feature of woman struggle and freedom, and syntactically, they are equivalent to
purple and lavender which share the feature of colour. Yet womanism and feminism cannot be
juxtaposed and be equivalent simply because of the virtue of their essential significance. This could,
perhaps, be explained by the nature of the contrast existing between the colours that walker has
chosen, and which refer, may be, to nothing but differences which, according to Walker, exist
between feminism and womanism. “Purple is much more vivid than lavender”, womanism,
therefore, is more promising and effective than feminism, because it is designed much more
75
broadly. For Walker a womanist is committed to survival and wholeness of entire people, male and
female (Ibid: xi).
What can one assume from Walker’s statement? From a walkerian perspective, womanism is
conceived not only as to go beyond the sexist discrimination, but also the discrimination based on
people’s racial or socio-economic identity. The exclusion of the white woman implies the rejection
of her assertion that womanists are not separatists (Ibid). However, for the most part, Walker’s
definition of womanism, is separatist because only women are spoken of here; here also, there is a
sort of denial that a man could or would become active as womanist. This remains problematic in the
sense that Walker, at the same time, speaks of “wholeness”, emphasizing that womanist fight for the
survival of the “entire people, male and female”.
Referring to the relative dearth of an African woman writing is alluding to a critical attention
given to her. A need to a given critical attention implies the calling for a different critical apparatus.
Ogunyemi argues that a black African woman writer is a "womanist. That she will recognize that
along with her consciousness of sexual issues, she must incorporate racial, cultural, national,
economic, and political considerations into her philosophy" (1985: 64). In this sense, I think it
would be wiser that one asks questions over the relevant tendencies between the French African
Beyala’s womanist view and both the African American Walker’s and Ogunyemi’s. To discuss this
matter, it would be necessary to evoke Collins, Patricia Hill who says that Walker suggests that black
women’s concrete history fosters a womanist worldview accessible primarily and perhaps exclusively
to black women
43
(1996: 10). Moreover Showalter points out, for both Afro-Americans and
feminists, the black woman is “the Other Woman, the silenced partner” (Showalter, 1997: 214).
Walker herself uses the two terms womanist and black feminist as being virtually interchangeable” (Collins, 1996: 10),
not all critics agree on considering womanism and black feminism as synonyms (see: Collins, 1996). Either way, it is a
fact that both “are concerned with struggles against sexism and racism by black women who are themselves part of the
black community’s efforts to achieve equity and liberty”. (Omolade, quoted in: Collins, 1996: 10)
43
76
Therefore, albeit the African origin,
these women writers remain different in terms of their
perception of themselves, i.e., the very reality that Beyala does not feel herself different from the
other women (white women), makes her develop a very wide introspective view as far as the question
of woman is concerned. She does not seem to engage debates over racial question as a primary issue,
as she does not deny the existence of man as an important element in the life of woman. However,
her separatist tendency appears in her attempt to reverse the individual (man and woman) roles. In
this case, a question like, does Ogunyemi’s and Walker’s womanist views fit Beyala’s womanist
framework?
For the author of Tu t’appeleras Tanga, womanist philosophy tends more to the exclusion of
man as an active participant, as the only decision maker for the latter may create a sort of
confrontation, in a time Beyala as a universalist denigrates the stigmatization, discriminations,
marginalization, and even the alienation of any human being no matter what would be his gender or
race; she incites for solidarity with all the dispossessed - that is also with men. Herzberger-Fofana ,
in Littérature féminine francophone d'Afrique noire: suivi d'un dictionnaire des romancières (2001),
underlines that:
On assiste ces dernières années à un mouvement qui se dessine en Afrique sous le
nom de féminisme africain" ou "conscience de femme" ou womanism pour les pays
anglophones et où le concept de complémentarité intervient. Cette école de pensée
ne rejette pas les acquis occidentaux. Elle s'inspire des cultures africaines où elle
puise son inspiration, mais donne la primauté au concept de partenariat entre
homme et femme. La lutte pour l'émancipation de la femme devient une lutte
commune et non une confrontation. Elle n'est jamais dirigée contre l'homme, mais
elle se fait avec l'homme. (Herzberger-Fofana. P, 2001: 348)
Here, it would be wise to quote as well Kolawole, Mary E. Modupe who does not seem only
to be concerned with gender relationships, and yet tries to contextualize this approach. For her:
77
African womanism highlights female bonding and collective actions as part of the
larger struggle of all Africans, of all Blacks, all women and indeed all
dispossessed, undermined or oppressed groups. It respects the family unit and
motherhood. It does not seek to achieve emancipation by hating men or nonAfricans or people of other races [...] African womanism is centered on the need
for positive gender self-definition within historical, geographical and cultural
contexts. The historical backcloth gives meaning to the cultural (1997: 203).
Although the miscellaneous interpretation and conceptions, the quarrel over feminism and
womanism remains open to debate. For Akachi Adimora-Ezeigbo: “Whatever the differences
between black and white feminism, there can be no doubt that both share certain aesthetic attitudes.”
(Joseph, Yakubu, 1995:15)
He adds:
To me, the quarrel about terminologies like feminism or womanism does not really
arise. What is important is how people demonstrate their belief and how they go out
helping other women and ensuring that women are emancipated (Ibid)
This study is a study in womanism44, a criticism of Calixthe Beyala whose works articulated
concerns are about, particularly, the African as well as the society in which she lives. Yet this
remains problematic especially if one refers to some Beyala’s novels in which she shows her
separatist tendency which is not forcibly the total exclusion of man from the circle of their lives, but
simply being self masters45. Here, the point deserves an explanation. Beyala, in her essays Lettre
d'une Africaine à ses sœurs occidentales, declares that:
44
Ogunyemi defines "womanism" as a "philosophy that celebrates black roots, the ideals of black Life, while giving a
balanced presentation of black womandom. It concerns itself as much with the black sexual power tussle as with the
world power structure that subjugates blacks. Its ideal is for black unity where every black person has a modicurn of
power and so can be a 'brother' or a 'sister' or a 'father' or a 'mother' to the other." Though Alice Walker is generally
credited with the term, Ogunyemi writes that she "arrived at 'wornanism' independently and was pleasantly surprised to
discover that [her] notion of is meaning overlaps with Alice Walker's" (Ibid:72)
45
Her, I am making a reference to separatist feminism. Marilyn Frye argues that it is women’s choosing to separate from
male-defined, male-dominated institutions, relationships, roles and activities (Frye, Marilyn. (1983). The Politics of
Reality. Trumansburg, N.Y: Crossing Press)
78
Le féminisme dans notre contexte africain c’est la conscience d’appartenir à une
classe majoritaire qui plie sous le joug de pratiques ancestrales… c’est d’œuvrer à
sa propre libération économique d’abord et puis culturelle, sociale et politique.
Etre féministe, c’est refuser la chosification, c’est refuser d’être considérée comme
objet sexuel ou machine à procréer. Le féminisme, rassurez-vous, mes frères, ce
n’est pas renverser une dictature pour en instaurer une autre! Les femmes ne
rêvent pas de régner sur vous et vous rendre la monnaie de la pièce! (08)
In her novel, C'est le soleil qui m'a brûlée, Calixthe Beyala boasts the solidarity between
women to its separatist limit with a total reversal of the male and the female: men become passive
and inactive while women become dynamic and positives. They try to exclude men from their circle
of life; so Atéba, the character of Beyala’s, “c’est accroupie, a saisi la tête de l’homme et la cogne à
deux mains sur le dallage […] elle perçoit encore la vie sous ses mains, elle ramasse un canif, et,
envahie de joie, elle se met à frapper, à frapper de toute ses forces […]”, and after that said to Irène:
“Irène mon amou […] Viens dans mes bras […]Viens toute contre moi […] Je t’aime […] Elle
l’embrasse de petits baises qu’elle aspire dans son sang, elle l’embrasse en murmurant son nom
indéfiniment et l’aube la trouve dans son long baiser d’Irène” (173) . Atéba killed her agressor, and in
killing the man she finds the woman. About the scene of murder, Richard Bjoranson says that: “Par
son acte violent, Atéba réussit l’union pour laquelle elle a langui toute sa vie” (Nathalie Etokie,
2010:141)
Atéba operates both transrmutation and transfiguration; Nathalie Etokie explains that:
Transmutation car cet homme mort se transforme en femme dans son imaginaire.
Transfiguration puisque le côté scabreux de cette scène disparaît au profit d’un
tableau eclatant et pathétique (Ibid).
Within an impetus of consolation, the complicity and the feminine solidarity between Irène
and Atéba are transformed and mutated into both affection and tenderness that appear to be more
79
close to sexual attractiveness and lust (lesbianism)46. The following narrative elements show the
extent to which Atéba is attracted by Irène:
Elle voit ses jambes […] ses jambes fines qui s’échappent de sa jupe, ses seins
moulés […] Elle veut cette bouche […] elle veut lui donner un baiser […] Elle
avance sa main, elle veut la poser sur le genou d’Irène. Elle tremble, son corps lui
dit qu’elle pèche, son sang lui dit qu’elle pèche, tout son être lui dit qu’elle pèche
[…] la femme et la femme. Elle pèche et rien ni personne n’explique pourquoi elle
pèche […] (158)
The attractive physical body of Irène: (jambes, seins, bouche), the extreme excitement in
which Atéba finds herself (elle tremble), and the rehearsal of the French verb “vouloir” and the object
of quest “Elle veut cette bouche”, are details which prove that there is a lieu for a lesbian hug.
This hetaerism/hetaerism
47
is not a simple tenderness, but it is lesbianism. Atéba enhances
more and more this tendency when she writes to women the same way one writes an exciting letter to
a sweet heart, and she even concludes : “Femme Je t’aime” (56) the lovely and tender
correspondence has long been a distinguished and convincing form to express one deep inside
feelings. The correspondence has made very public the conception of love as alive and real. The
mutual attractiveness between women is operational when the latter play the role of protectors and
consolidators; constantly in physical contact during their confidences, they develop a certain hatred
vis-à-vis man. Simone de Beauvoir explains this phenomenon with women saying that: “ ennemie
des hommes qui lui imposent leur domination, elle trouvera dans les bras d’une amie à la fois un
voluptueux repos et une revanche” (1984:268).
46
Though lesbianism and tenderness should not be confused, in Africa because the semantic frontiers negociate an
ideological tension. The subscription of the author’s African identity and the Affirmation of the non-existence of
homosexuality in her original culture get into conflict with platonic relation, which progressively, in her novel, mutates
into friendship based on mutual love implying affective and sexual attractiveness.
47
A general system of temporary or continued sexual relations outside wedlock: concubinage. It is also a state of society
conceived as existing in the past and characterized by the holding of women in common. Retrieved 07.22.2012 from
http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/hetaerism)
80
Irène who finds herself almost lost without man, made a full confession to Ateba that : “sans
lui, je n’existe pas, je ne suis qu’une illusion et personne ne me continuera” ; Ateba, on the other
hand, replied: “tu existes parce que la femme existe, enfin, tu te continueras.” (Op.cit: 143); Ateba
goes to the bar where her friend Irène prostitutes herself. The propensity as well as the eager and
strong desire for the, so-called, existence (dream) drew her friend Irène to a blind alley and to despair
owing to the dissimulation and the negation of her existence. In fact Iréne became unable to
recognize herself within a wild traumatizing world, and within which she finds nothings but grief.
In the tale, and philosophically speaking, the agent of acting which is subscribed within the
universe of Atéba (or Atéba’s world) is mutated into a sexual object just to take her revenge for her
friend Irène. Her peregrinative journeys are perceived as a sort of quest for opinion and stand in the
sense that the aspired but unreachable life is seen through the vertical transcendence48, or simply,
through her ability to reflect on her actions qua producer of those actions and improve herself. She
literally transcends herself by way of being effective in her actions. As Kenneth Schmitz puts it, it is
also “our going out to the things around us, in coming to know them, in interacting with them and
being affected by them” (1993: 86).
Ateba’s experience does not help her lighting up her way; in fact the consciously reflexive
dynamism that grants her the ability to actually cultivate and master herself in light of her realization
is inexistent. This experience pushes her to see herself as the author and the developer of the
suffering consciousness; she is unable to be an immanence of herself as subject of her actions, and
ultimately, the author of herself. Yet this state of mind put her above the masculine domination when
the writer says:
Atéba Léocadie déteste ce gombo pilé gluant, blan châtre. Toutes ces polémiques
pour cette espèce de lait tourné qui prend sa source dans les pantalons et se jette
48
The idea of vertical and horizontal transcendence is philosophical, but still remains important in knowing the aesthetic
dimension. I will come back to deal with in the coming points of this part of the work.
81
dans les pagnes. Franchement ! Elle se lève, droite dans nudité de femme qui ne
verse plus dans l’homme. Elle va se faire couler un bain (Ibid, 132-133).
Beyala describes the very long process according to which women have developed an
aversion to man’s nature and existence; in fact, this disgust urged women to choose other women to
substitute men’s egocentrism and indifference vis-à-vis women’s existence as human being.
It is
also the case in Tu t’appelleras Tanga. Certainly, in this novel, one notices a sorte of self-analysis,
in that Tanga or the one who traces a devastating portrait of her entourage (whores, a single mothers,
indigenous mothers, a spouses, abandoned, betrayed, to mention just a few), and tell her
tentativeness to escape this dire situation. The two friends Tanga and Anna Claude came close to
each other in their prison: they exchange touch, confide in each other, and finally reach a point
whereby they succeeded in developing love gestures, signs of sensuality: caress of hands and hair.
Likewise Ateba and Iréne, Tanga and Anna Claude remain women who try, by means or
another, to escape their fate and destiny; they, sometime, go in search of an ideal love before meeting
the love of the Self, of woman. Beyala herself says that: “Le lien entre mes différents roman est
constitué par les problèmes essentiels de la femme dans la société” (Nfah-Abbenyi, Juliana Makuchi
(1997: 77).
Tu t’appelleras Tanga presents two juxtaposed, separated, but coherent stories. For Gérarad
Genette explains, in Figures III (1972), that “l’unité du récit passe par la prise en compte de la
totalité du récit, et par toutes les séquences” (07); in this sense the story of Anna Claude and Tanga is
the same. Their story is about a saving ideal and about an endless as well as a limitless love, because
for Beyala’s characters, only solidarity can stand against space and races. In fact the mystic of the
text shows that the two characters form one mind and soul. Tanga says:
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Je ne sais pas pourquoi je continue à te parler, dit Anna Claude. Tu pues la mort
et tu refuses à me léguer ton histoire… Tu vas mourir. Je le sens, je le sais. Donnemoi ton histoire. Je suis ta délivrance. Il faut assassiner ce silence que tu traînes
comme une peau morte… donne-moi ton histoire. Je l’embellirai pour toi, pour
moi… donne-moi ton histoire et je répandrai ton rêve (TTT: 13).
In this way, Beyala tries to present a very dim and faint portrait of a relentless, guilty society; guilty
of perpetrated violent acts against the oppressed human beings, especially women and children.
The novelist, strongly, opposed this practice which she denounces, in her novel, as follows:
Je répondrai, je parlerai des enfants séparés de la vie, enfermés dans la cage de la
mort. Je parlerai d’eux qui boivent de grandes tasses de tristesse. Mais qui me
croira? Le monde préfère le silence qui recouvre l’épine (Ibid: 43).
In reality, it is Ousmane and Hassan who are in the origin of both Anna Claude’s and Tanga’s myth.
In this case, the question that could be raised is whether Beyala annihilates quasi totally the existence
of man in the world of woman? It would be wise to underline that the total negation of the male
genital organ for Beyala is rare and extremist in the same time, although according to certain critics,
in particular, Katherine Frank, separatism is an inevitable necessity for the progress of Africa (1987:
14).
Beyala’s separatist vision is not generally shared, for in Black Africa likewise feminism,
separatism is rejected as long as it is seen as a continuation to individualism, the antithesis of the
idyllic harmony of the African tradition. Other writers adopt a less radical position which remains
feminist (if it meant by feminism a call for solidarity among women). In reality, the reader of
Beyala’s novels notices a certain contradiction or confusion in that she shows her separatist tendency
and at any one time she praises all what it is universal. To understand this confusing overlap, Beyala
said:
83
L'universalisme prend ses racines dans le particularisme. C'est l'ensemble de ce qui
peut vous apparaître comme «séparatisme" qui constitue l'universel, chez la femme.
La définition de l'universalisme telle est proposée par l'Occident est gênante car
excluant sans vraiment le dire; car il se veut un modèle pour le reste de l'humanité.
De mon point de vue il ne s'agit là qu'un d'un particularisme qui participe de
l'universel (On Line Interview with Beyala, March 2nd, 2013, see Annex 4)
It seems that the ambiguous meaning of feminism, for the women writers, is symptomatic to
the conflicting nature of the cultural identity of the African woman herself. The equilibrium between
the individual and community and between the modernity and the tradition is always renegotiated.
However, it is necessary to underline that feminism which springs from these writings resembles
remarkably the Anglo-Saxon feminism which has its French counterpart. This does not, however,
mean that there is no problem in adopting an ideology which is seen as international vis-à-vis a given
culture within which international ideology is almost refused. In this perspective, it would be
pertinent to refer, again, to the complicity between Beyala’s Protagonists Tanga and Anna Claude in
Tu t’appelleras Tanga.
Although Anna Claude French, originally Jewish and Tanga, a Black African, their dialogue
allowed the writer Beyala to expose and to talk about the African feminine condition, as an
International feminism, symbolized particularly by a transfer of identity between the two ladies by
the end of the novel: Anna Claude “est” (is) Tanga as mentioned in the title Tu t’appelleras Tanga,
(Your Name Shall be Tanga), means from now up wards, you are Tanga (the white/black Tanga).
Tanga’s life melts down in Anna Claude’s as if they were one to show the identity of feminist
struggle beyond all prejudices ( of race, colour, country, origin, ideology (religious), and all the rest
of it), Tanga says: “tout ce qu’il y a à savoir est déjà consigné en toi…les fontômes barbares nous
poursuivent” (TTT: 18); through this situation, Beyala underlines and defines feminism according to
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her conviction; it is neither womanism in its narrowest meaning and nor even feminism in its western
form49; but she develops, instead, what is called Universal feminism. Judith Butler stresses that:
The political assumption that there must be a universal basis for feminism, one
which must be found in an identity assumed to exist cross-culturally, often
accompanies the notion that the oppression of women has some singular form
discernible in the universal or hegemonic structure of patriarchy or masculine
domination. (1990:03)
In this sense, as well, Janine Danielle said:
In reading the various articles, particularly “Mothers of Our Nations/ Indigenous
Women Address the World (1995)50, I was able to see just how universal the
struggle of feminism is. In studying black feminism, we learned of their
dissatisfaction with "white feminism" because they felt it was not inclusive of their
issues as black women, specifically race. However, having learned how Chicana
and Asian Pacific American women have created their own version of feminism, I
realize that in the same manner black women were excluded from European
feminism, we too exclude other ethnic groups. (March 18, 2008)51
Janine Danielle kept saying that throughout the readings, I noted key ideas and points which I
think would be useful in the creation of a universal feminism:
1. There is no proper place for [women] except the world as a whole. There is no
one place for [women] - just the world as a whole.
2. It is important for each of us to know what it means to be a woman in our
society, to know the historical and psychological thoughts that have shaped and are
shaping our thoughts, which in turn determine the directions of our lives.
49
The fact that feminism is recognized as western ideology raises a political problem in a continent formerly colonizes
by the West. However, it is very possible that it is the term itself which is problematic, especially in the francophone
context where “neo-feminism” (Michele Le Doeuff: 1989: 247) seems to have subsumed quite other interpretation.
50
Mothers of Our Nations/ Indigenous Women Address the World” (1995), in Winona Laduke reader by Ralph Nader,
Washington, D.C. December 2001, p211
51
http://scfemtheory.blogspot.fr/2008/03/universal-feminism.html, retrieved the 29th of March, 2013
85
3. My ethnicity cannot be separated from my feminism.
4. What is personal to me is political.
5. The whole category of woman may also need to be problematized.
6. "Consciousness-raising" was the feminist method.
7. The acknowledgment of diversity among women while positing that women
recognize their unity.
8. Feminism is the political theory and practice to free all women.
9. To be oppressed means to be disenabled not only from grasping an "identity,"
but also from reclaiming it.
10. Women have the right of self-determination, to determine our own destiny and
that of our future generations.
Although obviously everyone and every group has its own unique struggles, I
believe there is much more common ground than acknowledged which, if
recognized, could create a women's movement capable of restructuring the world
(Ibid)
To enhance more this conception of Universal feminism, it would also wise to refer to
Suzanne Bergeron who, in Political Economy Discourses of Globalization and feminist Politics
(2001), states her point of view about the notion of “global sisterhood”, that has never really worked.
She writes that:
States that have never implemented gender-aware policies have typically been
responding to the needs and desires of elite women, which calls into question the
ideas that state policy articulates some common national women’s interest
(2001:994),
She adds that “transnational feminism within which varying local interpretations are collapsed
into a homogeneous identity of women’s interests against global capitalism” (Ibid: 1000). In this
case, one can see that the notion of universal feminism as a conceptual movement is well rooted in
Bergeon perspective in the sense in which feminists think about the nature of globalizing capital as
supported by a “unified, international and noncontradictory economic logic” (Ibid). Her view, Javier
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Perira Bruno explains, “seeks to denaturalize globalizing capitalism and see it as a socially
constructed process, imagining a wider range of alternatives to transform and subvert the principles
of market economics” (Javier Pereira Bruno, 2006)52
Actuality Beyala remains among those Francophone53 African women writers54 who seriously
concentrated their efforts to conceptualize, contextualize, and theorize African feminisms by the
1990s. As the other feminists of the epoch in question, she made further demands on feminism to
expand its analytical horizon by incorporating other considerations such as culture, colonialism,
ethnicity and imperialism,
and most importantly through examining the ways in which these
considerations intersect to construct and (re)produce “gender”. In this way, they show resistance visà-vis the materialistic tendencies and imperialistic Modus Operandi (method or procedure) of
Western feminists, and set questions over the limitations of Western feminisms. In reality, they
sought to name and theorize the feminisms unfolding in their environment in ways that would
capture their specificity and uniqueness as well as their diverse meanings and dimensions55 including
52
Javier Pereira Bruno (January 2006), the third world critiques of western feminist theory in the post -Development Era,
University of Texas at Austin
http://www.ucu.edu.uy/facultades/CienciasHumanas/IPES/pdf/Laboratorio/Critiques_to_Western_Feminism_JPereira.pdf
, retrieved , the 29th of March, 2013
In her Articl, L’écriture féminine dans le roman francophone d’Afrique noire (Le 7 novembre 2009), Marina Ondo
explique que « Les romancières africaines anglophones ne revendiquent pas, elles s’emparent de la justice et forcent le
respect par la célébration de la beauté féminine extérieure et intérieure. On peut le voir chez Flora Mwapa qui fait une
représentation non pas de la femme-ange mais de la femme-battante sans faire outrage à l’homme, sans adouber la
ségrégation sexuelle» (Cf One is enough, Women are different). http://www.larevuedesresssources.org/l-ecriturefeminine-dans-le-roman-francophone-d-afrique-noire,1366.html, taken January, the 16th, 2010
54
Catherine Acholonu, Simi Afonja, Ama Ata Aidoo, Olabisi Aina, Omofolabo Ajayi-Soyinka, Tuzyline Jita Allan, Ifi
Amadiume, Bolanle Awe, Ada Azodo, Gloria Chukukere, Helen Chukwuma, M. J. Daymond, Florence Abena Dolphyne,
Akachi Ezeigbo, Aisha Imam, Mary E. Modupe Kolawole, Amina Mama, Patricia McFadden, Micere Mugo, Juliana
Nfah-Abbenyi, to mention just a few
55
In the early 1990s Catherine Acholonu proposed motherism as an Afrocentric alternative to feminism. Acholonu’s
motherism places motherhood, nature, nurture, and respect for the environment at the center of its theorizing. In 1994
Molara Ogundipe-Leslie introduced a new terminology, stiwanism (from STIWA—an acronym for Social
Transformation Including Women in Africa), that is designed to discuss African women’s needs and agendas in the
context of strategies fashioned in the environment created by indigenous cultures. Stiwanism insists on the participation
of women as equal partners in the social transformation in Africa. At the end of the decade, Obioma Nnaemeka proposed
another alternative, negofeminism (feminism of negotiation and “no ego” feminism), which captures central concerns in
many African cultures—including negotiation, complementarity, give-and-take, and collaboration.
53
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womanism, African womanism, motherism, stiwanism, and negofeminism— although there are some
who believe that the feminist label is adequate, and so new labels are not needed.
In reality, womanism can be perceived as a process of the positioning of a speech regarding
the cultural heritage, to the traditional experiences and to the intrinsic values of woman. In her fight
for emancipation, woman has to stand as a guarantor for wisdom and adopt a Modus Vivendi (an
arrangement or compromise) close to the evolution of the mentalities without denying their sources.
To see this closely, womanism praises, besides, the evolution of woman inside the cultural sphere
which constitutes within itself strength, and specially indicates the new professionally accomplished
way for the African woman. One finds, nearly, this reflexive demarche, carried by women, in the
feminine writing of Mariama Bâ. In her article entitled Fonctions Politiques des Littératures
Africaines, Bâ asks:
Comment ne pas prendre conscience de cet état de fait agressif? Comment ne pas
être tenté de soulever ce lourd couvercle social? C’est à nous, femmes, de prendre
notre destin en mains pour bouleverser l’ordre établi à notre détriment et ne point
le subir. Nous devons user comme les hommes de cette arme, pacifique certes, mais
sûre, qu’est l’écriture (1981: 07)
Mariama’s will of writing is intrinsically pacifist, in that she is not developing a separatist view
which we have seen in Beyala’s novel CSQM and TTT.
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Conclusion
Fundamentally, the features of feminist theory tend towards the construction of ways to set
interpretations to women’s experience and feminism. The philosophical interpretations mull over
the interdependence of both ethnical and epistemological questions. These interpretations are
receptive, theatrically and practically, to questions of gender relation in the west.
To see African women writers identify themselves as feminist or womanist does not mean
compulsory taking position in favour of woman and against man. On the contrary, their quest and
philosophical view of feminism and womanism is inspired of their real social ‘vécu’. The reason
which makes their ideological orientation a bit different from the western feminists who not all of
them identify themselves as feminists though feminism has something to say not only to/about
woman in general, if they are feminists or not but to/about women and men. It seems that this
orientation is, somehow, special, in that it remains open to debate since feminism represents a
specific interpretation of women and of human social conditions.
Feminist and/or womanist writing is, undoubtedly, an act which is prerequisite to overcome
many obstacles, and which stands as a revolutionary project in order to reset a balance to the
threatened, subverted, and the undermined female identity. Moreover, this project is ardently
defended by woman writers to reject over simple characterization as fixed by traditional discourse.
The African feminist /womanist writers, therefore, try to challenge the status-quo: the
economic and political system. If it is admitted that politics contributes to the public dominion and
authority for socio-economic and political ends, then African women are far from being involved in
the wide political scene and movement of their liberation. In this sense, feminism/womanism is seen
to improve, particularly, the status of the African woman. They are to make recognized the right of
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woman in developing their full potentiality, in controlling their own biological functions as to
develop, as instance, their productive functions which have been long denied by the patriarchal
mind and social regime.
The African woman writings, such as Beyala’s, prompt universal questions over the impact
of transnational culture. Beyala’s writings, for example, generate dialogues which can engage both
national and diasporic cultures. In other words, Beyala has dealt with African identity and cultural
syncretism as well as present hopes and the fears to meet them; her writings- at least the two novels
I have dealt with, widely, in this chapter- provoke questions about the dialectical meaning between
the “self” and the “other” which is the “self” (the other self), and the question of “integration” and
“alienation” (integration or alienation within the dichotomies: black/white, young/old). Does this
mean that she is drawing attention to possible common cause? In deed yes, for her endeavour
consists in showing clearing, through her characters symbiosis, that the cause of woman is universal
and international and not dictated in terms of single, distinctive woman.
The exclusion as well as the geographical specification, as discriminatory, are almost
inexistent in the jargon of Beyala; she believes, as Jean-Paul Sartre says, that: “when we say that
man is responsible for himself, we do not mean that he is responsible only for his own individuality,
but that he is responsible for all men” (Steven M. Cahn, 2012: 1323). The author’s philosophy is
more existentialist, in that she transcends the woman value, no matter what could be her origin,
race, or her skin pigmentation. Her literary efforts are a means to represent and give voice to woman
in post colonial African social context. Likewise the existentialists, Beyalas considers every person
as a unique human being, master of his acts and of his destiny, as well as of the values he chooses to
adopt. In the same sense, Salman Rushdie, in Midnight's Children (1982), says that:
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I am the sum total of everything that went before me, of all I have been seen done,
of everything done-to-me. I am everyone everything whose being-in-the-world
affected was affected by mine. I am anything that happens after I'm gone which
would not have happened if I had not come. (370)
In reality, writing about the African woman provides valuable insights on local struggle and
grants clear visible stance and posture to subtle sources of tension. The writer’s committed initiative
creates sensitivity to woman’s issue and helps in condemning the negativity of embedded essentially
in the load of the rich tradition whose aspects are supposed to be accepted for the simple reason that
they are part of them (Africans, especially woman), and that they are born with.
The African woman writer’s intellectual task is a form of raising awareness not only
among women, but among men as well. For to reach a certain level of balance in society, for it is
not sufficient to fill in one side of the balance, but the two sides at once. Therefore, the women
writers see it important to proceed, first, to the identification of problems, and then suggest forms of
remedy, either by resistance and/or negotiation.
It for this reason that I have chosen to entitle my second chapter Re-Writing African
Women: African Feminists’ Insertion in Postcolonial Context.
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Chapter Two
Rewrite African Women: African Feminists’
Insertion in Postcolonial Context
Introduction
II.1. Towards the Construction of a Sturdy Platform between Feminist/womanist criticism and postcolonialism
II.2. The Study Black Feminist Criticism and the question of “racism” and “sexism”
II.3. Beyala’s critical opinion within a homogenous and confusing receptive world
II.4. Beyala’s Protagonists facing the Incongruity of life
Conclusion
Introduction
African feminism or womanism has brought outstanding changes to writer’s perception of
woman situation and understanding allegation of women’s identity and representation in literature.
Through feminist/womanist writings, woman identity is perceived as an outcome of ideological
orientations. The question that is raised, here, is about the in-between of writing. Since women
challenging the status quo are seen as catalysts of change, the role of writers is to create a literary
space where their woman’s voice can be heard. A voice that would, unavoidably, echo down the
social critics’ corridors, through which and by means of what it reflects the harsh contradiction
between the social percepts and the reality.
Indeed, in modern African literature, the women writers speak out from within the undersides
of the literary production (text) which are, however, shaped by the intention of the authors and the
translated version of the reading audience, in addition to the socio-historical environment of its
production. The insertion of the African women writing in postcolonial context is, undoubtedly,
determined by the nature of the text itself, and the competence of the women writers to impose
themselves and their ideologies as convincing and satisfactory.
This question is fundamental, in that it remains as one of the principal and major points in my
thesis. Literature, in general, is endlessly significant, and it is likely to reveal universal truth about
human nature. Writing, in postcolonial context or in another, remains a sociological notion which is
applied to all the fields of Romanesque aesthetics. Since truths are relative and language determines
reality, literary theorists stress that there is no such things as ultimate and perfect meaning but rather
ambiguous claiming that the idea of truth is a matter of perception. Since “la langue est un corps de
prescription et d’habitudes, commun à tous les écrivains d’une époque” (Roland Barthes, 1972:15);
Barthes adds: “le style est presque au-delà: des images, un débit, un lexique naissent du corps et du
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passé de l’écrivain et deviennent peu à peu les automatismes même de son art” (Ibid : 16). This is
why, the concept of writing, which includes “langue”, “parole”, discourse and the text, is presented
as an encompassing concept, and at it is presented, it is considered as the lieu of convergence
between the narrative bodies or elements, clues, and signs of the text. Ronald Barthes, about mode of
writing which holds in between style and language, says:
Langue et style sont des forces aveugles, tandis que l’écriture est un acte de
solidarité historique. En effet, la langue et le style sont des objets, l’écriture est une
fonction, elle est le rapport entre la création et la société, elle est la langue
littéraire transformée pas sa destination sociale, elle est la forme saisie dans son
intention humaine et liée aux grandes crises de l’histoire (Ibid : 18).
In short, writing is, essentially, the African writer’s choice of a very appreciable and significant
receptive literary form. Yet, the question that could, as well, be raised here, is about the African
women writers’ situation/position in postcolonial context, since the novelistic creation oscillates
between two aesthetic poles: the imaginary and the concrete reality, i.e., if they are visionaries of
covered up realities and that it is necessary to reveal, or voyeurs of unpublished – banned and
proscribed, that it is also important to exorcise.
I think the task of the African writers is to reveal reality and exorcise minds. The feminist
literary criticism has boasted women writings forward to become, distinctly, a very specific literary
domain and field of study to the point whereby African feminist/womanist writers have become
widely read and considered in a postcolonial context.
95
II.1. Towards the Construction of a Sturdy Platform between Feminist/womanist
Criticism and Post-Colonialism
The African woman, like many other women in other societies, has long been relegated to the
position of "Other", marginalized and denigrated. And like post-colonial people, a woman in Africa
has had to construct a language of her own when her only accessible tools are those of the colonizer.
Therefore, both groups are considered powerless, exploited and have a subordinate and secondary
position in society. In this case, one can eventually say that both feminist and postcolonial discourses
seek to reconsider the concept of marginalization that once was a subject of debate.
In this sense a question like how feminists and post colonialist critics could inverse the structure of
domination, is important. To talk about both feminists’ and post colonialists’ endeavour, it would be
necessary to allude to the shared position of the woman and the colonized as being two similarly
marginalized, discriminated and dominated subjects.
Likewise women, native Africans are minority groups who are unjustly defined by the
intrusive ‘male gaze' or indifference, which are in reality two characteristics of both patriarchy and
colonialism. Women and autochthones been reduced to stereotypes (virgin, whore, savage, heathen)
and denied the existence of an authentic identity by the system which entrapped them. Yet, now,
post-colonial studies has reacted to this peculiar situation and point of view and subsequently
involved itself with the issue of gender, questioning the extent to which this can, however, affect the
lives of colonial subjects who also happen to be female. They have worked in a way so as to
investigate if gender or colonial oppression is the most significant political factor in women's lives.
In fact, even constructions of the pre-colonial are strongly influenced by the phallocentric
prejudice among which one sees the patriarchal system to define wrongly the ‘native' women as
passive and subsidiary inferiors. Judith Butler argues that:
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The notion of “patriarchy” has threatened to become a universalizing concept that
overrides or reduces distinct articulations of gender asymmetry in different cultural
contexts. As feminism has sought to become integrally related to struggles against
racial and colonialist oppression, it has become increasingly important to resist the
colonizing epistemological strategy that would subordinate different configurations
of domination under the rubric of a transcultural notion of patriarchy.The
articulation of the law of patriarchy as a repressive and regulatory structure also
requires reconsideration from this critical perspective. (Butler, 1993: 46)
One notices many representations of the female ‘native' figure in Western Literature and Art
that perpetuate the myth of the erotically charged female. As an example, one can note the primitive
exoticism and sIrènesque danger of Ayesha in H. Rider Haggard's prejudice-strewn 1887 novel She56.
The dark woman was perceived as sexually submissive and willing, and therefore she could be
subject to the “gaze” of the west, specifically men. This repeatedly appears in the literature and the
practices of imperialistic Europe and America, and this attitude becomes codified into a pseudo
science that characterizes the white man as the most advanced, civilized and advanced of all
creatures.
The Negro was traditionally at the bottom in the hierarchy of colour but the other coloured
races were not that far removed. Famously in 1810 Saarti Baartman (1789-1815) aka the Hottentot
Venus who had an enlarged labia and buttocks was put on public display; the denial and prejudice
that ‘offensive' foreign sexuality engendered is the villainous case of the Hottentot Venus; it details
how British colonial powers transformed one young African woman into an icon for racial inferiority
and savage female sexuality. It is the story of a female member of the Khosian tribe of South Africa,
who was taken to Britain in 1810 and exhibited as a biological oddity and scientific curiosity owing
to her pronounced buttocks and genitalia. Her consequent humiliation and degradation illustrate the
56
For further understanding, See Annex 2
97
racist mindset common in 19th Century Europe and her image has become a lasting symbol of
Western colonial attitudes towards Africa.
Most often in “Western” literature the black woman has been portrayed as exotic, nameless
and voiceless. In Joseph Conrad’s Heart of Darkness (1899), Kurtz’s black, silent and unnamed
mistress is considered by Marlow as a “wild-eyed and gorgeous” and yet we know nothing about her,
her connection to Marlow or her thoughts; it is a statement based solely on her looks. Similarly
Herman Melville’s Typee (1846) is a satirist’s delight in which the protagonist is stranded on a
secluded island and encounters a light skinned native woman who is available and eager to pleasure
him or anyone else for that matter whenever the mood strikes she lacks an inner voice and is free of
the constraints of “civilized” society.
The overarching implicit message perpetuated through colonialist attitudes and a postcolonial
west is that dark-skinned women with their bodies and skin tone that don’t meet the “idealized”
standard of beauty are equated with white women who are subject to idealization and protection, and
indeed are not as lady like. While the experiences of black women from the United States, Africa, the
Caribbean or Britain or elsewhere cannot be assumed to be alike, there exists some shared purpose
when it comes to the black woman reclaiming her identity.
In her feminist-cultural discourse, Carol Tulloch points out; black women of Caribbean
descent in Britain are shaped both by their existence in Britain and the transnational influence of
African Americans. Tulloch argues that:
the phrase Black British women self identified as ‘Womanist,’ is a term coined by
the African American author Alice Walker in a bid “to be seen and [be] taken
seriously.” The term ‘Womanist’ as defined by Walker is “A Black feminist or
feminist of color’ a woman […] who has moved into the… responsibility of
womanhood; …thirsty for knowledge, a Black woman who wants to take control of
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her life and is purposeful and steadfast in this pursuit. Maintains Tulloch this term
“can also refer to all women regardless of race and sexual orientation” (2000:207)
Tulloch suggests that by adapting certain cultural symbols such as head ties, dress or
hairstyles, “Black British women [are enabled] to engage in a public embrace with African
American, Caribbean and African women, and symbolize the ambitions and potency of the term panAfrican.” (Ibid: 212). It is in the light of this argument that I am emboldened to take African
American criticism and apply it to Black British women.
While the dominant, white western society is complaisant in its belief that white skin is
superior to black, the reading of skin tone is simply not a matter of black and white. In the colonial
model, skin that is a lighter shade, less visibly black and more white is held to be more palatable, less
threatening, somehow more “normal,” but still not good enough, suggesting that there exists an
unbridgeable gap between the races which makes colored skin a deficit. Based on this implicit
assumption, Robert Young deconstructs the word “hybridity” when it is used to describe the children
of two races. since the term implies “the different races [are] different species” (1995: 09) – and of
course the binary always places white on top as being beautiful and desirable and black as ugly and
insurmountable. Thus the concept of female beauty is proved to have only a tenuous tie to a pleasing
countenance: it is in fact nothing than a series of characteristics that when publically approved grants
women power. If approval is withheld, then the woman is shut out of the dominant ideology.
I believe, in this sense, that colonialism is the greater evil, for it generates the threat of
misogynistic, patriarchal beliefs, given the fact that imperialism was unmistakably male-centred and
Euro-centric, thus immediately labeling all foreign women alien subalterns. What is obvious is that
colonial oppression affects both socially and economically the lives of women, the very reality that
has forced post-colonial critics to adopt an intense awareness of gender roles when discussing
imperialist abuse.
99
Feminist critics as well have become much more aware of their post-colonialist counterparts,
in that they began to sense that Western feminism was rooted in a bourgeois, euro-centric prejudice
that had to be remedied in order to avoid the continued neglect of the so-called 'Third World woman'.
Therefore, it would be better to consider and regard all women on the same equal footing and as a
homogeneous group, without taking into account differences in ethnicity and circumstance. I, myself,
would agree that this failure to acknowledge historical specificity is as damaging as other
assumptions based in chauvinism and ignorance.
Spivak, Gayatri Chakravorty explains, in her book entitled A critique of postcolonial reason:
toward a history of the vanishing present (1999), that feminist critics and writers have subsequently
been highly critical of post-colonialists' tendencies to construct a single category of the colonized,
thus ignoring the important issue of gender difference. The unforgettable reality that colonial
experience affected both men and women in different ways should be denied in any case, as females
were often subjected to what is called “Double Colonization” (1999). She keeps on explaining that
women were discriminated for a second time not only for their position as colonized people but as
women as well (Ibid). The concept of “Double Colonization” is not new, in that it could be
substituted by Du Bois’ “Double Consciousness”. For Du Bois, the concept of double consciousness
was in its inception an international construct that challenged the politics of representation.
Representation was not confined to brute political representation but was invoked in order to question
the unequal inclusion of blacks first as slaves or colonial subjects, and later as subjects without basic
human rights and the ability for social mobility or development (Du Bois, 2003). Woman’s struggle
over the politics of representation and the unequal opportunities between man and woman, as well as
unequal gender incorporation in the world system is undoubtedly grounded on Du Bois’ double
consciousness. Spivak, Gayatri Chakravorty enhances that the social demarcation is essential for an
100
exhaustive examination of social and cultural domination (Ibid). The result of this treatment is
ultimately the formation of the terminologically problematic post-colonial woman.
In this case one dare say that likewise Postcolonialist criticism, feminist criticism has now
turned away from such simple inversions towards a questioning of forms and modes. Both Feminist
and Postcolonial critics have reviewed the reading the classical texts demonstrating by that
unmistakably that a canon is produced by the intersection of a number of readings and reading
assumptions legitimized in the privileging hierarchy of a "patriarchal" or "metropolitan" concept of
"literature". This may offer several possibilities to reconstruct new canons.
Many African writers have worked on the subversion of patriarchal literary forms themselves,
which are considered also as an important part of the feminist project. Yet, in post-colonialism this is
not a conscious aim. Both discourses are oriented towards the future. Both are projects towards
revolutionary disruption in society the new action that could be seen through some African feminist
writers such as Werewere Linking, Calixthe Bayala, Nadine Gordimer, Flora Nwapa, Amma Ata
Aiddo, to mention just a few.
The point these two theories may share is their opposition to Marxism, in that according to the
Marxist, the ruling class constructs and circulates ideas which may secure its power because they
dominate the minds of the working class. The ruling class for both Postcolonial and feminist theories
are respectively Europe and men. Since the working class consists only of Postcolonialism and
Feminism (subject of exploitation and oppression), it will find it legitimate to stand against the ruling
class (Europe and Men) by producing its own ideas. Yet, I am convinced that Marxim has brought
something positive to feminist criticism, in that if one considers patriarchal society as being based on
interests then, my arguments would be sound. Engels says:
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The modern family contains the germ not only of slavery (servitude) but also
serfdom… It comprises in miniature all those contrasts that later on develop more
broadly in society and the state (1902: 71).
In noting, thus, the family economic character, Engels is calling attention to the statement
that family is actually a financial unit, something which his contemporaries prefer to ignore. Owing
to the nature of its origins, the family is committed to the idea of property in persons and in goods
(Kate Millett, Op.cit: 124). Engels argues that Monogamy was the first form of the family not
founded on natural but economic conditions, viz. the victory of private property over primitive and
natural collectivism (Op.cit). So whatever the value of Engels’s insistence on the priority of a
“primitive and natural collectivism”, the cohesion of the patriarchal family and the authority of its
head have consistently relied (and continue to do so) on the economic dependence of its members. Its
stability and its efficiency also rely upon its stability to divide its members by hierarchical roles and
maintain them such through innumerable forms of coercion-social, religious, legal, ideological, etc.
(Kate Millett, Op.cit). I believe, Engels wants to make clear the very reality of such collection of
persons who cannot be said to be free agents.
One may think that Engels’s analysis is negative. This could be legitimate, yet the model for
change suggested by Engels is sound enough to put into question one’s negative perception of his
theory. Engels must have a certain reasonable appreciation of fidelity and advocacy to temporary
associations freed of economic considerations of the older forms based on individual sex love. In his
insisting that the economic element be utterly purged from all sexual associations Engels went
beyond other nineteenth century theorists by arguing that marriage would be continued to be a variety
of prostitution (for instance; sex in return for money or commodities) until it ceased to be in any
sense an involuntary contract essentially economic in character. Therefore, the analogy he adopts in
this case is to a great extent primordial: a woman who enters upon or preserves in marriage for
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economic motives is in the position of a worker who contracts himself to an employment
disadvantageous to his interests or inclinations, merely in order to eat (1902). Engels in this sense
seems more radical and more logical for John Stewart Mill, another theoretician, imagined many
women and most married women would remain in home tending children and continuing in
economic dependency and subservience (The Subjection of Women, Mill, John Stewart, 1966).
If feminists’ aim is to reach a possible “change”, then Mill had thought legal change would be
sufficient and was content that women obtained suffrage and a just property law, most might well
continue in their traditional roles. Engels realized very well that woman’s legal disabilities were not
the cause but merely the effect of patriarchy. Since both Marxism and Feminist cover the human
relationships between the dominant and the subjugated, their perception of the status of woman
within a patriarchal society is therefore almost the same. Yet the difference might be in their
approach to the issue itself, in that Marxists view it from a purely economic side while the feminists
see it from a social human orientation. To account for Feminism in so far as it is linked to Marxism,
one has to link the latter to Post-Colonialism which is quite similar in that there is an equivalent, if
not a greater injustice between the dominant and the subjugated subject. This is why Steven J Lynn
explains that both Post-Colonial and Marxist critical theories predict that the subjugated will
eventully revolt in the form of military revolts and worker strikes. (Lynn, 2011)
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II.2. The Studyof Black Feminist Criticism and the question of “racism” and
“sexism”
To be colonized is to be removed from history, a hypothesis may be put forth that the quest of
Black feminist writers and authors to capture their experiences within new African society is not only
a way to validate their cultural identities but also a way to establish their place in history. This point
focuses on the works of black African francophone writers in general, in an attempt to give these
women and their experiences their appropriate place. It is to show how women who are born in
Africa form and reform their identities and examine the factors they encounter that determine how
they reject the dominant patriarchal culture and system. This attempt is not, however, based on a
blanket assumption that one societal ideology – typically male centered, is better than another or that
women always fare better in western culture but rather it is an examination of how “black” women
fare in new African society with more developed critical mind. This seems significant because of
some reasons:
 That a valid tradition of Black feminist Literature among academic circles and within popular
culture could be established
 that a women’s press is created to allow black feminist women writers to be published and
their works to be disseminated;
 that it is high time to provide an adequate definition of black feminist identity that has long
been redrawn: that the generation of Black women writers have emerged, and they do not
only assume their legitimacy as feminists living in Africa and/or Europe, but who demand
that they deserve being treated as equals to their male counterparts.
This shift in the representation of identity is, as Stuart Hall points out, an end to the
essentialism of “the black subject.” Comments Hall:
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The end of the essential black subject also entails a recognition that the central
issues of race always appear historically in articulation, in a formation, with other
categories and division and are constantly crossed and recrossed by the categories
of class, of gender and ethnicity…this shift has been engaged; and that the question
of the black subject cannot be represented without reference to the dimensions of
class, gender, sexuality and ethnicity (2001: 269)
The representation of Black female writers, through the categories of class, of gender,
ethnicity and community, engages with the realization that women’s self identity is both fluid and
changeable, perhaps more so than their male counterparts, owing to their social conditioning. That is
to say these feminists cannot continue to ignore differences in race, sexuality, and class when they
write about women. In this sense, one should turn to Adrienne Rich’s critique of her own earlier work
that she will never again write of the faceless, raceless, classless category of all women (1986: 219).
Their effort consist in doing much significant work on these genres, pointing out once again how
their models for the hero and the artist-hero have been male, while female texts reveal very different
patterns and experiences57.
The literary texts are undoubtedly the richest source for documentation and exploration of
female development and experience, especially the Bildungsroman. However, I believe, some
critics’s view is not meant to be a reflection on just female’s representation, for they elucidate a
female experience previously hidden by assumptions about “human” experience based on male texts.
Many literary critics have been able to apply these ideas fruitfully to literature by women,
particularly the Bildungsroman. Certainly, Carol Gilligan carefully explains that the “different voice”
of being-in- relationship that she describes is not necessarily tied to gender; she adds:
57
The best and most complete study of the female Bildungsroman is The Voyage In: Fictions of Female Development.
Ed. Elizabeth Abel, Marianne Hirsch, and Elizabeth Langland
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Its association with women is an empirical observation… But this association is not
absolute, and the contrasts between male and female voices are presented here to
highlight a distinction between two modes of thought and to focus a problem of
interpretation rather than to represent a generalization about either sex. (1982: 02)
Dona Spalding Andéolle says that:
Bien que le bildungsroman soit associé au roman réaliste bourgeois du XIXème, il
joue un rôle particulier dans le développement de la fiction féministe de la
deuxième moitié du XXème, période à la quelle les critiques littéraires féministes
voient, en cette forme narrative, un terrain d’expression de l’évaluation identitaire
de la femme. (1998: 300)
Professor Dona Spalding Andréolle58 keeps on explaining that this period of critical activity produces
the analysis of feminine bildungsroman of the XIXth century as well as the distinctive features that
differentiate it from the “masculine” version. She has endeavoured to show the limited spheres in
which the heroines develop, for example, in Jane Eyre, Villette, The Mill on the Floss and Little
Women. The heroines show a very strong contrast to the consistent overt experience of the Heroes of
the novels published in the same epoch:
[…] Women, in the nineteenth century fiction, are generally unable to leave home
for an independent life in the city. When they do, they are free to explore; more
frequently, they merely exchange one domestic sphere for another. […] Her object
is not to learn how to take care of herself, but to find a place where she can be
protected, often in return for taking care of others (Ibid: 300-301)
58
Dona Spalding Andréolle is a Professor in Nord American Studies. She used to be the Director of Anglophone Studies,
Stendhal – Grenoble 3 University (Grenoble). Since 2010, she has become a professor of American studies at the
Université du Havre (France) where she teaches American history and culture courses. Her research centers on ‘lowbrow’
cultural objects as sites of social commentary as well as on representations of scientific progress in science fiction novels
and Hollywood productions since the mid-twentieth century. Some of her most recent publications include the articles
“Between a Rock and a Hard Place: Spaces of Entrapment in Big Love”; “Men are from Mars, Women are from Venus?
A Case Study of Some Radical Feminist Discourse in the 1970s.” she is also co-editor of two books, Science and Empire
in the Nineteenth Century: A Journey of Conquest and Scientific Progress (with Catherine Delmas and Christine
Vandamme, CSP 2010) and Women and Science, Seventeenth Century to Present: Pioneers, Activists and Protagonists
(with Veronique Molinari, CSP 2011).
106
The bildungsroman has become the major feminist literary vehicle, for, as Ellen Morgan
argues, the current popular literary forms were insufficient for expressing the political aspects of
female experience (Josephine Donovan, 1975: 17). Donovan goes on explaining that neither the
psychological nor the sociological novel is a form inadequate to express the neo-feminist conception
of woman, for she is not a psyche, but a political being; not a product and a victim of her culture, but
also a personal being who transcends it (Ibid: 18)
When black women's books are dealt with, it is usually in the context of black literature,
which largely ignores the implications of sexual politics. When white women look at black women's
works they are, of course, ill equipped to deal with the subtleties of racial politics. A “Coloured”
feminist approach to literature embodies the realization that the politics of sex as well the politics of
race and class are crucially interlocking factors in the works of black women writers an absolute
necessity. One had, always, been unable to understand these writers, until this type of feminist
criticism took place. Some views from variety of critics prove that without a Black feminist critical
perspective, books by black women could be misunderstood.
Jerry H. Bryant59, the nation's white male reviewer of Alice Walker's in Love and Touble:
Stories of Black Women, wrote:
The subtitle of the collection, “Stories of Black Women” is probably an attempt by
the publisher to exploit not only black subjects but feminine ones. There is nothing
feminist about these stories, however. (1973: 502.)
Blackness and feminism are to his mind mutually exclusive and peripheral to the act of
writing fiction. Bryant of course does not consider that Walker might have titled the work herself, nor
did he apparently read the book which ambiguously reveals the others’ feminist consciousness
59
Jerry H. Bryant is emeritus professor of English at California State University.
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In the Negro novel in America, a book that Black critics recognise as one of the worst
examples of white racist pseudo scholarship, Robert Bone Cavalierly dismisses Ann Petry's 60 classic,
the Street. He perceives it to be “a superficial social analysis” of how slums victimise their Black
inhabitants. He further objects:
It is an attempt to interpret slum life in terms of Negro experience, when a larger
frame of references is required. As Alain Locke has observed, “Knock on Any
Door61 is superior to the street because it designates class and environment, rather
than mere race and environment, as its antagonists.”(Winston Napier, 2000: 134)
Robert Bone cannot recognise that The Street is one of the delineations of how sex, race, and race
class interact to oppress Black women.
The mishandling of black women writers by whites is more often run parallel to their not
being handled at all, particularly in feminist criticism. There is no recognition that black and female
identity ever coexist, specifically in a group of black women writers. Perhaps one can assume that
these women do not know who black writers are, that like most whites have little opportunity to learn
about them, perhaps. Their ignorance seems suspiciously selective, however, particularly in the light
of the dozens of truly obscure white women writers they are able to unearth.
Black male critics can also act as if they did not know that their black counterpart women
writers exist and are, of course, hampered by inability to comprehend black women's experience.
Unfortunately, they are also those who are virulently sexist in their treatment of black women writers.
When Alice Walker, the black woman writer, was asked on the reasons of the ignorance of
Black woman writer she responded:
60
Ann Petry is a pharmacist who wrote newspaper advertisement copy born on 10/12/1908, Petry came to be famous
when her book The Street, about life in Harlem, gained critical and popular success in 1946. She later wrote additional
novels, short stories, and children's books. Died on 4/28/1997.
61
Knock on Any Door is a novel by Black writer William Motley.
108
There are two reasons why the black woman is not taken as seriously as the black
male writers. One is that she is a woman. Critics seem unusually ill-equipped to
intelligently discuss and analyse the works of black women. Generally, they do not
even make the attempt; they prefer, rather, to talk about the lives of black woman
writers, not about what they write. And, since black women writers are not –it
would seem –very likable-until recently they were the least willing worshippers of
male supremacy – comments about them tend to be cruel. (Ibid: 139)
So, many feminist writers see that there must be principles to be taken into account in directing black
feminist criticism.
Although women authors are not as yet fully recognized by literary critics and scholars, but
rather than an over increasing number of texts of tremendous literary and sociological interest are
becoming available.
There are many critics who attempted to show that the feminine literature, feminine speech
is - par excellence – a counter discourse. In Africa, many critics felt sorry and regretted the absence,
the silence and the hesitations of women vis-à-vis writing, the domain which had for long been
considered exclusively man’s privileged task. Women who had the chance to get access to writing
find themselves most often obliged to face the patriarchal hegemonic speech. In this sense Angèle
Bassolé Ouédraogo says:
La problématique de l’existence d’une écriture féminine africaine ne peut
s’analyser sans tenir compte de son contexte d’émergence. Ce contexte
d’émergence renferme un topo, celui du silence, délimite un espace, celui de la
marginalité. Le discours des femmes qui s’élabore après une trop longue période
de silence porte les marques de l’ostracisme et se confronte au discours
hégémonique patriarcal (1998: 0 2)
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The African writer is thus inevitably put in opposition to the patriarchal hegemony. This
antagonistic position they occupy makes them often reluctant to write. The main reasons of this
hesitation are well clarified by the Senegalese Mariama Bâ in her essay entitled La fonction politique
des littératures africaines écrites:
Dans toutes les cultures, la femme qui revendique ou proteste est dévalorisée. Si la
parole qui s’envole marginalise la femme, comment juge-t-on celle qui ose fixer
pour l’éternité sa pensée? C’est dire la réticence des femmes à devenir écrivains.
Leur représentation dans la littérature africaine est presque nulle. ET pourtant,
elles ont à dire et à écrire (1981: 06-07)
Bâ underlines indirectly the relationship and the rapport between the author and reader
and/or critic. She, indeed, postulates the existence of a powerful view, "Hidden", which prevents the
African woman from writing. In her essay, Mariama Bâ is undoubtedly assessing the troubles a
woman might undergo and urging her to change this state of things in Africa: C’est à nous, femmes,
dit-elle, de prendre notre destin en mains pour bouleverser l’ordre établi à notre détriment et de ne
point le subir. Nous devons user comme les hommes de cette arme, pacifique certes, mais sûre, qu’est
l’écriture (Ibid: 07)
Mariama Bâ tried to realize what she preached; in her work, she used the writing as a
peaceful weapon. This quest for quiet, peaceful and violentless struggle has influenced and
determined her choice of discourses. This phenomenon is not, however, typically Bâian (particular to
Marima Bâ), but it is proportional to almost all the African women writers, for there some situations
that condition the literary discourse.
The fear, from ostracism, exclusion and marginalization, has pushed the African women
writers to refer to a discourse which could be justified within the social code. This type of discourse
is evident in Mariama Bâ’s Une si longue lettre. Despite the denunciatory tone in the novel, the
110
author’s chosen discourse remains conditioned by the Afro-Muslim milieu from which it emerges.
This, for instance, the choice of the epistolary discourse she justifies from the very beginning of her
novel. Through the main character Ramatoulaye of her novel, Bâ tries to make clear that confidence
is an accepted feminine discourse, and that it makes part of the African oral tradition: “Nos grandmères, dont les concessions étaient séparées par une tapade, échangeaient journellement des
messages” (Ibid: 06). Again in the novel there is a clear reference to the word "mirasse"
(inheretance), a Koranic speech which requires that a dead individual is deprived of his intimate
secrets. This religious speech thus justifies implicitly the content of the letter of Ramatoulaye, in
which the heroin draws up an inventory of troubles that she has undergone under the yoke of her
polygamous and selfish husband. The Nigerian feminist critic Obioma Naemeka shows that even the
choice of the place occupied by the feminine characters of Une si Longue Lettre is conditioned by the
fear of the marginalization.
Naemeka objects the… marginalité et l’infériorité des personnages féminins radicaux in
African literature and for Une si longue lettre, she asks the following question: Pourquoi
Ramatoulaye, et non pas Aïssatou, reste-t-elle le personnage central? (1994: 67). Her anwser to the
question is that:
Le rôle inférieur de ces personnages féminins radicaux est déterminé par les
négociations que les femmes-écrivains sont obligées d’entreprendre tant pour
faire preuve de solidarité culturelle que par conformité au mythe de la féminité.
Ensuite le lecteur/critique tout-puissant (au sens éminemment masculin du
terme) vivant en marge de la conscience des femmes écrivains limite et
conditionne la créativité chez elle. (Ibid: 62).
She adds that women writers occupy a “liminale” position:
Leur « liminalité » provient de leur « positionnalité » dans la marge — cet espace
ambigu et précaire. Leur position crée des conditions analogues aux « conditions
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nerveuses » attribuées à la position précaire des soi-disant « indigènes » des
Damnés de la terre de Frantz Fanon. Ces femmes-écrivains se trouvent alors
installées au bord et vivent la peur du précipice (Op.cit)
Bâ’s novel has been sharply criticized by some critics. In 1982, the African critic Femi OjoAde, in his article Still a Victim? Mariama Bâ’s Une si Longue Lettre, criticized negatively Bâ and
her female protagonists. According to him, the writer opts for a feminist which does not fit the
African social reality. For him what Bâ has done in her novel is nothing in fact but a sort of
reproduction to beauvoirism (Beauvoirian feminism). He qualifies her way of dealing with social
African matter as dangerous and threatening will vis-à-vis African culture, society, the life of the
couple, and the family in general. His article as well establishes a comparison between feminism and
the civilizing expenditure or mission of the colonizer and postulates as well that Bâ and her
characters are but victims of cultural imperialism.
Oje-Ade’s remarks, whether justified or not, remain the embodiment of the dominant
discourse and, to some extent, the revelation to the difficulties encountered by the African woman
who adopts feminism to free herself. In fact Oje-Ade is against Beauvoirian feminism62. The African
feminist critic Chikwenye Okonjo Ogunyemi has adopted Walker’s terminology through adapting it
to the African reality, for social reality concerns the authors in question and in this regard René
Wellek shows that literature is that one which concerns itself with the realities of its authors. It is a
social institution using as a medium language, a social creation (1978: 94). The Feminist African
literature, in this case, concerns itself with the social realities of Africa, i.e., it presents a social
reality, even though the natural world and the inner or subjective world of the individual have been
objects of literary limitation (Ibid). In Womanism: The Dynamics of the Contemporary Black Female
Novel in English, Chikwenye Okonjo Ogunyemi explains how the ultimate difference
between
feminism an womanism resides in each one’s perception of the word patriarchy (sociological
62
Bovarean Feminism is well dealt with in the previous point in which a debate was raised over the difference between
American and African feminism.
112
perception) and patriarchate (religious perception) as well as in the choice of changes that each one
has to enhance within the patriarchal system (1985)
Since Lilyan Kesteloot shows that culture in its broadest sense, is an attitude of society visà-vis the world in its widest scope (1981: 81), it would be then necessary to speak about common
women experience and say that African women take a common position against their major
patriarchal issue. Such position needs being alluded to because it is derived from the view that a point
in human history has been reached where the world is, however, divided into a developed and socalled developing world giving rise to the double standard of civilization. That is certainly why a
critic like the Nigerian Molara Ogundipe-Leslie, has recently theorized the Africa feminism; in her
article Stiwanism: Feminism in an African Context (1994), she explains that she has invented a term
“stiwanism” to gain time.
Feminist African literature is part of African literature that reflects a social reality in so far
as it is an art. Lukacs puts forward the thesis that knowledge is a reflection (Wider spiege lung) of
reality (George Henry Parkinson, 1977: 68), and therefore it is tantamount not to take it as a simple
transcript. This joins Emmunal Ngara’s idea that African literature just as the African continent is
part of humanity (1882: 07). In this sense, it would be necessary to say that when Wellek declared
that: “yet literature is one, as art and humanity are one” (Op.cit: 50), did not have, I suppose, in mind
neither African literature nor even African feminist literature.
To select a particular African feminist literature and exclude others is to deny their
belonging to the same constellation, for there is a common cultural core which binds the African
women as one single being; they share the same the history and most importantly the same world
view. Being in Anglophone or in Francophone, Africa, or even in black or non-black Africa, women
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remain subjects to almost the same experience. Nadine Gordimer, in The Black Interpreters stresses
this fact:
African writing is a writing done in any language by African themselves and by
others of whatever skin colour who share the African experience and who have –
centred consciousness (1973: 05)
Here, as an English speaking female white south African writer, Gordimer offers an
opportunity to explore the effects of extraordinary pressure upon the ordinary but vital concern of
feminist literary production; the reason why creative writing in which an African setting is
authentically handled or to which experiences originating in Africa are integral (Ngara, Op.cit: 03).
This is in a sense justifies well, why works by Nadine Gordimer, Doris Lessing and Alan Paton are
also considered as part of feminist African writings. Moreover, those feminist African literatures are
so close, for they share the feature of “Africanness” and they must have gone through the same stages
to reach self consciousness, and because “there is no other continent in the world where the idea of
difference between nations is substituted by the sense of oneness” (Ngara, Op.cit: 07). Yet this does
not compulsory mean that African literatures should be seen as one single unit, for Achebe, in
Morning Yet on Creation Days makes this point clear when he said: “I do not see African literature as
one unit but as a group of association units in fact the sum total of all national and ethnic literature of
African” (1975: 56).
Achebe means by national literature that one written in the language of the nation, and by
the ethnic literature, he is undoubtedly referring to that one written in one of the ethnic languages.
It is, indeed, very important to make clear that the African people are seen as homogenous in
terms of their commitment, and consequently, refer to female writers who, although, defend the
woman’s right, every one shows a particular way to do with. The distinction that is made inaugurates
114
another type of writing and language through which the new feminine writers try to make their voice
heard when claiming their rights and existence.63 In this sense, Roland Barthes argues that “la langue
de l’écrivain est bien moins un fond qu’une limite. Elle est le lieu géometrique de tout ce qu’il ne
pourrait pas dire sans perdre […] la stable signification de sa démarche et le geste essentiel de sa
sociabilité” (1972 : 16). Barthes’s important view over language and writing is translated by the very
reality which gives start to the African novelist writings. This means that the women African writers,
within their society, take the initiative to break the male-chauvinist order of society in order to go
“au-delà des tabous du silence qui règnent sur [leur] emotions” (Diallo, 1975:132). Among these
writers whose discourse stands as antithesis to the patriarchal order, I mention Werewere liking and
Calixthe Bayala.
Werewere Liking has invented the word “misovire” which has been introduced for the first
time in her 1983 novel Elle sera de jaspe et de corail, and also subtitled Journal d’une misovire. A
“misovire”, says Liking “is une femme qui n’arrive pas à trouver un homme admirable”. In an
interview with Bernard Magnier, she declares:
Elle (la misovire) se sent entourée par des « larves » uniquement préoccupées par
leurs panses et leurs bas-ventres et incapables d’une aspiration plus haute que leur
tête, incapables de lui inspirer les grands sentiments qui agrandissent, alors elle
devient misovire ((1985: 21)
The writer, through the voice of the “misovire”, denounces in a very sturdy vigorous way the
fate women are expecting from men. So, “misovirisme” is the result of a very persistent frustration of
the African woman who could find a man fitting their aspiration in a modern African society. The
invention of this term, Irène Alméida explains, inaugurates the genesis of woman new language, a
woman looking for non-verbal expression (1994). These efforts are, undoubtedly, exerted to alleviate
63
Existence as a key-concept which would be deal with essentially and loosely in chapters four and five.
115
the unjustifiable and unsatisfactory patriarchal language which embodies misanthropic and
misogynous, but no word to describe the one who hates men.
“Misovirisme” appears also in some writings of the other Cameroonian writer Calixthe
Bayala, who is another case in point. In spite of their dark, violent, and crude picture of society, C’est
le soleil qui m’a brûlée (1987), Tu t’appeleras Tanga (1988), represent a set of text daring in their
narrative style, unmistakably feminist in their approach. The protagonist of CSQB Ateba Léocadie is
a prostitute; when she left seeking for herself, she discovered that woman has to evaluate in “trois
vérités, trois certitudes, trois resolutions” to know “revendiquer la lumière, retrouver la femme, et
abandonner l’homme aux incuries humaines” (1987: 104). The narrator deplores that: “il [l’homme]
n’a jamais voulu s’unir au rêve de la femme mais à sa chair.” (Ibid: 53)
Tu t’appeleras Tanga describes the decaying universe situated somewhere in Africa where
two women Tanga the prostitutes and Anna Claude the Parisian lady are revealing each other’s
stories. Tanga notes with a certain disgust: “je ne suis qu’une femme-fillette soumise au vide et rien
que mon corps pour le combler et réconcilier avec la terre.” (1988: 154); pesemism hauntes Tanga,
and has become part of her. At certain moment Tanga said: “ je suis l’infortune, l’enfant de pacotille
[…] je suis un hasard posé au milieu de la nature. Un malheur oublier sur l’arbre de vie […] je suis
l’ombre d’une vie qui a perdu le cheminement, moi le corps flétri à force de souffrance” (Ibid : 150151). In interview with Emmanuel Matateyou, Beyala declared in a very laconic and provocative
sentence that: “En Afrique, en réalité, il n’y a pas d’hommes fidèles. Ce sont des mecs parcellaires à
la limite de “trait en pointillés”. ” (1996: 611)
Beyala explains she was unable to find l’homme au complet; some Bayala’s female characters
opted for polyandric union. It is the case of Bertha and Lætitia, feminin characters in Seul le Diable
le savait, who rejected the notion of monogamic marriage for the benefit of polyandry, which is a
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form of marriage or arrangement which may allow them mitigate and alleviate la faiblesse de
l’homme (1990: 130)
It is important to indicate here that the feminine characters of Beyala quite as those of
Liking do not reject man as such. Contrary to their detractors’ allegations, their feminine characters,
simply, got bored and felt disgust owing to modern African man’s incapacity to define himself and
define as well woman far from any sexual lust and body. In Journal d’une misovire, Liking through
the voice of "misovire" predicts the birth of new race of men:
Et l’Homme de la prochaine Race se présentera dans un corps sain plus fort et plus
harmonieux avec des Émotions plus riches, plus stables et plus affinées. Sa Pensée
sera plus rigoureuse et plus créatrice, sa Volonté plus ferme et mieux orientée, sa
Conscience plus ouverte […] (Op.cit: 22)
Such perceptive views in literature or in literary criticism might be perpetrated against
women. Yet, on the other hand, one has to be sensitive, to imaginative insights and perceptions, to
these new forms and ways of expressions-partly as results of man’s negation. In other words, one has
to be too sensitive to the new order of facts and realities and new consciousness forms. To explain
this, Josephine Donovan says that “the perspective critic relates literature to changes that are
occurring in the structure of human consciousness, in the pattern of identification by which we
organize our social, cultural, and moral reality” (1975: 75). Therefore it is needless to blame Liking
or Beyala for their categorical refusal of man, and it is even unfair to accuse them of a blind adoption
to western feminism, for Beyala herself shows her reservation about feminism; always in her
interview with Matateyou, she refuses to be associated to western feminism and advocated instead
“féminisme African”. “Partisane des droits de l’homme qui incluent ceux de la femme”, she prefers
substuting the term feminism by “féminitude” that she links to “négritude”:
117
Le mot « féminitude » […] n’exclut pas la maternité — je suis une mère d’enfants
— mais inclut cette femme qui veut l’amour, le travail, la liberté, qui veut être
humaine sans pour autant perdre ses prérogatives de femme. En Occident, le
féminisme a quelque peu dévié vers une espèce de « machisme » : les femmes
occidentales ont essayé de tuer ce qu’elles ont de féminin en elles. Il y a une
ressemblance aux hommes, la pratique du pouvoir masculin. Moi, je refuse cela et
j’utilise le mot « féminitude » rattaché à une culture nègre profondément liée à la
femme à partir d’un concept purement africain. Il y a donc ce mot dans Seul le
diable le savait (Op.cit: 611-612)
The feminism which Bayala has presented, in her essay Lettre d’une Africaine à ses soeurs
occidentales, takes into consideration the African socio-cultural context. The message of the writer
defends a universal feminism, a feminism which welcomes every one’s opinion:
Cette lettre est une porte ouverte. Elle ne donne pas de leçon. Elle ne se veut pas un
prélude à la guerre, mais un débat ouvert. En tant que femme africaine, je vous
parle avec mes tripes et mes instincts […]. Je laisse les théories et le cartésianisme
aux intellectuelles. Je ne juge pas, je constate que le cartésianisme et les sciences
qui en découlent ont permis à certaines sociétés, non seulement d’évoluer mais
aussi de dominer le monde (1995: 09)
The author underlines, here, differences among the feminist movement, allowing by that a
possibility to foresee the question of Universal feminism which is, in fact, an appropriate sphere of
influence and action. This sphere is essentially considered as one of major objectives beyond writing
this thesis and discussing the question of feminism in Belaya’s writings. In an on line interview, I had
personally with Beyala, she said:
Considérez ma perception de l'universel comme un cercle et non comme des lignes
droites qui peuvent se superposer, s'entrecroiser et vous comprendrez. Imaginez
que chaque point du cercle est une femme: donc elle forme une totalité. Mais cela
n'inclut pas que tous les arcs du cercle (les femmes ont la même distance qui les
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sépare entre elles, mais ont la même distance par rapport au centre. Imaginez aussi
si un point du cercle se rompait, le cercle n'existerait plus. (On Line Interview with
Beyala, March 2nd, 2013. See Annex 4)
In fact genders and races were separated into different spheres: the public sphere of business,
politics and professional life was defined as the male sphere, and on the contrary the private sphere of
love, emotion and domesticity was defined as the sphere of women. Thus, a pure woman’s place was
her home since it was regarded as the haven from all evil. In this sense, Kanner points out that
“Women’s noblest occupation was in the household sphere, fulfilling domestic duties.” (1979: 210)
Women’s share in personal wealth was another aspect which evidently demonstrated sexual
injustice in society. On the other hand, black women writers were, most likely, considered illequipped to handle the issue of the native woman. The fact of being stigmatised urged black African
writers such as Beyala to develop a new philosophy of writing through which she remodelled the
image of the dichotomies (male/female) and (black woman/ white woman)
The question of Universal feminism is more than to be conceived as an idea in the author’s
mind for “the urgency of feminism to establish a universal status for patriarchy in order to strengthen
the appearance of feminism’s own claims to be representative has occasionally motivated the shortcut
to a categorial or fictive universality of the structure of domination, held to produce women’s
common subjugated experience” (Judith Butler, 1997: 04). Within such movement, Beyala does not
only devote her efforts to put an end to social justice, but, most importantly, to acknowledge the issue
of woman as a common problem to both males and females, and thus as an attempt to building
coalition between individuals (males or females, blacks or whites, Africans or non Africans). One
may wonder why? Therefore, the social relations are appreciably complicated to the point that
traditional social binary oppositions (male/female, majority/minority, and proletariat/bourgeois) have
become problematic. In reality, this movement aims at enhancing substantial social change.
119
I believe Beyala’s choice of miscellaneous characters (white and blacks, Muslims, Christians
and Jews, males and females) provides a certain power to the author’s ideological convictions: that
there is no particular dominant ideology. I assume that Beyala’s feminist conviction tends towards
the decentralization of leadership and the increase of openness to the multiplicity and diversity of
perspectives. For her, a constant redefinition of women’s issues is prerequisite and a priority.
In her novel Tu t’appelleras Tanga, the liberation of the feminist discourse is realized
through the ‘Deliverance” or “Release” of the African speech of the unfortunate child-woman and the
Jewish European intellectual Bourgeois Anna Claude. Beneath miserable conditions the two ladies
try vainly to communicate. Using a wide array of tones and narrative techniques, Beyala bears
witness not only to the plight of both Tanga and Anna Claude but, more important, to the difficult
emergence of their power, independence, and capacity for self-determination in a society which has
lost its sense of direction.
The fictional world she creates is a disturbing yet perceptive echo of the ‘real world’- that is,
one where the child Tanga is deprived of her childhood through poverty, prostitution, corruption, and
violence. Tanga, Beyala argues, suffers most in this environment where unbearable social and
political pressures are combined with patriarchal values and self-doubt. The decaying situation,
Beyala wants to show, pushs this girl into womanhood before her time, usually through a chain of
traumatic experiences.
The list of burdens, through which this child woman goes, is endless. The basic human
rights are violated; rape, sexual abuse, early pregnancy and Female Genital Mutilation are flagrant
and blatant. On the other hand, there is more than a faint glimmer of hope on the fringe of Beyala’s
dark view of the human condition. Even when Tanga is roughed by life, failed by the society, and
threatened by annihilation, she tries to survive the bruising of her body and the torments imposed
120
upon her mind. She always has hope of better change, like when she (Tanga) dreamt of being a clean
mother despite forced prostitution and societal values of being a whore. Tanga’s story allowed
Anna-Claude sharing her sufferings and integrating her as a new constructive element of her identity.
For by the end of the novel there is a fusion of the two identities. This could be seen in the following:
“Elle (Anna Claude) se couche contre elle (Tanga). Elle sait que, pour mourir Tanga l’attendait,
ouverte, offerte, pour lui donner à parler avant de passer les frontières et de s’étendre dans la nature
morte (TTT : 176); and also in t’as rien à craindre. J’existe, donc tu seras” (Ibid: 177).
Tanga died after bequeathing her name, identity and history to Anna-Claude; this is what the
title of the story reveals essentially: Tu t’appelleras Tanga or in English (Your Name shall be
Tanga); here Tanga is talking to Anna Claude. And on the other hand, the dying girl-child woman
could have constructed a new identity through her reincarnation in her companion of the cell Anna
Claude. The fusion of the two identities does not come about straightaway. For in the very beginning
of the novel the two ladies could hardly communicate owing to their cultural differences, and to keep
abreast of their situations and stories, the White Anna Claude was obliged to abandon her to a white
society: “Alors, entre en moi. Mon secret s’illuminera. Mais auparavant, il faut que la blanche en toi
meure. Donne-moi ta main, désormais tu seras moi. Tu auras dix-sept saisons, tu seras noire, Tu
t’appelleras Tanga.” (Ibid: 14)
In this story the term “White” does not only represent the race and skin pigmentation but as
well the bourgeois ideology associated to the white, which, actually, divide the feminist movement64.
I believe, that in literature nothing is haphazard, therefore, if the woman who assumes the identity of
the Black Africa lady “Tanga” is a Jewish European Lady “Anna-Claude”, is that their history is
greatly imbued with diverse connotations, for the simple reason that Tanga is Black and Anna Claude
64
The juxtaposition of characters in the story is an eminent point in my study, and it would be dealt with in the third
chapter.
121
is a Jewish. History has long shown that the two ethnic groups have been subjects to discrimination.
The blacks were the subjects to Jim Crowism65 and the Jews to Anti-Semitism. That is to say they
were either marginalized or alienated.
The writer has presented truth and probabilities about female experience that form
undoubtedly the criterion against which to judge the authenticity of the literary statement about
women. Her efforts are certainly to bring into existence a new philosophy contradictory to those
tracing frontiers between races and cultures, a philosophy annihilating the supremacy of some
ideologies over others. This direction implies an awareness of what should a postmodern feminine
perceptive entails, or what might entail an anti racial universal vision.
Beyala alluded, in Tu t’appelleras Tanga, to the status of the postcolonial women in postcolonial Africa. She shows woman-to-man relation, woman-to-woman relation and society-towoman relation.Woman-to-man relation is referred to as a patriarchal one; one can see woman
serving man and taking care of her family in the absence of her husband. In her short story Certain
Winds from the South, Christina Ama Ata Aidoo refers to quite similar situation, in that all those men
who went to the south never came back, Amma Hasna and the young wife Hawa are kept to bear the
brunt of the quotidian in the absence of men who saw the south as a source of hope in a time, it is
nothing but a mystery for women. In Ghana or in Cameroon, the notion of man’s absenteeism is the
same in the eyes of an African woman. Beyala states, through her female character Tanga who
represents the African woman, that:
65
Jim Crowism is a reference to Jim Crow law. The Jim Crow laws were state and local laws in the United States
enacted between 1876 and 1965. They mandated de jure racial segregation in all public facilities, with a supposedly
"separate but equal" status for black Americans. In reality, this led to treatment and accommodations that were usually
inferior to those provided for white Americans, systematizing a number of economic, educational and social
disadvantages. Some examples of Jim Crow laws are the segregation of public schools, public places and public
transportation, and the segregation of restrooms and restaurants for whites and blacks. The U.S. military was also
segregated. These Jim Crow Laws were separate from the 1800-66 Black Codes, which had also restricted the civil rights
and civil liberties of African Americans. State-sponsored school segregation was declared unconstitutional by the
Supreme Court of the United States in 1954 in Brown v. Board of Education. Generally, the remaining Jim Crow laws
were overruled by the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Voting Rights Act of 1965. For more understanding, see Jim
Crow laws and their origins.
122
C’était un mercredi, jour de mon anniversaire. Le père était parti bien au-delà des
limites habituelles. Le maffé refroidissait. Le soir était là. Il verrouillait l’entrée,
voilait les fenêtres. Ma mère alluma une lampe. Il lui fallait venir à bout de cette
obscurité. Priorité des priorités. De temps à autre, elle glissait son regard vers
l’horloge. Vingt et une heures. Minuit. Où es-tu homme? sur quelle pierre tombale
t’es-tu fracassé? L’inquiétude tailladait la pièce, les pieds fêlés. Je la regardais, le
coeur langé de puitié. Je voyais cette femme, ma mère, ombre d’un être qui
s’ignorait, évoluer dans cette absence. (43)
Tanga’s mother was waiting for her husband, worrying about him, but when he arrived, as
Tanga noticed, he didn’t care about her worry but rather humiliates her in front of her children:
D’où viens-tu? Je veux savoir. Tu me déshonores devant mes enfantes, devant tout
le monde. Tu n’es même pas capable de passer une seule journée en famille pour la
fête de ta fille. Tu ne respectes rien, rien ne t’arrête.
Ecoute...
Non!
Elle leva la main, il la saisit aux poignets, la poussa fermement sur la natte (44)
In reality her father never cares about his family, never paid any respect to them or even to his
daughter Tanga who declares:
Ainsi l’homme mon père, qui plus tard, non content de ramener ses maîtresses chez
nous, de les tripoter sous l’œil dégoûté de ma mère, m’écartèlera au printemps de
mes douze ans, ainsi de cet homme, mon père qui m’engrossera et empoisonnera
l’enfant, notre enfant, son petit-fils, cet homme ne s’apercevera jamais de ma
souffrance et pourtant cette souffrance a duré jusqu’au jour de sa mort, jusqu’au
jour de ma mort (46)
Concerning woman-to-woman relation, Beyala explains through her novel that women
consider Tanga as a dirty whore.
123
The last category, society-to-woman relation, is represented as unmerciful one; society
remains severally critical, never giving chances for woman to survive or forgiving her about any
small mistake she commits. Kajaba, Tanga’s grandmother, when she was pregnant of an illegitimate
child people said ironically: “Regardez-la, disait-on, elle a avalé une noix de coco!” (Ibid: 38)
Societal values such those have a great impact in changing woman’ view about herself it
might lead her to punish herself severally even for trivial matters like the case of kajaba as Tanga
explains:
Kadjaba coupa le cordon, cracha trois fois par terre pour tuer sa fertilité, jura
qu’aucun cri d’enfant jamais plus ne s’élèverait de se stripes et retourna chez elle,
la vieille la mere dans ses bras. Elle la confia à sa mère (Ibid)
Beyala does not seem to have gone beyond the feminist frame work in that her task, as
feminist critic, consists in developing more fully her understanding of what a female perspective or
vision includes. Her exposition to the state of both Tanga and Anna Claude means in fact nothing but
her belief in the gradual falling together of truth and probabilities about women to say their common
experience of women, their history as being ethnic individuals, their wisdom as mature ladies despite
Tanga’s age, as well as their culture as being a means of censorship; this constellation provides the
basis of feminine aesthetics. One has to admit, however, this fact of constituting the female identity
and society as well as culture for it gives start to a new type of postmodern feminist African
literature: the Universal Humanist Feminist66 literature rather than simply Black African feminist
literature.
I have already shown in the previous chapter, Beyala’s position tends more to encapsulate an area of common
agreement between the different ideologies, and that she praises all sort of agreements between different systems of
thought. Beyala’s universal humanist feminism, through, what I have, so far , dealt with is free from the abstract
postulations that may characterize individual ideologies such as preconceived ideas. In reality, Beyala believes that
sexually different human beings (males and females) and the racially different women, as well as the ideologically
66
124
In her essay entitled Lettre d’une Africaine ά ses Soeur Occidentales, Beyala insists
again on this community that units both white and black women:
…nous ne pouvons gagner qu’en faisant front commun face ά l’anti-féminisme. La
souffrance des femmes quelles que soit leurs origines, leurs nature et leurs
extraction sociale, et notre affaire à nous toutes! Nous devons, toutes au autant que
nous sommes, ne jamais oublier que le mot ‘aïe’, qui exprime la souffrance, se dit
dans toutes les langues et de la même façon… Nous sommes dans le même bateau
nous coulons ensemble ou ensemble nous dressons un barrage. (Op.cit: 104-106)
The author insists on the unity of the women and thus of the women writers, no matter what
would be their origin, race or their religious ideology67. Her objective, beyond putting on equal
footing different racially and ideologically different female characters, is to underline, undoubtedly,
her conception of an identification which consists in studying the relationship of women, in general, I
do not propose the forms in which African culture and civilization constructed gender to study them
at moment or in periods of change, for these forms consist of social norms embodied in social roles
and laws. These forms represent historical artefacts. Therefore, I believe, women have to think in
terms of the chain of individuals, or as “Women-as-a-group” as Gerda Lerner underlines (1986). This
double vision of feminist scholarship is well illustrated by Joan Kelly in her brilliant article published
in 1979:
… Woman’s place is not a separate sphere or domain of existence but a position
within social existence generally… [F]eminist through is moving beyond the split of
social reality it inherited from the recent past. Our actual vantage point has shifted,
giving rise to a new consciousness of woman’s “place” in family and society…
oriented people should agree to set aside their differences, and attempt to forge some common rules of conduct and
behaviour which, undoubtedly, enable them to live in communion as human beings.
67
I refer to religious ideology because Beyala makes no clear cut and difference between her characters (Tanga/Anna
Claude) in Tu t’appelleras Tanga, although the two characters belong to different religious faiths, respectively as
Christian and Jewish. This shows why Beyala praises ideological differences. Yes indeed, it is not directly or even clearly
stated, but it appears through the characters’ complicity, and it is obvious in literature since the writer should not be
ideologically oriented, while ideology can never be overlooked or avoided
125
[W]hat we see are not two spheres of social reality (home and work, private and
public), but two (or three) sets of social relations (1979: 221-22)
Lerner’s comment on Kelly’s vision of things shows that allowing a one eye view may limit
one’s vision of things and may, as well, devoid it of depth. Yet, the infusion of this vision with the
other eye’s single vision can develop a variety of visions. What could be noted is that despite the
combination of the two single visions, depth remains problematic. Therefore, about the concrete
solution, Gerda shows that it is only when both eyes see together that one accomplishes full range of
vision and accurate depth perception (1986: 12). What Lerner wants to say, in fact, is that only when
the third dimension is fully integrated and moves with the whole, and when women’s vision is equal
with inner connectedness of the parts that one can reach accurate deep perception of things in life.
Moreover, men are not the measure of that which is human, but men and women are. This insight
will transform consciousness as decisively as did Conpenicus’s discovery that earth is not the center
of the universe (Ibid: 12-13)
I believe that the African women writers have to adhere to Lerner’s conception and
philosophy of the equality and complementarities between men and women, for it is the nature of the
African culture that obliges them to be so. So in this sense, one asks whether Calixthe Beyala, as an
African woman writer, succeed in framing her critical opinions within a society which does not easily
accept sexual homogenization.
126
II.3. Beyala’s critical opinion within a homogenous and confusing receptive world
... nos sentiments sur l’égalité des sexes sont pour bien des causes les plus vivaces
et les plus enracinés de tous ceux qui entourent et protègent les coutumes et les
institutions du passé (John Stuart Mill, 1992 :08)
Analyzing male-female relationships in African literature enables a better understanding of
how African women writers view and deal with the gender roles. In reality, in earlier African literary
works, woman was often perceived as “the Queen Mother”. This means that, the fact of conceiving a
woman as a mother is in itself an ideal norm for a woman. Moreover, the earlier writings used to
raise women to metaphysical proportions, and used to depict the transcendental image of women for
they represent a life force that reflects the mythic cycle of birth and regeneration. Hence, a mother
becomes a symbol of Africa. In reality, woman was so praised owing to the value which is
considered as the very link between two separate but similar mothers.
Albeit, in the traditional African society, male is regarded as the model and the head of the family,
while woman is seen as a subordinate, she latter remains supreme as long as she represents the
mother. Chinua Achebe, in his famous novel Things fall Apart (1988,) says that:
…we all know that a man is the head of the family . . . A child belongs to its
fatherland and not to his motherland, and yet we say ‘Nneka’ ‘Mother is Supreme
‘!’ Why is that? (121-122).
One is not going to answer Achebe’s question, but tries, at least, to discuss the matter and,
eventually, develop a very sound objective critical apparatus which holds together both males and
females. The analysis of male-female relationships, in Tu t’appelleras Tanga and C’est le soleil qui
m’a brûlée, may help understanding the very feature a man has attributed to himself, and which has
become a mark to his behavior and acts.
127
Man’s attitude is predominant in the author’s correlation of sexuality and power which is seen
as male’s attributing. The female role, in Beyala’s two novels, is one that is hardened by life and by
the rashness of the male counterpart. Therefore, if man (male) is regarded as the head, the leader or
the principal, then when how can one explain the situation both man and woman are considering
critical, very one his side and his way?
To give certain legitimacy to both man’s and woman’s
behaviour and their way of conduct or even to their relation is tantamount to say that there exists no
inequality. Therefore, in Plato’s view, if the principal and leader is not himself a person both of
principle and culture, of constitution and education, then those who would be under his leadership
and guidance would be intellectually misled and socially led astray to anarchy and tyranny. And this
applies to all the members of society.68 By reference to Plato’s notion of leadership, and to put an
end to the issue of masculine over domination and sexual subordination, and accept woman’s
freedom and independence, man has to change his sexist stance, for simply woman wants meaningful
union between both sexes as the womanist Beyala has, undoubtedly, endeavoured to show through
the relation of her female characters with men in her stories.
Although, Iréne and Atéba, or Tanga and Anna Claude, these female protagonists, as they
respectively appear in C’est le soleil qui m’a brûlée and Tu t’appelleras Tanga, are unable to reform
the patriarchal system, yet they have succeeded in achieving a measure of fulfillment and a strong
sense of their own individuality as complimentary and complementary women within an imperfect
social context. Yet they never deny the value of man as Iréne states:
Mourir ne me fait pas peur. C’est penser que je suis passée sur la pointe des pieds.
J’aurais tant voulu avoir une maison bien à moi, tu comprends? Une vraie maison
avec un homme et des enfants. (CSQB: 143)
From Plato’s Republic, mention in an article entitled the Question of Plato’s notion of leadership in The Republic,
written by John Philippoussis, Department of Philosophy, Dawson College, 3040 Sherbrooke Street West, Westmount,
Quebec, CANADA H3Z 1A4
68
128
Atéba’s sacrifices does interpret nothing in fact but a sincere love for Jean Zepp, as the narrator
states “qu’elle l’avait fait parce qu’elle l’aimait, pour l’aider, pour aller au-devant de ses désirs, pour
le sortir de prison” (Ibid : 51-52). Iréne, seems to be convinced that living without man is like living
in nothingness, for her answer is essentially significant to Atéba’s question: “Mais c’est lui qui
donne la vie. C’est lui qui me rend à la fois réelle et vraie. Sans lui, je n’existe pas, je ne suis qu’une
illusion et personne ne me continuera” (Op.cit).
Sometimes, the psychological presence of man reinforces woman’s self confidence, and it is
sometimes seen as a form of salvation, no matter what would be man’s intentions. Reik, T, in A
Psychologist Looks at Love (1944), shows love as arising out of dissatisfaction with oneself and
one’s lot in life, and shows as well that life is disappointing and the individual is in need of someone
else to fill the void within (1944). To make clear Reik’s view on love, Sternberg, R. J. says:
Some people seek salvation in love, much as other people do in religion, hoping to
find in another the perfection they cannot find in themselves. At first, they may well
think that salvation is at hand. Early in a relationship, their partner may indeed
seem to be just what they are looking for, and their being in love is tantamount to
being saved – from the world and from themselves. But eventually disillusionment
is almost certain to set in.(Sternberg, 1998: 126)
He keeps on saying that:
Perhaps one can save oneself, but one cannot expect or even ask this of another.
People have either to adjust to a new kind of love or else forever live with the
disappointment of knowing that they cannot find salvation through love of another.
Of course, some people take a third course: they try to find someone else to save
them and once again reenter the cycle of high hopes followed by disappointment.
(Ibid)
129
Jean Zepp’s words took Atéba to a hopeful world of imagination which is completely imbued within
his bad faith:
La femme ne saura plus puisque l’homme se cognera à l’obstacle du Bonheur,
puisqu’il oubliera l’amour pour la flamme du désir…il n’avouera plus qu’il n’a
jamais voulu s’unir au rêve de la femme, mais plutôt à sa chair (Ibid: 53)
Tanga, who is, in the eyes of Hassan, an easy prey, says:
je me réjouis: il m’a donné à savoir que quelque chose de beau, d’achevé, vient
d’exister en moi. Si je ne suis pas l’épouse, si je viens de plus loin qu’elle, j’arrive à
l’égaler. Car j’existe là aux yeux de l’homme, juchée sur son désir (TTT: 23).
Beyala’s philosophy does not only reside in praising man/woman complementary unification,
but also in recognizing that women are individuals that complete one another despite the value of
man and his significant existence in woman’s world “ensuite tu existes parceque la femme existe,
enfin tu me continueras” (Op.cit). Although far from being realizable, the dream of a woman remains
the resultant of a very sincere love towards a man, for the simple reason that woman’s love has
nothing to do with sexual contact. Hassan who “entraina Tanga dans une de ces chambres sordides”
(TTT: 29), said : “j’ai de l’amour sous les paumes […] j’aime tout voir […] Oui tu es femme, tu es
grande, fine malgré ton gros cul. Je t’adore” (Ibid: 29-30). Tanga does not think the way Hassan
thinks; for her love and life are greater than to be translated by sexual contact. In fact she was
expecting a lot from her feeling of romance which she believes wither on the vine away, for the
sexual passion which is called love ends up disappointed. The type of romance Tanga is groping for
is Platonian, because the love this character sees in Hassan is transcendental, i.e., a feeling which is
extremely special and unusual, and which cannot be understood in ordinary ways. Plato describes the
excitement of the lover who sees in the other individual an expression of divine beauty:
At first a shudder runs through him, and again the old awe steals over him; then
looking upon the face of his beloved as of a god he reverences him, and if he were
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not afraid of being thought a downright madman, he would sacrifice to his beloved
as to the image of a god; then while he gazes on him there is a sort of reaction, and
the shudder passes into an unusual heat and perspiration. (Plato, 1937: 225)
Gould says in Platonic Love (1963) that:
Platonism in the popular mind is associated with the concept of Platonic love,
which is understood today as a non-sexual relationship between heterosexual
friends. As the concept of Platonic love is far from doing justice to Plato’s complex
theory of love and sex, French scholars found it helpful to distinguish between
amour platonique (the concept of non-sexual love) and amour platonicien (love
according to Plato) (1963: 01)
Normally it is the platonic (the concept of non-sexual love) that mutates by and by into sexual
interest. In reality both male’s and female’s conception of love diverge; Céline Renooz, in
Psychologie Comparée de l'Homme et de la Femme (1898-2010)), explains that sexuality and their
attractiveness do not have the same values and not even the same consequences for the two sexes.
She says:
Chez la femme, l'amour n'est pas sexuel, il est cérébral, ce n'est pas par son sexe
que la femme aime l'homme, c'est par son esprit, par son cerveau droit qui
engendre la raison pure. (2010, 201: 127)
She adds:
Son amour a aussi de particulier qu'il ne s'épuise pas comme celui de l'homme par
le rapprochement sexuel. Quand elle se donne à l'homme c'est par bonté, non par
désir, puisqu'elle ne trouve aucun plaisir dans l'accouplement. Aussi cherche-t-elle
longtemps à éviter un rapprochement qui souvent lui cause une répugnance
extreme. (Ibid: 129)
This is possibly why Tanga says:
J’aurais aimé lui dire: je n’ai plus envie de partir nulle part, au hasard, trop de
vide résonne encore sous mes pas. J’aurais aimé lui dire: je veux troquer mes
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rêves, j’ai envie d’une maison aux fenêtres bleues, d’un lit, de la même voix
d’homme qui me réveillerait chaque matin. J’aurais aimé raconter le balcon,
quelqu’un toujours le même, en peignoir, en robe de chambre, en chaussons.
J’aurais aimé dire le café, des cris d’enfants, le chien, la pie au bout du pré.
J’aurais aimé. J’aurais aimé. Mais les mots engagent. Les mots cristallisent
(Op.cit: 26)
The psychological state, that a woman finds herself subjected to, is, most of the time, owing
to man’s attitude towards her. The recognition of the “self” is but a matter of an impulsion which
may take Man to the source and the origin of the experience he/she has gone through in a given
period of time. Tanga has recognized the existence of woman in her, “l’existence de la femme me
vient. Je ne la connaissais pas, pourtant je la reconnais” (Ibid: 30), because, Antonio R. Damasio69
shows that :
Les sentiments correspondent à la perception d'un certain état du corps à laquelle
s'ajoute la perception de l'état d'esprit correspondant, c'est-à-dire des pensées
(thought) que le cerveau génère compte tenu de ce qu'il perçoit de l'état du corps.
Les sentiments et les pensées ne viennent donc pas de nulle part, mais sont adaptés
à la situation où se trouve l'organisme. 70
Damasio’s conception is clarified by William James71 when he said that: “Le sentiment est la
perception du corps réel modifié par l’émotion”72. This explains the psychological portrait Beyala has
introduced to depict Tanga.
The narrator, of the story did not stop at this level of lusty reflection but went beyond that to
explain that women, in general, make concession at the expense of their nature as human beings who
69
Antonio R. Damasio is a head of department of neurology in the college of medicine - Iowa University. He is as well as
a joint- professor in Salk Institute of Jolla. He is now known all over the world for his works on the human brain.
70
http://www.editions-bayol.com/PMF/chapitre_3_annexes.pdf retrieved the 11 of june 2010
71
William James (1842 /1910) was a pioneering American psychologist and philosopher who was trained as a medical
doctor. He wrote influential books on the young science of psychology, educational psychology, psychology of religious
experience and mysticism, and on the philosophy of pragmatism. He was the brother of novelist Henry James and of
diarist Alice James
72
Antonio R. Damasio, http://www.editions-bayol.com/PMF/ch3s2.php, the 9th of July 2010
132
have, at least, the right to live as free individuals; free from psychological constraints that men cause
in general. The fact of interloping an illusion, itself, may result in a complete disintegration of an
entire live which is, unfortunately, based on fading dreams. The withering away of morals and social
values on which, normally, a human being’s life should be based may inevitably lead to the
transformation of land marks and matrix of women’s universe. The narrator, disappointingly, talks
about Anna Claude whose quest for the “self” through “man” (Ousmane) was illusionary and thus a
failure. The narrator’s disappointment is marked by the series of words she has used in a twenty-line
paragraph: “C’est pour le débusquer” (87)”…les échelles de malaise” (88); the words she has used in
this paragraph are, essentially, very strong and significant in the sense that they reflect the harshness
of the world surrounding women:
l’épuisant désire d’éteindre ce qui se dérobe[…] l’herbe de l’oubli […]les
blessures de rêve[…] la misère[…]Spectres déchus […] vibrations de souffrance
[…] elle l’a maudite […]au nom de l’égalité[…] au nom des cercles de la lois à
disperser[…]cohorte de désespoirs[…] poursuite insensée […] gravir les échelles
du malaise.
(87-88)
The narrator shows the psychological state of Anna Claude in so far as she constitutes one of
the links among the chain of other individuals who found themselves, reluctantly, in the centre of the
issue. The narrator says:
Un jour. Une lumière quand même qui lui permet de se situer, de se connaître alors
que la poursuite insensée d’Ousmane, cette reconduction incessante du rêve ne lui
a pas donné la définition d’elle-même, trop occupée qu’elle est à gravir les échelles
du malaise (Ibid).
Anna Claude, used to believe that the “self” could be easily defined through the other sex (man), but
in vain, she got confused; for the “other”, when he is associated to illusions or dreams, he fades
away. Therefore, there could be no self determinism through the other selves, but by and within the
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“self”73. Anna Claude seems to have found serenity through Tanga and that is what explains their
complicity; it is the same sensation for Atéba who writes for women to tell them:
A toi seule, je peux dire certaines choses, n’être plus moi, me fondre en toi, car je te
les dis mieux à toi qu’à moi-même. J’aime à t’imaginer à mes côtes, guidant mes
pas et mes rêves, mes désirs enfouis dans le désert de ce monde incohérent […] Tu
m’as appris la passion, la joie de vivre. Sans toi, je serais l’ombre d’une vie qui
s’excuse de vivre. Quelquefois, je t’ai reproché ton désir de l’homme. Aujourd’hui,
je cours vers lui avec la flamme de tes yeux et j’apprends ainsi qu’à son contact
mon amour pour toi se fait plus serein. Femme, je t’aime.
(Op.cit: 55-56)
Beyala’s novels provide a very concrete portrait of the woman through their forms of
representation (protagonists). The allocated sacrifice for man and the unknown incarcerated fate leads
a woman, most of the time, to question her being as woman who can never be looked at as the
legendary and the mythical woman, for once a woman “était étoile et scintillait nuit et jour dans le
ciel. Un jour, par un phénomène que les astres piétinés refusent d’expliquer, l’homme fut propuslé
sur terre. Il portrait la souffrance dans le corps, il gémissait nuit et jour et l’étoile souffrait de le voir
souffrir. Ne pouvant plus supporter ces plaintes qui lacéraient ces chairs, elle voulut lui offrir son
aide (…). Elle lui apporta la lumière et l’amour en abandance et il se retrouva très vite sur pieds”
(Ibid: 146) Thereafter, the quest for a symbolic woman, an emblem of love, is legitimate in a sense,
and can never be found but by the disappearance of man from her life. This, perhaps, explains and
justifies the act of Atéba. The murder of man by Atéba remains the only way for this protagonist to
reconsider the image of the legendary woman, or the emblem of love; the woman who deserves being
her love: “Femme. Tu combles mon besoin d’amour” (Ibid: 55)
73
I mean by the “self”, in this case, the woman herself or her double (the French Sosie)
134
Woman’s world as it is presented by Beyala is expected to be more and basically based on
.
exchange of individuals (either males or females) complementarily. She does not deny a male
dominated world, yet teaches to concession that should exist to overcome the absurdity of life in so
far as it is based on irrational views, thoughts and behaviours. This shoddiness is the immediate
result of a value crisis which reshapes human’s mind and his perception of facts, and most
importantly, it is the repercussions of the misinterpretation of some notions and concepts that define,
determine and distribute social roles in life. Therefore, one may ask whether woman is regarded as an
object of lust or as a participant subject. The reality, generally, shows that woman is an undergoer of
consequences, and never stands or, at least, appears as a conscious participant whose position and
opinion is taken into consideration. The proof is that in both Beyala’s novels, the female protagonists
are victims of men’s indifference, ingratitude and lack of appreciation. One may say that Beyala is
foregrounding the notion of woman as subject who has a hand in modeling the objective reality. For,
according to V. A. Lektorsky man is not passive in the face of external nature; he may treat it as the
object of his activity, as something that should be changed in accordance with some aim of his own 74
In philosophical jargon, Beyala wants her woman to be a real acting person and not simply
consciousness, conscious of her being as woman which is in reality the object; the object is not
simply objective reality, but that part of it which has become the target of the practical or cognitive
activity of the subject […] A person becomes a subject, doer, knower, only to the extent that he has
mastered the modes of activity evolved by society (Lektorsky: Ibid). In this way, one would say that
Beyala is trying to contribute to the possibility of woman’s transformation in African text and thus
real social context. She is changing nothing but giving to her protagonists the possibility to be
creative of their “self defense system”. The protagonists should be aware of their place in the
74
Lektorsky. V. A (1980). The Dialectic of Subject and Object and some Problems of the Methodology of Science.
Retrived November 7, 2009, From http://www.marxists.org/subject/psychology/works/lektorsky/essay_77.htm
135
structure of reality for only then it would be almost possible to connect the miscellaneous aspects of
the object, that appear to the subject as diversified "angles" on the object, and to detect the special
features of the "thing in itself". One may ask again why?
III.4. Beyala’s Protagonists facing the Incongruity of life
The callousness and cruelty to which Atéba was subjected is owing to Jean Zepp who
abandoned her after she has slept with various policemen to have him released from prison, and by
the end he accused her of unfaithfulness, or even Iréne who felt prey to pregnancy and died after an
abortion. Has one not to accuse Iréne’s misconduct? Personally, I believe, the one who should be
blamed is society in general, since society is a man-made product. Atéba and Iréne as victims are not
at all different from the protagonists Tanga and Anna Claude.
Hassan or Ousmane are nothing but the fruit of these protagonists’ imagination; by the very
beginning of the novel the narrator says that: “Anna Claude! Pour le présent, elle avait inventé son
homme. Tissé à la dimension de ses rêves. Elle l’appellait Ousmane” (TTT: 08); shortly after, Tanga
speaks about her imaginative world: “n’avais que dix ans mais j’imaginais déjà l’homme surveiller
ma fenêtre, créer hasards et coïncidences pour avoir le privilège de marcher à mes côtés” (Ibid : 14).
Ousman and Hassan are the invention of Beyala’s protagonists. The point which is not clear enough
is why the writer has modeled female characters haunted by illusion?
Beyala believes that imagination is perhaps the way towards reality, in that she does not deny
the existence of man in the life of woman and at the same time she gives the initiative to women to
define themselves. This is certainly not haphazard. Imagination allows one to perceive reality in
uniquely personal ways; Beyala might have adopted a sociological approach to make the reader
understand that women can understand their own experiences, thereafter their own fate is decided
only by locating themselves within their case as women belonging to different societies, and they can
136
know their own chances in life only by becoming aware of those of all individuals; Anna Claude has
realized, in a given moment in the tale, that she cannot reach self definition through man but through
a woman. In reality Anna Claude and Tanga could see each other’s souls after realizing that man is a
fading dream; this could be highlighted through the dialogue between Anna Claude and Tanga:
Anna Claude: “Ouvre la bouche.
Je vois ta pensée
Tanga: Et que vois- tu?
Anna Claude : Tu apprends à faire abstraction de ton corps, à sentir avec ton âme
Tanga: et comment le sais-tu? Ne me dis pas que tu as un troisième œil.
Anna Claude: Sais-tu ce que font les manguiers la nuit, lorsqu’ils sont certains que
l’homme dort?
Tanga: Non.
Anna Claude: Ils deviennent des hommes, agissent comme tels et, au deuxième
chant du coq, ils récupèrent leurs écorces, s’embrassent, se font un clin d’œil, et
s’endorment pour laisser la place à la vie des hommes
If imagination is a path into perceiving reality, then Beyala is right to provide a world for her
characters and thus for women in general; this world is based on established new order and new
values which could be summarized in love, liberty and solidarity. In reality the objective of Beyala
beyond bringing the cause of woman and imagination together is but a link among many other links
of the chain that Beyala is drawing. The conflict between man and woman, I think, is not the only
problem a woman is suffering from, but also the social troubles that occur within the character of the
woman and within the immediate relations with other individuals surrounding her. In this case, is
woman obliged to do with herself and with those limited areas of social life of which she is directly
and personally aware? To explain this problematic situation, it would be wise to refer to the situation
of Anna Claude and her illusionary world:
137
Anna Claude. Elle avait bâti sa vie sur un monument de vent. Jour après jour,
elle avait demandé au rêve son assistance, la consolation de sa voix… Un leurre
formidable qui l’avait nourri, écaressée, cajolée encore et encore, depuis ce jour
où ses camarades l’avaient exclue de leurs jeux en la traitant de ‘sale juive’. Elle
ne comprenait pas, elle l’être du jour, lumière dans l’empreinte de la douleur
(139)
In this sense, one can say that the statement and the resolution of troubles resulted from
inappropriate behaviour (use of racist language ‘sale Juive’) properly lie within the scope of her
immediate milieu - the social setting that is directly open to her personal experience. It is in reality an
absurd world where an individual is expecting a change beyond an illusionary world. For both Tanga
and Anna Claude are living in a chaotic world where there is no hope, and there is no lieu for change.
Therefore, they hope the ‘inexistent’ men can save them. The flight of Beyala’s characters from
reality into illusion and thus self deception, as shows Martin Esslin, is but a result of the clinging of
the system of thought that provide, or purports to provide, complete explanation of the world and
man’s place in it (Martin Esslin, 1962: 415).
Anna Claude ceased to face reality as it should; the narrator shows that “dés ce jours, elle
apprit à ne plus être juive, à ne plus être, à s’habiller de rêve pour tuer l’angoisse. Heure après heure,
elle posait les fondations de l’imagination” (Op.cit 140). The imagination is in fact a substitute for
reality in a world where one ignores what part man has assigned in it, and what constitutes right
actions and wrong actions, what picture of the universe lacking all these clear-cut definitions appears
deprived of sense and sanity, and tragically absurd (Martin Esslin, op.cit). Within this world, one has
to account for this phenomenon, purposes and moral rules of the world, for he/she is subjected to
despair. As Tanga found herself surrounded by chaos, she turned to herself and to her kingdom when
she states:
138
Un univers roulé dans le noyau du vide. Le ciel n’a plus de toit. La terre a perdu sa
semelle. Loin de moi le chaos du monde, son ordre. Je suis au royaume de moi, à
l’assaut de moi. Je comprends ainsi que méditer sur la mort apprend à vivre, à
convertir le vide en château de pierre (Op.cit : 160)
Tanga is looking for reason and unity in the world surrounding her, but, alas, she finds
nothing. On the contrary, it provides her with meaninglessness which is the only asylum she finds in
her own world, for the simple reason that it is mute. Here, one can say that the impossibility of
getting convincing answers and concrete solutions to her critical situation resides in the confrontation
of her very desire to end the problem and the passivity of the world surrounding her. In this
perspective, Albert Camus, in the Myth of Sisyphus (1952-2006)75, says “that the absurd is not in man
nor in the world, but in their presence together...it is the only bond uniting them” (21). It is
legitimate, thereafter, that a woman looks for logical answers within her “micro world”; the world of
woman. In the same way, and certainly for the same reason that the protagonist Ateba, in C’est le
soleil qui m’a brûlée, said “que la femme devrait arrêter de faire l’idiote, qu’elle devrait oublier
l’homme et évoluer désormais dans trois vérités, trios certitudes, trois résolutions. Je les connaissais:
revendiquer la lumière, retrouver la femme et abandonner l’homme aux incuries humaines…” (104)
In reality, debates over the absurd world of woman, in Beyala’s literary world, are overt.
And because of the overlap existing between woman’s social reality and experience and the way they
are conceived by the same woman, this phenomenon remains delicate and most of the time
confusing. Attributing the phenomenon of absurdity to the presence or absence of man in the life of a
75
The Myth of Sisyphus is a philosophical essay by Albert Camus. It comprises about 120 pages and was published
originally in 1942 in French as Le Mythe de Sisyphe; the English translation by Justin O'Brien followed in 1955.
In this essay, Camus introduces his philosophy of the absurd: man's futile search for meaning, unity and clarity in the face
of an unintelligible world devoid of God and eternity. Does the realization of the absurd require suicide? Camus answers:
"No. It requires revolt." He then outlines several approaches to the absurd life. The final chapter compares the absurdity
of man's life with the situation of Sisyphus, a figure of Greek mythology who was condemned to repeat forever the same
meaningless task of pushing a rock up a mountain, only to see it roll down again. The essay concludes, "The struggle
itself is enough to fill a man's heart. One must imagine Sisyphus happy
139
woman, in itself, deserves a thorough intention. For the absurd, as again Camus said, is born of this
confrontation between the human need and the unreasonable silence of the world (Ibid). Beyala
seems to have dealt with a very essential point, in her novels, which is the victory of woman. It is a
victory in the sense that after sufferings there will be happiness, and this is, may be, what translates
her characters’ journey into imagination to escape reality and to reach finally reality; indeed a bit
awkward how can they escape reality to return back to reality. If one refers again to Camus’s Myth of
Sisyphus, then things would appear, to some extent, clear.
Camus, in his essay, about life and its values and about human existence and its significance,
puts forward the idea that humans must take on that purpose themselves in the absence of God who
provides meaning to their lives. It is in this way that Camus shows the absurd task of human beings,
like Sisyphus forever rolling his rock up a hill, as the inevitability of death constantly overshadows
the human beings. This regular repetition and this routine was the world of Atéba. The narrator says
that:
Les jours suivants, Atéba ne les vit pas passer. On était censé être en saison de
pluies, elle ne le voyait pas, elle ne pensait à rien sauf à écrire aux femmes, à
regarder les bateaux dériver. Elle n’avait jamais écrit autant (Op.Cit:108).
The very reality Beyala wants her characters to reach could be translated in the fact of
recognizing absurdity as one step, among others, toward the assertion of freedom. For the narrator
completes: “rien ne l’intéressait que de rassembler les femmes, de leur dire de se tenir prêtes, de ne
pas rater l’arrivée des étoiles” (Ibid). To reproduce Camus’s jargon, Beyala wants her characters, and
thereafter women to rid themselves from the “habit of living" without trying to combat the
absurdity". The very link existing between Camus’s and Beyala’s charcher is that the notion of
meaning of life is almost absent and that hope still exists, suffice it to try, to act to be committed if
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one has to get success, regardless the times devoted to action. This hope is translated and expressed
by a dream which allows one to cut himself/herself off the daily life.
In juxtaposing Atéba and Irène, one would raise the question of death and victory. If Irène
sees herself as a dying woman, it is because she is not afraid of death: “la mort ne me fait pas peur.
C’est penser que je suis passé sur la pointe des pieds” (143). The point raised with Irène is the
question of her destiny, “j’aurais tant voulu avoir une maison bien à moi […] Une vraie maison avec
un homme et des enfants […] sans lui, je n’existe pas, je ne suis qu’une illusion et personne ne peut
me contenir” (Ibid), which is similar to Sisyphus hatred of death. But the destiny of Irène is not
separate from the one of Atéba for they complete each other, and the former’s existence is
determined by the existence of woman as Atéba says: “d’abord tu ne vas pas mourir, et ensuite tu
existes parce que la femme existe, enfin tu te continueras” (Ibid) .
One would say that the victory of Iréne resides in the victory of Atéba whose determinism
made her strong enough to challenge the omnipotence of man. Her consciousness of their plight and
her lucid recognition of their destiny transform her silent torment into a victory. And this is exactly
what happened to Sisyphus. Camus says that it is “his scorn of the gods, his hatred of death, and his
passion for life won him that unspeakable penalty in which the whole being is exerted toward
accomplishing nothing." (Op. cit: 89). It has to be a victory because Camus says:
I leave Sisyphus at the foot of the mountain! One always finds one's burden again.
But Sisyphus teaches the higher fidelity that negates the gods and raises rocks. He
too concludes that all is well. This universe henceforth without a master seems to
him neither sterile nor futile. Each atom of that stone, each mineral flake of that
night-filled mountain, in itself forms a world. The struggle itself towards the heights
is enough to fill a man's heart. One must imagine Sisyphus happy (Ibid: 91)
If Beyala, by the very beginning her novel has written:
141
Ici, il y a un creux, il y a le vide, il y a le drame. Il est extérieur à nous, il court
vers des dimensions qui nous échappent. Il est comme le souffle de la mort (Op.
Cit: 05)
Then, she is, certainly, introducing the reader to a world of nothingness, meaninglessness and of
chaos where woman is errant. Undoubtedly her preamble is pessimistic, but the fact of being written
at the very beginning of the novel means that the writer is conscious of the woman’s plight, and that
she is, optimistically, criticizing the world of woman. What is important to mention, in this scope, is
the writer’s awareness of the woman’s living situation, and hence her characters’. It is here where
one can notice their mental power to control their thought and actions to overcome the arduousness
of life.
Beyala, the writer seems to be aware of the incongruity of life, and conscious enough that this
illusory incongruous life is the only way a woman can draw to reach their ends. Tanga says that: “il
n’ya plus que le rêve à aimer […] serait-ce par ennui ou par désespoir que l’on se peint un tableau à
vivre?” (TTT: 122). Yet, Beyala has created images in her likeness to allow herself the possibility to
find values in this situation. Because, after words, Tanga comments her question when said:
je m’abstiens de pleurer. Mon amour je le veux fort, capable de se nourrir de luimême. Je veux vivre entourée de tout ce que ma mémoire édifie sur l’amour de
l’homme. Lier les forms des dedans, les dérouler en formes de dehors. Pas de bon
sens. Je veux m’ancrer au milieu de mes songes, m’élever au-dessus du déstin.
L’histoire doit être (Ibid);
She concluded:
Plonger dans la rêverie pour franchir le seuil de l’univers impossible (Ibid)
Beyala wants, may be, to say that the value of her characters is in their passion and
enthusiasm for change they can make to put up with their absurd situation. For Camus, over the
142
absurd situation and the realization that reason is not tied to any eternal mind which can unify and
make appearances familiar under the pretext of a great principle, says that “learning all over again to
see, to be attentive, to focus consciousness; it is turning every idea and every image, in the manner of
Proust, into a privileged moment”. (Op.cit: 20)
True, one may ask me why did I refer particularly to Camus and not, for example, to Samuel
Beckett, or even the American Edward Albee? I do not make any clear cut between these absurdist
writers, though, there may exist differences. Yet I believe, my reference to Beyala’s absurd characters
in an absurd world is important, and that I have simply noticed close attitudes between Camus’s
Sisyphus and Beyala’s characters. The futile perpetual search for meaning and clarity in a world
devoid of God and eternity rehearses in C’est le soleil qui m’a brûlée:
Elle criera au secours, personne ne répondra. Personne ne répond plus. Même le
Ciel […] Est- ce ainsi que Dieu avait imaginé sa création? Tant de pas sur le
chemin pour encore plus d’erreurs, d’échecs, de méchancetés accumulées dans les
caves boueuses de l’histoire… (45)
Atéba, here, feels herself abandoned by God. She refuses to submit and accept her destiny as a
subordinate, therefore, she said: “la femme ne devait-elle pas comme Dieu defendre sa creation contre
pluies et vents?” (46); the idea of woman’s transcendence to the status of God may, undoubtedly, refer
to the new will of woman towards revolt.
I do not want to dive into philosophical debates over the idea of God and the absurd; the ideas
of the Russian Lev Shestov76 that suggest the existence of God to help man deal with the impossible
76
Lev Shestov (1866-1938) is a Russian-Jewish philosopher of existentialism. In France he is well known as Léon
Chestov. Variously described as an irrationalist, an anarchist, a religious philosopher, Shestov's themes were initially
inspired by Nietzsche until he found a kindred spirit in Kierkegaard. Among his contemporaries he entertained longstanding philosophical friendships with Martin Buber, Edmund Husserl and Nikolai Berdyaev Shestov's development as a
thinker lead him to undertake a vast critique of the history of Western philosophy which he saw broadly as a monumental
battle between Reason and Faith, Athens and Jerusalem, secular and religious outlook. He thus engaged on what he termed
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and incomprehensible, or the ideas of the Danish Søren Kierkegaard who is famous for making the
"leap of faith" into God, where he identifies the irrational with faith and with God, and not even with
Edmund Husserl’s phenomenology which deals only with direct experience, for he seems to embrace
the absurd, but he then tries to associate some sort of transcendental essences with the simple
phenomena that he discusses. I am convinced that these existential philosophers try to find some sort
of transcendence in the absurd itself.77
Whether Beyala has dealt consciously or unconsciously with her characters in a Camusean
way, Albert Camus’s way of dealing with human matters cannot effortlessly be pinpointed in her
works, but all that could be said is that philosophical germs cannot be circumvented. And it is up to the
reader to get his way to philosophical elements in the text. In a social context similar to Beyala’s,
human being is regarded as to represent a set of values and conceptions; contradictory, sometimes,
they appear to be, but aim at the same end which is the realization of self. Man does not seem to be
completely satisfied with what he is, but with what he will be like or where he will be; man,
sometimes, refuses to make a choice, because, for him, any given choice is reductive and can make of
some values absurd. The question of choice is not asked as a matter of choice which consists in dealing
with the refusal of a position for Good and Bad and the acceptance of these two poles, for man is not
considered to think in terms of “Good” and “Bad”, but to put himself beyond this contradiction, or
simply to omit this choice and sink, instead, in a complete indifference. To get a lucid idea about
human beings’ relations, their relations with the outside world and their choice in life, Kierkegaard, for
instance, who is hostile to all type of philosophical systems which combine ideas and procedures
attributed to a certain number of principles, endeavoured to analyze that lucid relation between God
and himself. This situation urges one to rethink things in terms of the relationship between particular
a "pilgrimage through the souls" of such greats as Tolstoy, Dostoevsky, Blaise Pascal, Descartes, Plotinus, Spinoza, Plato,
Luther and others.
77
The idea of transcendence is a very important point in the sense that it is referred to in Beyala’s novel; yet it would be
developed in coming points of my thesis when I will deal with existentialism.
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existence and interiorized Christianity which is qualified as problematic, and hence in terms of the
dramatic discourse between what an individual would, really, be like and what should be like in the
Christian faith.
To understand the global individual, Kierkegaard dresses a typological list of attitudes. Taking
into account his initial condition for his perfect negation to God, he sees that every human being
possesses one possible choice for his destiny that he qualifies as obvious solution and a real failure.
Therefore, the philosopher suggests three primordial options in life whereby one can progress once
he/she reaches the stage of dissatisfaction; these options are the aesthetic, the ethical, and the religious
stage.
For me, I found it important not to refer, at least in this section, to the religious stage, but to the
two other ones, and that Søren Kierkegaard sees as primordial for the evolution of man, for Mounier
Emmanuel said that “L’esthétique est ce par quoi l’homme est immédiatement ce qu’il est, l’éthique
est ce par quoi il est ce qu’il deviant” (1962: 88-89). To hyphen Beyala’s Camusean way of dealing
with her characters and Kierkegaard’s aesthetic stage as well as ethical one, I will try to account for
Beyala’s characters from a Kierkegaardean scope, that is to say, those forms of representation
experiencing libertinage78 which, according to Kierkegaard, may lead to deception as well as to the
feeling of general vanity and futility. Certainly, there is no direct reference to females or males but to
their coexistence.
The illusion, imagination and the dreams that occupy a major part in the former novels of
Beyala, give an image to the life of man (human being). Tanga, Anna Claude, Atéba, and Irène,
through their complicity and because of their social incarceration, have sunk in a very perpetual
adventure along which they try to escape themselves and the others. To allude to this sort of escape, in
78
Libertinage in this context refer to a way of thinking freely (the French world Libertin, which means ,Libre penseur)
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its general meaning, three archetype characters deserve being given a mention as example for this
escape. The errant Jew whose quest for the homeland never gets to end; for him every land he settle or
inhabits makes just a stage, among many others, towards an elsewhere which, most of the time, pushes
him backwards. This Jew would be “our” image in the sense that our life is, by itself, a very
disappointed march whose objective is faceless and unknown. The second example is Don Juan79, the
great adventurer of the Eros; for him every woman is just a step or a stage to which he never stops, for
he seeks possession of the woman herself, whose conquests are nothing but insufficient, perishing and
ephemeral images. For Don Juan, a sex maniac, a woman is, but an abstraction that one has to overtake
and to integrate into an endless world of hunt and pursuit. Moreover, Faust 80 the adventure of
knowledge who incarnates the devilish spiritual, his real research would be that of the soul which
remains joyless and incarcerated in darkness. What characterizes, therefore, the aesthetic sphere is that
it makes of life a set of progressive attempts; it leads finally to a deception which mutates into a blind
alley.
The characters (males and females) of Beyala are not all of them Don Juan, Faust, or even the
Jews; yet the situation in which these particular individuals are put or, unwillingly, find themselves
could be met in Beyala literary social context. In fact it is far beyond the idiosyncrasy of African
social reality that the writer manages to give an air of universality. The life as it is experienced by
Tanga, Anna Claude, Ateba or Irène is relevant to any other woman’s life; it has always been
adequately and safely tucked away owing to misconception, in that silence is their virtue and
79
Don Juan is above all an exquisite literary figure. Together with Hamlet, Faust or Don Quixote he is one of the most
intriguing creations of Western culture. He is a fictitious character who is a symbol of libertinism. Originating in popular
legend, he was first given literary personality in the tragic drama El burlador de Sevilla (1630); “The Seducer of Seville,”
translated in The Trickster of Seville and the Stone Guest), attributed to the Spanish dramatist Tirso de Molina. Through
Tirso’s tragedy, Don Juan became a universal character, as familiar as Don Quixote, Hamlet, and Faust. Subsequently, he
became the hero-villain of plays, novels, and poems; his legend was assured enduring popularity through Mozart’s opera
Don Giovanni (1787). Don Juan is a mythical figure.
As far back as in 1926, Ramiro de Maeztu endorsed this view when he said that he has never existed; he does not exist
and will never exist except as a myth. But the imaginative consistency of the Don Juan figure depends precisely on his
condition as a myth.
80
A character in a play writer by Goeth; it is an eponym; Goeth’s character offered his soul to devil
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passivity their garner; this is, unfortunately, owing to the absence of social or cultural sphere of
power and influence. And because they are roughed up by life, and threatened with annihilation, the
characters quest for the self through the man puts them in a position of despair wherein they have
completely forgotten about their being as woman: “la quête d’0usmane l’avait quelque peut
essouflée, avait trace de nouvelles rides sur son front, au dos de ses mains. Mais Anna Claude restait
belle de rêves qui la porataient et elle surmontait son désespoir” (TTT: 11); their self-doubt pushes
them, most often, into womanhood before their time, usually through a chain of traumatic
experiences; in this case, it is important to underline what Tanga herself said:
Derrière mon bandeau, je ferme encore les yeux, creusant l’abîme où serait enterré
hier, où seraient enterrées les vérités d’un peuple englué dans l’exploitation de
l’enfant, tandis que le reste de l’humanité s’élance, radieux, sur le chemin de
l’enfant-roi (30)
The life of Tanga or Anna Claude is mysterious in that the over nagging questions over the
truth remain answerless; the truth, itself, is a mystery, for these two characters hope to find a remedy
to the social calamity in approaching man, yet the life of man is, but a further step towards mystery
and despair, quite like the Jew who gropes for a home land. In a similar situation, any woman ask
questions like the ones raised by Tanga:
Est- il donc nécessaire de tomber dans l’eau profonde de l’invisible, de s’y laisser
couler pour gagner les cieux habillés de neuf? Sur ce continent où toute vérité est
moitié vide ou à moitié pleine, de quelle astuce faut-il se parer pour que le plein
soleil traverse le corps ? Même le bonheur par procuration a besoin d’un visage.
Je dois retrouver le mien et me fixer à jamais dans l’état de femme, pour ne plus
être l’enfant-parent de ses parents (31).
what is to be pinpointed in Tanga’s questioning is that woman does not know the ecstasy of
living, neither as individual nor even as that unique living individual who engenders and infants; she
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does not however find the pleasure to be herself, and to judge the separated self; and since man is at
once the creator and creature of his authentic existence as Nietzsche explains (Walter Kaufmann,
1974), therefore separation is between the woman as creator of her creature, for man is nothing but
that he makes of himself (Jean-Paul Sartre, 1975: 349); Nietzsche, about the separated self, says:
il incarne une transcendance au nom de laquelle cette univers est jugé, et
représente alors non pas l’illusion qui stimule la vie, mais le narcotique qui séduit
l’homme en faveur d’une réalité rêvée, prototype de tous les “mondes vrais”, c’est
à dire les mondes faux, les « arrières mondes (Jacques Ponnier, 2000 :42)
Since woman is the product of her own "self-making", then one could understand thereafter
why Irène said: “J’évoquais les chagrins idiots, les ambitions idiot et les plaisirs éphémères…
J’apprenais que le bonheur était fils de tristesse” (CSQM: 103), and even why Atéba said: “que la
femme devrait arrêter de faire l’idiote, qu’elle devrait oublier l’homme” (104); the image they have
developed over man provided them with a sort of self despair; they think they cannot exist without
him, and that their self definition is determined by man; Tanga says that Hassan “m’as donné à savoir
que quelque chose de beau, d’achevé, vient d’exister en moi… , she adds: car j’existe là aux les yeux
de l’homme, juchée sur son désir” (TTT: 23). The separation between herself as a creator of this
created image “the other self” is necessary if they want to come to terms with what Vern L. Bullough
calls the “male mythology” of the role and place of women (1988: 14).
Albeit Beyala’s male characters are seen, by the female characters, as the “other self”, remain
Don Juans in their way of thinking and their position vis-à-vis women. The fact of considering them
just objects of lust and pleasure can put an accent on this hypothesis. Beyala presents the world of
her female characters through moral, psychological, and physical portraits; these portraits represent a
world void of respect, love and understanding from the part of man; in saying that:
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la femme ne saura plus puisque l’homme se cognera à l’obstacle du Bonheur,
puisqu’il oubliera l’amour pour la flamme du désir… il n’avouera plus puis qu’il
n’a jamais voulu s’unir au rêve de la femme, mais plutôt à sa chair (CSQM : 53),
Beyala enhances the idea that woman is, but an ephemeral “flight of man’s folly”; she in more than
to be view as an object of lust and pleasure, for she is treated as a “slave” whose body belongs to the
owner or the one who pays more. Sometime, pushed into the maze against her will, a woman remains
essentially a free human in being. Yet the situation in which she finds herself take one back to the age
of slavery. The dialogue between Atéba and the client shows the great extent to which woman is
enslaved:
- Que fais-tu chérie? Interroge-t-il d’une voix ensommeillée. Viens donc près de moi
- Je rentre
- Hors de question, ma belle, dit-il en se redressant sur un coude. J’ai payé ton ventre
pour la nuit
- Il a rempli son rôle
- Tu dois tenir tes engagements. Ton corps m’appartient jusqu’à l’aube.( Ibid : 151)
Two verbs (payer/ pay) and (appartenir/ belong), in this dialogue, are significant in the sense
that they reveal possession and dominance; in fact, man here grants himself the right to be the owner
of the woman; right he is never satisfied, no matter what concession a woman makes. The narrator
comments the attitude of the client who asks Atéba to satisfy his sexual instincts without even
moving when he said: “Bouge pas et baise” (46); the narrator, who identified herself to this character,
says that: “quand elle ne bouge pas, il lui reproche sa passivité. Quand elle bouge, il lui reproche sa
témérité” (Ibid). The question that could be asked here is does man see himself a god?
If one takes into consideration the following: “Tu tueras au nom de Dieu… Tu tueras au nom
de l’Homme” (45), one would undoubtedly understand why man’s attitudes towards woman are
unacceptable. Although man cannot succeed to the status of God, yet he allows himself the absolute
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right to treat woman as his creature. This situation is put into question by the writer through her
characters.The above mentioned phrases are structurally equivalent phrases and this is not haphazard.
“Dieu” and “Homme” appear structurally by the end of each phrase and they are written in capital
letters; moreover, “Dieu” and “Homme” are synonymously linked as powerful and the only decision
makers. In this phrase where man appears as an equivalent to God, marks the inferiority of woman in
front of man; in a sense the author, through her character, shows that religion favors the patriarchal
society which praises man’s power over woman. By the juxtaposition of man and God, in the above
mention example, the writer tries, perhaps, to say that man has selected just the divine qualities that
marks dominance.
In reality God is so “vastly beyond” anything else that the juxtaposition may reveal; now the
semantics underlying this process are not entirely alike, but one can take them as a reflection on how
the boundaries between God and Man are confused. The writer herself, identifies: “la femme ne
devrait-elle pas defender sa creation contre pluie et vents” (46), God with all the positive values, that
is today, with the lexemes carrying the seme (+ relief, + goodness, + protection), for God is
conceived as the "Celestial Light" and brightness. God's attributes reflect light and brightness as
symbols of wisdom. Thus, the idea that man is a “God on earth” is, undoubtedly, introduced to make
her criticism of man’s position more acute, in other wording, man is not a synonym but rather an
antonym, for the character’s question “que dirait le ciel s’il voyait l’homme condamner la mort alors
que Dieu la donne comme une deliverance?” (Ibid), backs the opposition that exists between God and
man. The semantic features that the verb, to condemn (condemner) as opposite to give (donner)
carries, puts man and Satan on the same equal footing. In this case man is a source of sufferings and
stigmatization (- goodness, - protection, + destruction), and hence man who alleged he could succeed
to the rank of God, is in the rank of Satan.
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The writer questions the subordination of woman and her substitution by man; I believe that
woman in Beyala context resembles woman in the heyday of Sumerian culture. Tiamat, a mother
goddess, was a dominant figure, and it was her body that was used to form the earth and heavens
after she was killed by Enlil (called Marduk in the Babylonian version and Asshur in the Assyrian
ones). The blood of Tiamat’s consort, Kingu, served to form individual humans. This death of a
female goddess and her replacement by dominant male figure is a common theme in the mythology
of many people (Bullough, op.cit: 16).
Why then a woman has to be killed by man? Why doesn’t has she the right to live forever as a
goddess right like man who pretends being a god, deciding on behalf of woman? These questions are
not to be developed, but they are rather raised by women who are condemned to live under the yoke
of man’s, so-called, god given power. If human beings are normally equal, then woman can proclaim
herself a goddess just like man who sees himself and pretends being a god.
Is it fair to satisfy man’s desires and to be to a subject of insult? Is it legitimate to harm
woman’s feeling? Isn’t it a dishonest to show ambivalent feeling? And, most importantly, why does
woman accept being possessed? The reality that man shows a contradicting feeling is, in itself, a sign
of hypocrisy vis-à-vis woman’s sobriety: “Ce n’est pas l’homme qui lui fait l’amour qui l’intéresse,
mais bien les contradictions dans les quelles cet homme est pris” (Gallimore, 1997 : 90) ; the writer’s
objective is to make overt that man is an amalgam of contradictions, and to show that woman’s
passivity is in fact a shield, for “en refusant d’être possédée, la femme offre son corps comme
bouclier et tire ainsi un certain pouvoir de sa froideur et de son indifférence” (Ibid). The refusal of
being possessed rehearses in, Assèze l’Africaine (1994), through the attitude of Awono the countess
prostitute of the rich business man.
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Both the incomprehension of the ambivalent emotion and the reflection on the conscious
mental processes constitute the spiritual content of such description linking two contrasted materiel
appearances within one person; the narrator shows that the client treats Atéba as a prostitute, in fact
“il la traite de salope! Putain” (150), then after words he comes to tell her: “tu es bonne, dit –il en la
gratifiant d’un baiser dans le cou, je t’aimerai bien toute la nuit” (Ibid); then he insults her again:
“non petite putain, je ne te laisserai pas avant d’avoir…” (151)
How can one identify a human whose time has disassociated the appearances of another
individual by the physical changes (before, during and after sexual intersection) he goes through? To
know the spiritual context of sexual interaction which is just a vector, a contextualization is
prerequisite. The afferent semes (as a coexistence of the feeling of hatred and love) in the two
occurrences of the same sememe (man) can make the identification of man’s position vis-à vis
woman a bit difficult. Expressing feelings of both love and hatred are respectively linked to weakness
and authority. This temporal dissimilation81 in semantic terms is the linguistic equivalent of the
realist process to which one is confronted when dealing with Beyala’s characters. Proust, in À la
recherche du temps perdu IV, says :
Reconnaître
quelqu’un, et plus encore, après n’avoir pas pu le reconnaître,
l’identifier, c’est penser sous une seule dénomination deux choses contradictoires,
c’est admettre que ce qui était ici, l’être qu’on se rappelle n’est plus, et que ce qui y
est, c’est un être qu’on ne connaissait pas; c’est avoir à penser un mystère [...]"
(1946 : 518).
The fact of saying that : “tout se déroule comme d’habitude avec les autres, les hommes. Il
m’entraîne (Hassan) dans une de ces chambres sordides qui ont la particularité de toutes se
81
dissimilation: actualization of opposing afferent semes in two occurrences of the same sememe or in two
“parasynonymous” sememes
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ressembler” (29), means that Hassan has no respect for Tanga; the adjective “sordide” (dirty) is
significant enough to show the extent to which this man stigmatizes and belittles Tanga. Because,
normally, one has to choose an appropriate place to love, and not any place. The most unpleasant is
the following physical portrait “tes yeux sont verts, seins lourds, tes cheveux coulent jusque sur tes
fesses. Ça m’excite” (30). This portrait shows the immorality of Tanga’s man. This character is
completely controlled by man, the “puppet82 player”, who freely exerts his power over her.
Man’s aggressiveness and brutality towards Beyala’s characters, like in: “Il exige: embrassemoi” (Ibid), or “puis brusquement il saisit les jambes…” (CSQB: 150), are important in showing the
attitude of Beyala’s men who show just one of the different facets they present. If this attitude is just
one element among many other elements that deserve being unveiled, then how can one account for
and explain the different erotic scenes the writer, overtly, provides the reader with? Certainly, Beyala
is not encouraging prostitution in its narrowest83 meaning, but unveiling certain realities that man
denies or pretends ignoring. In the two novels, C’est le soleil qui m’a brûlée and Tu t’appelleras
Tanga, the author provides a very consistent erotic scenes
In CSQB :
- la porte à peine franchie, il la prend dans ses bras et lui impose un lourd baiser.
- Déshabille-toi, dit-il le cœur battant, j’ai besoin du nu de la femme sous mes
mains… j’ai envie de me fondre en elle… Dépêche-toi
- Elle obéit
- Maintenant, elle est allongée sur le lit et l’homme s’est jeté sur ses seins. Il les
mange, il les taquine, il commente leur fermeté, la finesse de l’aréole
82
The Puppet type will reappear in the third chapter especially that Beyala is aiming at the substitution of the puppet
woman bu a new woman.
83
I said prostitution in its narrowest meaning, for prostitution is not a choice. Woman does never choose to be a
prostitute; she pushed into the world of prostitution. Therefore, one has to deal with a prostitute as a human being.
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- […] Il saisit les jambes et les pose sur ses épaules, attrape les reins à bâs –lecorps, avant de s’enfoncer en elle avec un râle de plaisir. Que tu es bonne ! dit-il
en amorçant un va-et-vient savant? Tu as du rythme dans les reins. »
- Il fait bon […] Le corps de l’homme scintilla couvert de petites perles sales…
soulevé par les roulements de hanches d’Atéba, le plaisir grimpe et débouche dans
la fange? Il crie » Salope ! Putain ! […] ouvre-toi […] Je viens […] Salope ! Tiens
[…] Tiens […]” Il s’écroule sur elle; les yeux fermés, la bouche entrouverte, le
soufflé court. (150)
In fact, these erotic scenes are, perhaps, to put an accent on theory that the author is not
against sexuality and sexual pleasure themselves, for they are natural needs and demands. But what
these scenes reveal is more than the act itself. In insisting on the description of the sexual positions,
the writer wants to make preeminent the question of sexuality; she wants to show the arrogance and
the sexual frustration from which an African man suffers. In Tu t’appelleras Tanga, Tanga’s way of
observing Hassan’s legs, because, “un enfant doit garder les yeux baissés” (16), explains Tanga’s
interpretation of Hassan’s arrogance, and after naming the client’s vice: “je lève les yeux. J’ai devant
moi l’arrogance. Je la casse, je la parque, comme la vieille ma mère, comme avant elle, la mère de la
vieille ma mère” (18); Thus, as Hassan subjugates Tanga’s body by vehemently raping her, one is at
the same time reminded of her subjective will power because through her gaze, she embodies a
network of relations, rather than a single role of object. Hassan, the embodiment of the powerful male
gaze, apparently does not recognize Tanga’s resistance and continues to subjugate her body to his
desires, as she says:
Hassan me prend dans ses bras; pas à pas, sans me lâcher, il me pousse vers le lit,
il s’écroule sur mon ventre. Il exige : embrasse-moi. Ses lèvres me soumettent. Il
saisit une jambe, puis l’autre, les pose sur ses épaules. Il me pénètre. Ses pas me
traversent ; l’existence de la femme me revient. Je ne la connaissais pas, pourtant
je la reconnais. Une mémoire dessinée dans la nuit des temps. Mon corps se
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déchaîne, cogne, abat murs et cloisons de ma vie. Il m’arrose, je pousse, nouvelle à
moi, je me transforme en une énorme vague (30)
A special attention should be given to the above passage in that its significance consists in
uniting the discourses of the female body and pain. Here, Hassan experiences Tanga’s body primarily
for its luscious pleasure for him, and he does not acknowledge the resultant pain. The most potent
weapon available for men in subjugating women is through rape. As Susan Brownmiller explains in
Against Our Will: Men, Women and Rape (1993)
Rape [is] … not only a male prerogative, but man’s basic weapon of force against
woman, the principal agent of his will and her fear. His forcible entry into her
body, despite her physical protestations and struggle, [is] … the vehicle of his
victorious conquest over her being, the ultimate test of his superior strength, the
triumph of his manhood. (14)
Hassan, here, does not even see Tanga as a sexual object; rather, seen as simply an object of
rape and violence she functions as a manifestation of unlimited privilege for the men. Tanga’s
invisibility in Hassan’s eyes is further manifested when, after the violent act, he erases her innocence
in his consciousness. He does not see the small and skinny girl with frizzy hair that stands in front of
him for him this little Tanga is as he told her: “tu es femme, tu es grande, fine malgré ton gros cul”
(30). He keeps on saying: “tes yeux sont verts, tes seins lourds, tes cheveux coulent jusque sur tes
fesses. Ça m’excite” (Ibid). Tanga is simply reduced to those body parts that arouse Hassan for he
constructs the rest of her body as not worth the effort of seeing Hassan’s phantasm does never cease
once he has the opportunity to do that; in reality the African’s masochistic acts are the product of his
culture and of religion84, and since sex is a taboo for the African, woman remained accessible
through phantasms and imagination. The contact with woman is a sort of catching up with the lost
time in loneliness. One could say thereafter that sexual phantasms and masochism, realized through
84
In this sense, I will make reference to the bible since the social context of Beyala is a Christian social context, for the
Bible considers says, "The man is head of the woman". This would be one of the major point in the fourth chapter
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his contact with woman, are a sort of sublimation. What for woman then? Why does she refuse being
treated in this way?
Some textual elements present a very important set of words bearing a semantic load.
Therefore, the use of these words has a pragmatic significance for the writer. As a first, intuitive
approximation, one can say that imperatives, the author has used, represent actions which the
addressee (prostitute female character) should take; since an imperative places a requirement on the
addressee, thus, in this context, the natural proposal to make for imperatives is that they are
associated with a discourse object which is a set of imperative denotations. In this case what do the
following imperatives denote?
1. Hassan exige: Embrasse-moi (TTT: 30)
2. Le béré says: lève le pied! le patron t’attend (Ibid : 170)
3. Anna Claude says : j’ai envie de pisser. Le béré says : Dépêche-toi (Ibid)
4. Le client says : Bouge pas et baise (CSQB : 46)
5. Le client says : Déshabille-toi, dit-il le cœur battant (Ibid : 150)
6. Le client says: Dépêche-toi (Ibid)
In reality imperatives can express various illocutionary forces, such as advice, suggestion,
permission, threats, dares, warnings and wishes as well as orders and commands , but in the above
examples, all the imperative verbs are used to give instructions or warnings, and direct order or
commands. The imperative mood contributes as essential part of its meaning that: firstly there is an
obligation and that secondly the addresser/speaker issues the obligation. So the verbs in the above
mentioned examples (from 1 until 6) contribute as assertion that there is an obligation in the current
world from the part of the addresser/speaker (man).
The addresser (man) who is in authoritative position gives orders to the addressee like in the
examples (1, 4, 5, 6), where the intonation of an order is important: each word is stressed, and the
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tone falls at the end of the sentence; but since the examples are in French, the stress does not fall on
the first syllable as Nicole Delbecque shows in his book entitled Linguistique Cognitive (2006)85. In
Embrasse-moi, the stress falls on the second syllable “brasse” and the tone falls on “moi”; in the
fourth example, it is the second part of the example, Baise, which corresponds to this category of
imperative verbs, in that it is an order and the stress falls on it. Example Five, Déshabille-toi is quite
similar to the example number four but the stress, in this example, is on the first syllable. But in the
following example “Le client says: tu dois tenir tes engagements” (Ibid), the case is different in that
the instruction is a direct order. The author, through this variety of orders, shows that man is more
confident and authoritarian. This authority enables him to treat a woman like garbage. This language
marks his sexual superiority which makes his ego feel greater.
The other examples (2, 3, 4, and 6) represent essentially a warning. The addresser uses the
imperative to warn the addressee of danger. Man, in the examples, in question, warns women, if they
do not do what they are asked, or what is required from them, they will be oppressed. What could be
noticed in these examples is the tone which is rising at the beginning and falling by the end. The first
words in the warning are stressed, but the last word has a higher tone than the first word:
- Léve le pied → rising /falling
- Dépêche-toi → rising /falling
- Bouge pas
→ rising /falling
- Dépêche-toi → rising /falling
The existence of an obligation issued by the speaker is an essential part of the meaning that
cannot be canceled for imperatives. In fact, imperatives can express various illocutionary forces and
imply semantic characterization. In the above examples, the imperative expresses a rapport of
Delbecque says: l’accent (en Anglais “Stress”) est une propriété de la syllabe. Une syllabe accentuée est prononcée
avec d’avantage d’énergie, ce qui la met en relief. Elle est plus longue est plus sonore qu’une syllabe non accentuée et sa
prononciation est plus claire. En français l’accent tombe généralement sur la dernière syllabe du mot (2006 : 155)
85
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domination, since the mode is regarded as a pseudo mode). The mode is erased to leave a place to the
rapport of power (dominating/ dominated), that which states a superior order, and that which is
summoned to carry out the order which is in an inferior situation or position
Undoubtedly a question that deserves being asked; why a woman is condemned to remain
passive and subservient to man’s requirements? The essence of the problem is undoubtedly not only
linked to the question of the presence of male and female or satisfaction of sexual instincts, for,
beyond any psychological consideration, the priest Marie Dominique Phillipe, says that: “ l’homme
et la femme sont également ordonnées à la comtemplation, puisque l’âme de l’homme et celle de la
femme sont spécifiquement les mêmes, crées directement par Dieu dans le corps” (Aletheia, No
28).In this case, normally, man and woman are complementary in their nature, and relatively linked
to each other because of their vital cooperation. So why then the client warns Atéba and orders her to
“Baise” (Op.cit), in a time the sexual acts is shared and common? The selfishness of the client (man)
pushes Atéba to renounce all her rights and pleasure in favour of man; without making any effort, the
former waits from Atéba to do everything for him even during sexual intercourse. So can this fact be
qualified as obedience? It could be, in that the writer herself has shown her character Atéba obeying
blindly the client, elle obeit (150), although he kissed her against her will , “il la prend dans ses bras
et lui impose un lourd baiser” (Ibid). Atéba noticeably refuses to be kissed; nevertheless she thinks it
is her duty as women to make this experience and to endure this situation, no matter how much
disgust and horror this triggers in her. This situation shows Atéba’s fatalism, as she is not capable of
believing there is an alternative to that life in which all the rules are laid down by men. Atéba may
not appreciate these rules, but she, nonetheless, accepts and regards them as the natural “status quo”.
So how can one explain this obedience?
Many interpretations could be set forward, yet in this context, one could say that it is, may be,
because woman was domesticated owing to repeatedly ruinous as well as continuous sexual
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intercourse and injunctions that she has become passive. He tamed her in a sense, and made of her an
animal, a docile animal. In fact, it is not enough to stop at this stage or this ground, for there is
certainly another explanation for all that. The attribution of woman’s obedience to a mere sexual
injunction presents a weak argument, for Beyala, who seeks to reconsider woman’s position, wants,
perhaps, to allude to something very strong. Rangira Béatrice Gallimore, in her book, entitled les
Oeuvres Romanesque de Calixthe Beyala (1997), says that:
Malgré l’oppression sociale qui pèse sur elles, les personnages de Beyala ne sont
pas des victimes passives. Elles luttent pour se défaire du système oppressif (58);
she adds c’est contre ces femmes complices du phallocentrisme que luttent les
héroïnes de Beyala (59).
It is legitimate thereafter to look for other reason beyond women obedience. Therefore, does the
author refer to something else to which a woman is, may be, called to abide to and stand for, and
which the writer is also questioning in the same time? Does the question of obedience require a
social, cultural or even an ideological debate? I think there are several reasons for this obedience; it
can not be attributed to or determined in terms of woman’s weakness or stigmatization only.
To provide a social explanation to the phenomenon, one would talk about sexuality and love.
To deal with the two synonymously is to bridge the very gap existing between love and sexual
interaction; they are two detached things. Indeed, one may say that marriage which is the legal union
of a man and woman as husband and wife is not always based on love or even sexuality but it is an
imposed institution, and here one can take an example from Beyala’s La Plantation, when Shanon
was asked by Blues:
Qui est ce type? demanda Blues.
Mon fiancé, dit Shona comme une mauvaise blague.
C’est un des trois pères de ton fils? Demanda Blues.
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Presque.
C’est lequel des trois?
Aucun d’eux. Celui-ci s’appelle Houndette. Il est riche et il veut m’épouser.
Tu l’aimes ?
Ai-je le choix de l’aimer ou pas? Il va s’occuper de mon fils et de moi, tous les
jours de la semaine. C’est mon secouriste, tu comprends? (174)
Shanon is pregnant and will get married with a man who is not the biological father of her
coming baby; she is not even sure who exactly is the real father of her baby; she said: “Ai-je le choix
de l’aimer ou pas?”, and she calls the man , her saver who will get married with her and provide her
with many. So the very obeindence of woman and her acceptance to a given state is owing to the
social circumstance; she has to accept her fate in life because she is given the choice.
Another situation, in which sexuality takes another dimension, is in Femme nue femme noire
where Irène, the main character shows a strog sexual desire, in fact she she makes use of sexual
pratcices to escape the social:
Les hommes, les évènements, les choses glissent sur moi comme sur une structure
compacte. Seules deux choses m’intéressent: voler et faire l’amour. Deux manières
pleines de fantaisie et de risques pour vaincre le cauchemar du réel. (55)
This woman is not a traditional woman, she refuses having a husband and kids; she lives only
for her own sexual lust and desire. For her, love is a negative feeling which causes sufferings as
appears in the following example:
As-tu déjà aimé? Me demande‐t‐elle à brûle‐pourpoint.
Aimé des choses, tu veux dire?
Un homme.
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Quelle absurdité que de focaliser l’immensité des sentiments sur un seul être! Je
n’entre pas dans cette aberration! C’est totalement irresponsable! Incongru!
Malséant! Et que sais‐je encore?
Ça doit être bien triste de n’aimer personne. Moi, j’aime être aimée et aimer à mon
tour.
C’est pour cela que tu es si malheureuse. Que Dieu me préserve de cette hystérie
collective qui rend idiote la plus intelligente des femmes.
Personne ne peut vivre sans amour, assène‐t‐elle. (63-64)
One notes that the situation of Beyala’s women, in her stories, is different. The character
Irène, In La Plantation, appears to be different from Irène in Femme nue femme noire, and from
Atéba in C’est le soleil qui m’a brûlée. Despite of the different literary context and personal
experience and objectives in life, they remain the same in the sense that this very experience and
objectives are themselves the almost comment points between both Iréne and Atéba. For the latter,
sexuality allows her to define herself, and most importantly makes her feel significant and free. It
also gives her a role in a society where it is difficult to have her place.
Mais c’est quoi encore, son rôle? Elle l’avait presque oublié en pensant au rôle des
autres. Ça y est, Atéba Léocadie se souvient, elle est la femme, la maîtresse, la
femme de l’homme. Elle a trouvé son rôle, elle se sent presque mieux, elle devient
tout d’un coup deux Ateba. La femme et l’actrice. L’ordinaire et l’extraordinaire.
(127)
Ateba thinks about her role and decides that she is la femme, la maîtresse and la femme de l’homme.
What could be noticed is that the word “femme” rehearses; the first definition that Ateba tries to give
is that she is a “woman”, and she defines herself as a undemure “maîtresse”, a sexually attractive
woman.
It is possible to devote other rooms to criticize the very reality from an ideological view
point as long as there are always alternatives in literary studies. I am not called to limit and to abide
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to what other professional readers have done, at least, because I have my own reading and thus
understanding of Beyala’s novels. It seems legitimate in that, in literary criticism, attention is given
and paid to the function of the reader in a process of literary experience. For Hans Robert Jauss
points out the rise of the new paradigm and emphasizes the importance of interpretation by the
reader, replacing the obsolete literary scholarship methodology which involved the studies of
accumulated facts (Robert C. Holaub, 1984: 01). Therefore, he views literature “from the perspective
of the reader or consumer” and treats literature “as a dialectical process of production and reception
(Ibid: 57); in literary criticism, as a reader, according to Raman Selden, one can receive certain
mental images in the process of reading; however the images will inevitably be coloured by the
reader’s existing stock of experience. (1997: 56)86
As an actual reader, Beyala’s texts predispose me to a very specific kind of reception. The
direct and indirect reference to religious tendencies through characters’ evocative words over God,
Christ as well as Christmas, and the declaration made by characters themselves over their origin, as
well as the writer’s introduction to some names, which have semantic implicit connotations and
allusions, urged me to insist on the point of ideology. In fact, about the horizon of expectation Hans
Robert Jauss says that:
A literary work, even when it appears to be new, does not present itself as
something absolutely new in an informational vacuum, but predisposes its audience
to a very specific kind of reception by announcements, overt and covert signals,
familiar characteristics, or implicit allusions. It awakens memories of that which
was already read, brings the reader to a specific emotional attitude, and with its
beginning arouses expectations for the “middle and end,” which can then be
maintained intact or altered, reoriented, or even fulfilled ironically in the course of
the reading according to specific rules of the genre or type of text. (1982: 23)
Selden is making reference to the actual reader ; for the implied reader is defined as “the reader whom the text creates
for itself and amounts to a network of response-inviting structures, which predispose us to read in certain ways (1997: 56)
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Jauss uses the term ‘horizon of expectation’ to describe the criteria readers use to judge
literary text in any given period. These criteria will help the reader decide how to judge a peom as,
for example, an epic or a tragedy or a pastoral. (Op.cit: 53).
It is thereafter interesting to deal with other sides of the social reality basing my study on
personal back ground, since Jauss explains that “the horizon of expectations is formed through the
reader’s life experience, customs and understanding of the world, which have an effect on the
reader’s social behavior” (Ibid: 39). Because, at least for me, this point is capital, it will be devoted a
whole section in the third chapter.
Conclusion
In this chapter, I have tried to expose the state of the African woman who has long been
relegated to the position of "Other" through either marginalization or denigration, and who had most
often, been, in “Western” literature, portrayed as exotic, nameless and voiceless; an experience that
could not be viewed as being similar for black women from the United States, the Caribbean or
Britain, though there exists some shared purpose when it comes to the black woman reclaiming her
identity.
This situation has been attributed to the unforgettable reality that colonial experience affected
both men and women in different ways; yet what should not be denied is that females were often
subjected to what is known as ‘double colonization’. Their position as colonized people and as
women made of them discriminated subjects.
The result of this treatment is ultimately the
development of the terminologically problematic post-colonial woman. Therefore, important efforts
have been made in a given sense to subvert the patriarchal literary forms which are, themselves,
considered as an important part of the feminist project.
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This is, perhaps, why African feminism has brought outstanding changes to writer’s
perception of woman situation and understanding allegation of women’s identity and representation
in the world of literature. In reality, it is by means of feminist literary writings that woman identity
has become to be viewed as an outcome of ideological orientations. The nature of the text itself and
the competence of the women writers to impose themselves and their ideologies as convincing and
satisfactory are essentially the important things that have contributed to a great extent to the insertion
of the African women writing in post colonial context. This very reality is that African women
writers are to reveal reality and exorcise people’s minds, in that literary criticism has boasted women
writings forward to become, distinctly, a very specific literary domain and field of study to the point
whereby African feminist writers’ audience has become very wide, and has gained potency and
effectiveness in post colonial era and context.
The point I do really see worth of praise is that black African francophone writers, in general,
attempt to give women and their experiences their appropriate place, in terms of publication
representations through different categories such as class, gender, ethnicity and community, which
engage a fluid and strong philosophy of females’ self realization
.
My conception of self realization tends to be more of rational thinking in that, I believe, the
writers’ efforts to reach the stage of universal feminism, accordingly, is to enhance substantial social
change. Calixthe Beyala critical opinion of the world tends to be more of rational thinking in that she
sees the world as basically founded on exchange of individuals (either males or females)
complementarily, and to cease thinking in terms of gender superiority, and attributing the production
of society to man. .
In adopting new transcending philosophies in life, Beyala break away with the traditional
ways of dealing with the African woman aiming by that at the postmodern treatments, i.e., preserving
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the value of woman as African, and infusing those values by more rationality: that woman is a human
being who deserves being given a deal of respect, and should not, in any case, be considered as an
object of lust. In reality, the author does not only talk about the black, African, Christian, or non
Christian woman, but about that human being who is put under the yoke. This is why, I will deal
within the next chapter with the females’ self as a common self; the shared identity is a key for, I
believe females’ problem is more than to be encapsulated within a given space and attributed to a
given epoch. The question of the self, I have so far raised, is of paramount importance, not only in
the third chapter, but in the entire thesis I am called to defend. The question of the self is, but an
actual question; many queries are set forward over the self and the quest for the identity. In this
stance, woman’s identity is determined, certainly, through their view over themselves. That is why a
dialectical debate over the real self and the idealized self appears central.
It is, thereafter, legitimate for a woman to look for logical answers within her “micro world”
which is completely overwhelmed by non-sense. The verticality of thoughts leads nowhere, in a time
the world verticality itself is questioned. So it is pertinent to germinate views and thoughts which are
basically vertical, and trying to get over the ideological, racial, sexual, and social differences. The
reality is that the writer Beyala is likely to suggest new vision of things, which are basically the
essence of any relationship between individuals within this universe. The model of woman “newwoman”, is certainly the one which fits better Beyala’s philosophy; it is the one which is likely to be
ready to embody her (author’s) ideas.
I suppose Beyala’s journey towards feminist writing materialization is certainly not limited to
her effort to give birth to new women, but also to define her essence as human being. This why the
quest for the self is seen as a theory of self awareness. This point is very significant in that I will
devote an important section to.
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ChapterThree
Effective African women: Beyala’s Journey
towards Feminist Writing Materialization
Introduction
III.1. Beyala’s Romanesque World: an author dominated discourse
III.2. Beyala’s Liberal-humanist orientation and the true self discovery
III.3. Beyala’s forms of representation: ideologically laden characters
III.3.1. The deconstruction of a confessional schema
II.3.2. The construction of a social schema
III.3.3. Shared identity versus Self conception
III.4. The complicity between “woman” and the author: Beyala as a creator of woman
Conclusion
Introduction
Those women who struggle without giving up hope, herald the impending change...:
change in attitude for both men and women as they evaluate and re-evaluate their
social roles.... Rosemary Moyana, "Men & Women"
Taking an effective shape or even coming into existence is undoubtedly a legitimate act;
woman, as belonging to the category of the "human" has long been a subject to denial and disdain,
for this category of human being was brought down to earth and one is taught not to believe much in
their power and status, and reminded of not being the sole actors in life. Yet women writers, as
female humanists, and as believers, in their cause, ardently admit the human consideration. For
them, humanity does not make distinction between individuals: male, females, black, white, etc, and
that normally humanist should embrace the enlightenment position of rationality and humanism at its
very word and at its starting point. Common respect then is owing to all people for they are simply
rational. In reality, sometimes, one anticipates and foresees things that are most generally negative
and he/she has to do with. Women have been dishonestly excluded from respect which they are due
as human beings on the basis of an insidious, menacing and ominous assumption that they are less
rational than men.
One may wonder why this difference exists and what does the feminist humanist writers do
settle down this ever exiting quarrel over the equation of the two sexes?
If a difference exists is that because there are some attempts to legitimize the unequal treatment of
women, in a time women writers are acting to repudiate both theoretically and practically this
calamity to provide a rightful place in society.
This chapter is in fact an attempt to unveil Beyala’s humanist nagging questioning over the
value of woman as ‘port-parole’ and as a representative figure of a category of people who are seen
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inferior and unequal to ‘men’ and to other ‘women’ . She manifests through her writings and
discourse to put an end to the allegations. Her efforts are to provide the model of the woman writer
who can defeat man and societal constrains via tone and style. She examines gender differences and
provides possible alternatives to the "difference" which is unfortunately conceived as "unequal. She
believes that both man and woman live in a society where power is attributed to man.
Indeed, what has been mentioned above is considered to be more worthy of praise. Yet it is
very hard, if not almost impossible, for a humanist woman writer like Beyala or others to find
humanist female models. This would be of paramount importance to deal with, in this chapter,
especially that postmodernism has provided feminists and humanist feminists with some useful ideas
about method, particularly wariness toward generalizations that transcend boundaries of culture and
region.
Since postmodernism recognizes that objectivity and reason have reflected the values of
masculinity at a particular point in history, Beyala and the other feminist writers found themselves
relaxed in that postmodernism is an ally of feminism. So in which way postmodernism has shaped
Beyala’s way of thinking?
The author, through her writings, tries to retrace woman’s way in life and by-stand her
permanent quest for self expression. Therefore, one would expect to see different types of narrators
in her novels: intradiegetic narrator (narrator takes part in the story), homodiegetic narrator (narrator
is a character in the story), autodiegetic narrator (narrator tells his/her own story), and also the
heterediegetic narrator (narrator is not a character in the story).
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In the act of writing, Beyala, as an “actual author” automatically places a version of herself in
the novels she writes; as an “implied writer”, she creates thereafter a mirror image of another persona
called the “implied reader”, which the “actual reader” reading her novels is circuitously called to play
along with. Beyala’s objective is to provide a good reading of her novels, which simply means to let
her text suggests the context within which it is to be understood. According to Beyala, her actual
readers are implied readers who are supposed to accept what is suggested by her novels.
To talk about her female characters is certainly to account for her efforts of suggesting images
based on her conception of life and of woman in life. Therefore, Beyala’s intrdiegetic discourse or
homodiegetic discourse in her stories may provide her with a certain legitimacy to create her own
female characters. It is not, therefore, astonishing to say that the author has created her woman, the
bearer of her philosophy and the carrier of her ideology. In other words, she has invented the woman
she wanted and in her likeness. But one does not expect different readers (good readers, bad readers,
or even professional readers) to share this point of view. This would bring into debate many other
points that are not forcibly treated in this chapter.
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III.1. Beyala’s Romanesque World: an author dominated discourse
Rereading, willful misreading, and de- and re-coding are tools used in African
literature and womanist or feminist discourse to challenge "canonized 'literature'"
that tends to black out Black and blanch out Woman.
Kofi Owusu, "Canons
under Siege”.
It is indeed necessary to talk about the endeavour of the francophone African women writers
to equate with the male counterpart and bridge the gap existing between them. They have
undoubtedly succeeded in getting rid of the exclusion from the literary scene.
In reality the very
appearance of the francophone African woman novelists owes a lot to the Cameroonian writer Théres
Kuoh moukoury87 who, in 1969, succeeded to inaugurate this category of African literature through
the publication of Rencontres Essentielles (1969). It is the point whereby the African literary
production has started keeping a steady and regular rhythm, albeit the social difficulties that might
have hindered the writing of a novel in a given epoch. Among the African women writers, the
brilliant Calixthe Beyala who has become one of the most important novelists of the African
women's literature, but who has been subject to sharp criticism because of her, so-called, vulgar,
westernized and pornographic orientations. In fact, Beyala develops themes which are relative to
women condition, for Lilyan Kesteloot, in her book entitled Anthologie Négro-africaine. Histoire et
textes de 1918 à nos jours, considers the woman’s novel as “l’honnête roman de moeurs”; she arrived
to the conclusion that the majority of women’s novels describe “un univers feminine spécifique”:
Toutes [les romancières] restituent avec des talents divers les affres du mariage,
avec l’amour, la jalousie, la concurrence, l’adultère, l’abandon, la stérilité, et puis
87
Thérèse Kuoh-Moukoury was born in 1928; original inhabitant of Wouri region and the town of Douala; her father,
Jacques Kuoh Moukouri, is the author of an autobiographical work entited Doigts noirs. He was the administrator of the
overseas France. Thérèse Kuoh-Moukoury has accomplished her secondary and university studies in France. Overseas
High studies institute student she has become specialized after a juridical in children magistracy. She had been the
president of o both African and Madagascan women union Elle.
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les enfants, les tensions, les ruptures. Dans le contexte du conflit tradition /
modernisme, elles abordent les problèmes des croyances et
pratiques
traditionnelles, de la condition féminine, de la famille étendue et ses contraintes
(Kesteloot, 1992: 482).
For Kesteloot, the thematic content is the very element that distinguishes females’ novels from
males’. The former’s content is directly linked to the problems of women. Béatrice Didier, considers,
in Ecriture-femme, that “l’oeuvre des femmes comme un tissu qui permettrait une thématique
commune” (1981). Kesteloot tries to link the common themes to the works of women. Among these
themes there are anxiety of marriage, traditional beliefs and practices, the feminine condition, the
large family and its constraints.
The quasi totality of the subject dealt with in the texts of Beyala has a common denominator:
the African woman condition; her thesis is certainly based on the idea that certain individual
women’s choices and activities regarding their bodies are linked to power and the resistance of that
power in a social world, or as Luce Irigaray says, “the female body does not remain an object of
men’s discourse, nor their many arts, but it becomes the principle for a female subjectivity that is
experienced and chosen by women” (2000: 68).
Beyala’s philosophy gravitates around the idea that male and female bodily characteristics
are both represented and imagined, because according to Whitford these features are affectively
experienced, in the personal and social domain (1991). Male bodies are those that have form or
identity, power and authority. Female bodies are defective male bodies, marked by lack, the lack
which forms the necessary and negative opposite to the plenitude of masculinity; meanings matched
with imaginary associations in which female bodies are experienced as chaotic, formless and
threatening. In a word, women’s bodies are erased and only male bodies exist. That is, undoubtedly
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why, Beyala focuses on the means and methods that African women writers have engaged to contest
the subordination and erasure of the African woman from an embodied realm.
According to Calixthe Beyala, the African woman was subjugated by man; this could be seen
throughout her novels. C’est le soleil qui m’a brûlée (1987) concerns the struggles of Ateba
Leocadie, a young woman in the Quartier General (GQ), an African shanty-town. At the age of
nineteen, this young laday (Ateba) becomes conscious of herself, her body and her surroundings.
Since that moment, she has become copiously determined to get rid of her muzzle and to talk about
the past, the present and the future of women. Influenced by her observations of women's lives in the
QG, Atéba had reached a stage of strong-mindedness which led her to break the miserable chain of
violence links her life to that of her mother, her grandmother and great-grandmother. Her mother,
Betty, a prostitute, abandoned her when she was nine. Her aunt, Ada, raised her, but brought the child
her share of abusive "papas." Atéba said in a given moment:
J’attendais, je vieillissais, je m’affaiblissais, j’attendais que viennent à Moi tous
les enfants d’Afriques, tous les enfants de l’univers. Je voulais qu’ils sachent
comment l’homme pleure au lieu de rire, comment il parle au lieu de chanter. Je
voulais qu’ils apprennent comment la confusion des valeurs, des notions, des
sensations, des souvenirs avait fini par tuer l’histoire jusqu’aux origines… (07);
In her words, Ateba wants to save the future and teach the children of Africa how the
confusion of values, ideas, feelings and even memories had ended up by killing history all the way
back to its beginnings. This young lady, actually, wants to save women and get them back to the
stars where, according to her imaginary legend, women came from before their subjugation by men
on earth. She said:
Aujourd’hui, j’en ai marre! Ral le bol! J’ai envie de parler… J’ai terriblement
envie de parler de cette aube triste, de ces heures qui ont couru avant l’arrivée de
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l’homme…Je puis dire sans attenter à la vérité que c’est sa faute… Tout est sa
faute… Et elle … Il a fallu qu’elle séduise les étoiles pour survivre (Ibid).
Beyala does not seem to have neglected any one; likewise the majority of the African writers’
works, Beyala’s bear the seal of commitment. The novels she has so far published since 1987 and
until 2009, respectively from C’est le soleil qui m’a brûlée (1987) until Le Roman de Pauline (2009)
are a case in point. In spite of the miscellaneous themes and subject matters88 that the writer has
fervently and sweepingly provided, her works remain, nevertheless, opened to further criticism and
different readings. Beyala’s novels represent distinctly and unquestionably a set of arguments vis-àvis the emancipation of women, for the reason that they present different approaches which are
strongly committed to ideas of social justice, and overtly suggest a better future for mankind in
general and for woman in particular.
Undoubtedly, Beyala’s cute and eager desire to put an accent on the issue of the African
woman put her among the most provocative women writers of her generations. The different tones
she uses and the different techniques she handles made her in reality the embodiment of the modern
values an African woman may aspire, and gave her the status of a witness. She is not only the
bystander to those living in difficult social conditions, but most importantly to those groping for selfconsideration and self-determination in a society where the sense of orientation is almost lost. In this
sense, one many wonder how would her fiction be like?
The world Beyala creates is likely to be disturbing, but which remains a perceptive echo to the
“real world”, for herself, in an interview on the French channel Fr3, declares:
Béatrice Rangira shows the major theme in Beyala’s works as: “phallocentrisme, l’univers des bidonvilles et son
impact sociopolitique sur l’écriture, l’amour, la femme, l’enfance, le rationalisme et l’irrationnel (le merveilleux), le
langage et la problématique” (1997: 26). What could be noted here is that Béatrice has published her book before the
appearance of other novels written by Beyala after 1997; this means that there were certainly other themes dealt with. In
the new millennium, many views and realities have started to be conceived and perceived differently owing, obviously, to
the new doctrines and ideologies (political, economic and even social ideologies) among which, Globalization is
underlined.
88
174
[…] tous mes livres traversent ce que j’ai vécu, mes rencontres, et ce que j’ai vu
[…]
She adds :
Ils (novels) s’inspirent de ma vie, des rencontres que j’ai pu faire, des propos que
j’ai pu tenir des situations […]
The author explains that she does not write novels of circumstances, for they remain
considered within the frame of literary work. The real world she deals with in her works is the one
she wants to be seen by the others, i.e., the world as it is seen by Beyala herself, the African, the
Franco-African, the black, the woman and the woman writer. The mosaic view allowed her to
develop new critical mind and apparatus to deal with reality from different orientations.
Beyala deals with reality in her way and invites the reader to discover her fictional world
where the impossible exists and where narration does not really seek to reformulate the real but get
rid of it. The writer suggests another away to strengthen the relationship between individuals in
Africa: between man and woman, people and power (government), adult and young, mother and
daughter, the black and the white, the African and the Western (French), etc. This makes her way of
depicting the African social reality different from the way others do.
It seems that the author is the first woman writer to break the taboos linked to the feminine
expression “la parole feminine” in that she shows through her female characters’ voice the very
challenge of the African woman living in a chaotic alienated absurd world in which woman has only
one role assigned by man: the everlasting subordination to man and the blind subservience to man’s
requirements. The very reality Beyala shows through her heroines is par excellence what Beyala
could have noticed throughout a very long experience in Africa and in France. In this vein François
Mauriac clarifies:
175
Les héros de roman naissent du mariage que le romancier contracte avec la réalité,
ces formes que l’observation nous fournit, ces figures que notre mémoire a
conservée, nous les emplissons, nous les nourrissons de nous-mêmes ou du moins,
d’une part de nous même (Op.cit: 112-113)
The novels of Calixthe Beyala do not, however, provide characters who are forcibly the
embodiment of the author’s philosophy because the different ideologies which a given reader
discovers in just one novel, are so significant enough to show that the writer’s interplay with
characters’ opinions does not compulsory imply the writer’s . Here again François Mauriac explains
that:
[…] il y a des héros de romans, qui prêchent, qui se dévouent au service d’une
cause, qui illustrent une grande loi sociale, une idée humanitaire, qui se donnent
en exemple car nos personnages ne sont pas à notre service. Il en est même qui ont
mauvais esprit, qui ne partagent pas nos opinions et qui se refusent à les partager
[…] (Ibid : 126).
If some of Beyala’s characters are not as one wishes them to be like, they remain heroes who are
born “du mariage que le romancier contracte avec la réalité” (Ibid: 96), and the important point is that
Beyala manages to give an air of universality to the peculiarity of personal experiences through
enhancing individual victories far from any idiosyncratic perception to the social reality.
The conspicuous point is the convergence between the South (Africa) and the West that
Belaya has been called to meditate on. In fact, it is the place of the literary creation within a new
historical conditions and data. The reflection, on the priority given to the function of literature, makes
part of the anxious interrogations made by people seeking their cultural, political and symbolic
landmarks shortly after the colonizer had left Africa. To understand this debatable quest over the real
function of literature, one has to put the latter under the heading of global instability that marks the
societies which are destroyed by the colonial administrations.
176
The sovereignty of Beyala as an African woman writer resides essentially in the very
imaginary situation that has something to do with her biography; for the biographical marks provide
certain credibility to the author, and each anecdote would have the power to unveil the mystery of the
Romanesque creation as Abiola Irele explains:
“[…] the area of an active and focused self-consciousness that extends in its
implications into both sustained interrogation of history and a determined
engagement with language” (Abiola Irele 2001: 29).
Abiola Irele puts an accent on the context and stresses that it is constantly subscribed within a very
definite frame of the author’s preoccupation, and incites, however, the critics not to neglect, in an
African literary text, this very intense dimension of the historical energy and dynamism.
So
questioning the situation in which Beyala has put her literary characters, is tantamount to allege that
the writer’s works are lacking the aesthetic dimension which is particular to African literary creation
which is, in fact, nothing but the result of that double interrogation over history and language in so
far as language and culture are linked to each other. Yet what is attractive in the works of Beyala in
general is the domination of the militant parameters; the omnipresence of the author’s personality
throughout almost all her novels is undoubtedly not haphazard and has certainly a literary
connotation.
The writings of Beyala are presented in a form of incantation or perplexed inquiry, a desire or
hope that invoke in reality magical powers of the world as she says in her novels:
- Au nom de l’égalité. Au nom des cercles de lois à disperse. Je veux que tu
deviennes un oiseau, que tu planes sur chaque oreiller, c’est tout (TAT: 97)
Or
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- La femme ne devait-elle pas comme Dieu défendre sa création contre pluies et
vents? Que dirait le ciel s’il voyait l’homme condamner la mort alors que Dieu la
donne comme une délivrance (LSQB: 46)
- j’eusse souhaité que cet homme qui avait eu à mon égard des tentations de prince
ne craigne que la couleur de ma peau ne brise sa carrière. J’eusse désiré ne jamais
rencontrer sa personnalité aussi poreuse qu’une termitière (LQMC : 214).
Yet the evocative style of incantatory writings like in: “ j’appelle les mots, je leur ordonne de
m’alleger, de dresser sur ma route la piste rouge de l’envol” (TAT: 166) remain the inaugurating
language which creates a world or invents a new reality from the destruction–transformation of the
old. The incantatory writing is proclaimed committed because it invents from the deconstructioninauguration. Albeit some critics consider commitment as iconoclasm89, it remains a project of
inaugurating and producing the new. In fact feminist writers are seen to destroy and violate the
cultural standards and norms through their objective.
The transformation of the committed societies in a time of a sharp and seldom chaotic
negotiation of the social order has made of the novel a room of invention to the discourse of the
writer’s commitment. Therefore one cannot disassociate action and imagination that anticipates its
course as Michaël Foessel underlines:
C’est dans l’imaginaire que le sujet met à l’épreuve ses motifs, joue avec les
possibles, et finalement, prend la mesure du “Je peux” par lequel il énonce sa
capacité d’agir (Michaël Foessel 2007:19).
The space of creation is in fact the very lieu of display of a theoretical fantasy which
represents a set of put-forward theories. Undoubtedly fiction produces a given sense of meaning and
89
Iconoclasm is the deliberate destruction within a culture of the culture's own religious icons and other symbols or
monuments, usually for religious or political motives. It is a frequent component of major domestic political or religious
changes. It is thus generally distinguished from the destruction by one culture of the images of another, for example by
the Spanish in their American conquests.
178
provides objectively a concrete image to the real life or the original life regardless the temporal
stance; it reaches the concrete totality (to reproduce Georg Lukács’ concept of concrete totality).
Because for Georg Lukács “objectivity must be comprehensible as a constant factor mediating
between past and the future; and the series of mediations must be a movement of mediations
advancing from the present to the future” (Judith Marcus and Zoltàn Tarr, 1989: 22). Lukács keeps
on saying that:
If the world history is to be grasped as a totality, all of it must be included not just
the past and the present, but, especially, the future, in which the transition to
socialism and communism will have been compeled (Ibid)
The task of fiction is not limited to the representation, bacause Paul Ricoeur has made of the
imaginary a component of the faculty of acting (Ibid: 18). What seems original in Ricoeur’s idea is,
in essence, the fact of neglecting the ambition to invent or create a moral anthropology that gravitates
around the idea of man as acting and suffering subject. Ricoeur’s criticism converges with the will of
the African women writers who, through imagination, succeeded in setting a sort of social criticism
via their feminist pronunciation and claims. Otherwise how can one explain women constant focus on
the idea of problematic position of the African women and of the human being in general (case of
Beyala’s and the African in Bidonville of Paris). Paul Ricoeur himself focused on the idea of
“L’homme capable” the capable human being? Therefore how can this fictive ethical promotion be
understood and perceived?
In fact, fiction constitutes action in the sense that it forms it and provides it with a frame. It is
obvious that there is nothing absolutely non-symbolic, and that there is not however, according to
Ricoeur, a pure expression that is not somehow non-ideological because man’s action is always
articulated over representation (project, rules, or norms). This is why Beyala is regarded as being a
feminist and a liberationist writer; some of her novels praise the sexual libertinism such as, Assèze
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l’Africaine (1994), Amours Sauvages (1999) Femme nue, femme noire (2003), to mention just a few,
where pornographic scenes are very overt, as it is shown by Odile Cazenave:
Beyala introduit le corps et le rend visible de manière systématique, qu'il s'agisse
du corps de l'homme ou de celui de la femme. Plus encore, elle les présente dans
leur intimité la plus cachée, démontrant, pour nous lecteurs, les implications de ce
langage corporel, dans ce qu'il traduit de passion, de violence, de soumission ou de
manque (1996: 217)
One understands that Beyala, through her writings, shows a strong convinction that fiction
and reality are linked, for there is no literature without dreams. This is, perhaps, why one is urged to
underline the very concreteness of facts in her works. She, as a militant, declares in an interview on
French Channel Fr3, that:
Ce
n’est
pas
mon
statut
de
femme,
de
mère,
d’afro-centriste,
d’intellectuelle, d’écrivain ou même d’une militante défendant la cause des
minorités qui me pousse d’écrire mes romans […]
She adds:
Je crois que je fais l’ensemble de tous ceux que je représente.
In this perspective, one may raise a question over Beyala’s commitment, whether her
inaugurating novels found and establish the “real” or not. George Lamming states that:
[…] the novelist does not only explore what had happened. At a deeper level of
intention than literal accuracy, he seeks to construct a world that might have been;
to show the possible as a felt and living reality” (1983: XIV).
George Lamming shows the very mission of the novelist which is to contribute to the improvement
of the social living conditions.
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Beyala’s novels, albeit written in different geographical spaces and conditions, remain
evocative in that they have as a function the restoration of the life of the oppressed Africans in
Europe (France) in general as well as the oppressed, neglected, denied, marginalized and alienated
woman in the patriarchal society. They incite all of them to be conscious of their history and to
emancipate themselves from the archaic traditional African cultural structure. Her journey,
throughout, the novel from the South (Africa) to the North (France) represents undoubtedly her
journey towards freeing the self from the social constraints.
Since Beyala’s literature is to enhance the socio-economic as well as the political conditions
of the Africans in general, it could be read as inaugurating literature. For she questions the real and
considers it with its inadequacies and shortcomings, while in the text she invents and, in the world
she creates, suggest a model of a realizable positive world. Like any committed writer, Beyala is
wiling to produce literary works wich answer the most urgent questions. For her:
‘…the world appears exactly as he has depicted it in his work. The author calls on
the reader to see the world and judge events within his (the former’s) own frame of
reference, in terms of his own truth. In his work, the writer impresses the reader
with the emotional quality of his thoughts and imagery and seeks to influence his
thoughts and feelings, subjecting them to his own will and to his own ideals….
(Novikov, 1982: 12).
It is noticed that Beyala’s concern is not only her understanding and perception of life, but the
aesthetic interpretation and the artistic revelation of cultural environment as well. This is to yield the
link that is always existing between art and life. In this context, this feature can be attributed to
Beyala.
Since Clara Reeve in Theory of Literature tresses that the novel is a picture of real life and
manners (Wellek, René, 1978), therefore Beyala, through the mediation of her heroines, allows
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herself the first and foremost impossible task of establishing a coherent and concrete relationship
between what George Lukács calls “le vécu de l’homme et ses raisons de vivre”. Beyala, in a way,
sees that the difference which lies in the values, or as again Michael Zéraffa explains it to be “les
contradictions de droit, ou de degré entre les valeurs et celui de l’existence” (1971: 34). It is here, as
Lukács comes to argue, where the Romanesque structure resides. The conciliation the author wants to
create between the concrete world and her literary achievement requires, as adjuvant, an individual
(heroine); for in the concrete world the individual is looked at through society while in the
Romanesque world he appears like the looking glass of the social. The writer forms the mental
construct of her characters from the information she is given but also adds some ideas from her own
experience and imagination. Thus, PfisterManfred argues that “even though we judge characters in
literature according to our experience of ‘real’ people, unlike ‘real’ people they do not exist
independently of their narrative context and little or no benefit is to be gained from speculating on the
psychological make-up of a character for which we are not given any indication in the text” (1984:
221). The individuals in the world of the writer are very important to know and understand oneself.
François Mauriac shows that: “ces personnages fictifs et irréels nous aident à nous mieux connaître et
à prendre re-conscience de nous-mêmes.” (Op.cit: 116).
Beyala’s message through the novels she has so far written is addressed, indeed, to a reading
audience that may ignore or deny the woman social reality, for she wants the effect on the reader to
be of more rational conviction. She has given more information about her characters to acquaint the
reader with her character by means of penetration of inner life (Rimmon-Kenan, 1983: 42); thus the
more one becomes able to develop a knowledge about the characters’’ thoughts and emotional
responses, the more characters appear and the reader identify with the characters.
The author of Tu t’appelleras Tanga does not only set a sort of criticism to the African
society and/or the French society, but unveils the very absurdity of the human life in general.
182
Through her position as a writer and as a woman, and through her choice of both male and female
characters, she incites man to see himself through her stories. To stress this reality, it would be of
paramount importance to refer again to Mauriac who says:
Ce ne sont pas les héros qui doivent servilement être comme dans la vie, ce sont au
contraire les êtres vivants qui doivent peu à peu se conformer aux leçons que
dégagent les analyses des grands romanciers’ (Op.cit)
In the light of this view and conviction, one may set forward calumnies that are likely to make
of Beyala’s fictitious world subjective or irrational; in a time she tries to develop a more objective
and rational thought. Although the world of fiction is seen as a mere product of imagination, it
remains unquestionably hyper-idealized. It is rather a world created by the author either out of a
personal experience, or possible lived experience aiming at either criticizing the real world, or
inciting man to alter his world and living conditions, for Paul Ricoeur argues that:
le monde du texte, parce qu’il est monde, entre nécessairement en collision avec le
monde réel pour le “refaire” soit qu’il le confirme, soit qu’il le dénie (Michaël
Foëssel, 2007: 168).
For Ricoeur imagination is nothing but a “re-description” and “an eye-opened”. Therefore, an
imagination is not an appeal for disconnection from the real world and acquaints with fantasy, but it
is, relatively, a sort of invitation to transformation and adaptation to perceptive realities. Paul Ricoeur
adds:
Certes, l’imaginaire ne crée pas de ressemblances, et il ne nous introduit pas non
plus dans un monde purement fantasmatique. Mais, en revanche, il fait apparaitre
les choses sous un jour nouveau. Il contribue ainsi à réorganiser la perception
selon les critères qui ne doivent plus rien à la logique formelle (Ibid: 16)
183
Reading fiction, as the author’s objective is reaching a reading audience, is but a different
perception of what is going on in the real life. Thus, fiction helps arrange, systematize or
“configurate” (“configurer” as it is put by Ricoeur) one’s mute, unheard temporal experience urging
the reader to unveil some fact about a given society to justify behaviours and actions “otherwise” to
rethink over the previous unthinkable, because simply fiction transforms the impossible into possible,
and in this regard again Ricoeur says that:
C’est dans l’imaginaire que le sujet met à l’épreuve ses motifs, joue avec les
possibles, et finalement, prend la mesure du « Je peux » pour lequel il énonce sa
capacité d’agir (Ibid: 19)
Since fiction is, most of the time, based on a ‘human experience’ mediated by a symbolic
system and imagination, it would be meaningless to accuse feminism of subjectivity and irrationality
owing to female authors’ treatment of neglected topics (a male-centric view). So although, they
violated all the conventions and put at the disposal of their readers taboo themes, the feminist writers
remain faithful to the portrayal of women’s living conditions and their factual human experience.
Their alleged subjective writings are indeed their repressed unheard voices which are eventually
germinating into other distinctive loud voices echoing down the world scenes. In this sense, Myriam
Warner-Vieyra specifies that:
L’écriture subjectiviste où la fonction d’information est subordonnée à la fonction
phatique, est une lutte contre le silence. Ce qui ne peut se dire par le discours écrit
traditionnel est dit […] par un flux de paroles issues d’un sujet ostensible qui ne
parvient pas à formuler sa vérité obscure, mais espère qu’elle apparaîtra entre la
spontanéité de l’acte de verbalisation. […] En rabâchant toujours les mêmes
paroles inoffensives, le locuteur ne fait, au fond que rompre sans cesse le silence
qui le menace (1988 : 69)
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Any attempt to deprive the African woman writer of the ability to create a fictitious world in
her likeness is tantamount to deny her existence as an active woman in the field and circle of
intellectuals. Therefore one should understand, in this case, why Beyala’s objective is more than the
mere depiction of the African social reality and the situation of the African woman; she has to mark
her presence, for as long as women remain silent, they will be outside the historical process (Xavière
Gauthier, 1988: 340). The writer’s objective is to advocate the legitimacy of the woman’s “freedom”
and transcend her “existence” beyond any ideological restriction. And as a postmodernist writer, she
is, undoubtedly, discussing matters that are of nowadays actuality (the question of woman from a
religious orientation). The relationship between man and woman looks blurry in a time the question
of male’s supremacy over woman is likely to be inspired from both cultural and religious teachings.
Does this mean that the author of CSQB is in favour of man’s neutralisation from within any literary
context? Or does she give to man a given position which may allow her gaining different rooms for
social criticism? To answer these questions, it would be wise to allude to the writer’s liberal humanist
orientation.
III.2.Beyala’s Liberal-humanist orientation and the true self- discovery
Although Beyala’s fundamental adhesion to a liberal–humanist belief in the very possibility
of discovering a “true self” that normally requires the substitution of the female heroines for male,
her interpretation of the notion of liberal-humanism, according to what she could intend by “male” or
“female”, is prominent and outstanding. This appears undoubtedly throughout some male characters
(heroes) in her novels. She does not make obstruction of male characters for, may be, ideological
and/or literary objectives. In fact, it is to substantiate the world she deals with and to make credible
her claims. François Mauriac argues that the writer’s characters “ […] étaient les boucs émissaires
chargés de tous les péchés que nous n’avons pas commis, ou au contraire, les surhommes, les demi-
185
dieux que nous chargerons d’accomplir les actes héroïques devant lesquels nous avons faibli […]”
(1978 : 113).
Moreover, the progress of the Francophone African novel, in addition to the ones of Bayala,
Kourouma’s, Mongo Beti’s, Ousmane Sembe’s, Diome’s, Werewere Liking’s, to mention just a few,
has made clear that the novel of creation could never be satisfied with what is known as “realist
model”. Therefore, the nature of the Romanesque foundations has been shifted from the intrigue to
characters. In this case “le roman Africain s’est tourné vers lui-même, faisant un culte à la forme,
s’attache à substituer à la référence au monde une référence à soi, c’est-à- dire à la littérature ” (Justin
K. Bisanswa, 2009:22).
Bisanswa’s point of view shows that the African seal of writers’
commitment is not any more limited to the novel’s referentialities, but extends to myriads of formal
innovations through which both social and political claims are translated. This is why the focus on
characters as textual elements is very important regardless of the author’s liberal-humanist position.
Indeed Beyala seems to write for women and not for men; her writings as she confesses are
the fruit of her imagination. Therefore, it is not astonishing to read her through one of her characters
Ateba. In C’est le soleil qui m’a brûlée, the narrator says:
Ces temps derniers, elle (Ateba) a multiplié ses messages. Elle a écrit aux Jeanne,
aux Pauline, aux Carole, aux Nicole, aux Molé, aux Kimbiwa, Akkono, aux
Chantal… A toutes les femmes qui peuplent son imaginaire et volent ses nuits […]
Et toujours, elle leur a dit que le monde n’est plus, que la vie n’est plus, seul règne
le Rien. Pas une fois, elle n’a écrit à un homme, cette idée même n’a jamais effleuré
son esprit (CSQB : 34)
Talking about some male characters in Beyala’s Romanesque world does not reduce
from the value of her literary realization or from her value as a feminist woman writer
186
defending the cause of females. The reality could have never been seen from just one
direction or view point.
The juxtaposition of different characters infuses the work with new elements that are not
compulsorily perceived or or easily reached by ordinary readers. The writer makes appeal to many
obvious and thoughtful techniques of characterization, in almost all, her novels; it is when she tells
the reader explicitly what a male character is. In C’est le soleil qui m’a brûlée, the author says:
[…] Voilà Etoundi qui arrive. Un homme, petit bien tassé sur son gras, se fraye
un chemin dans la foule. Les bouches se cousent. Les chaises se resserrent […]
(26)
She also says:
[…] Ada épousa Samba, un vendeur de vin de palme qui en buvait plus qu’il
n’en vendait. Il fut retrouvé un jour dans un caniveau et rendu à la poussière sans
torrent de souffrance.
Ada le remplaça par d’autres hommes, des centaines
d’hommes qui laissèrent son ventre nu d’enfanter un jour […](28)
The introduction of male characters does not forcibly mean the acceptance of a male centered
idea but, on the contrary its rejection. The juxtaposition, as in the quotation above, where Ada and
Samba are linked together by marriage, implies the contribution of man’s physical and psychological
portraits in conveying woman’s mind. This contributes to the development of a very objective debate
over the constraining relations between both males and females. Samba’s (man) physical portrait, in
this example, is very important to make Ada’s psychological portraits clear. In reality, it has
conveyed her mind. Thus, the development of a critical debate over the coercing relationship between
males and females becomes possible and very objective. Yet it is conspicuous, in this sense, that
individuals’ perception of the matter is not compulsorily homogenous, the reason why François
Mauriac underlines that:
187
les héros des grands romanciers, même quand l’auteur ne prétend rien démontrer,
détiennent une vérité qui peut n’être pas la même pour chacun de nous, mais qu’il
appartient à chacun de nous de découvrir (1972: 118).
In fact, the writer’s objective is to show the real situation of the African woman in her novels.
And since the world she is dealing with gravitates around questions linked to both man and woman,
she prefers introducing the male character. Jean Zepp In CSQM and Hassan in TAT make very
important links in the chain of the two stories; Atéba’s and Tanga’s dream collapsed owing to
unrealizable marriage with respectively Jean Zepp and Hassan. This failure led to “prostitution”
which is not a “choice.”
The image of Atéba and Tanga is determined by both Zepp’s and Hassan’s portraits. The two
men belong to ideologically different worlds but share similar violent attitudes. They are
characterized by their common sexual instincts. They want to live an immediate sexual lust
regardless of the feeling of girls, and their dreams which fade the more time elapses and the closer
they get to them (Zepp and Hassan). Tanga, herself, in her dreams says:
Désormais je le serai, je serai femme en robe blanche, couronne de fleurs sur les
cheveux pour tisser inlassablement la vie, afin que la vie soit chaque jour. J’aurai
ma maison, le jardin, le chien, la pie au bout du pré, des enfants (74).
One can understand, the cuteness of the crime this man has committed. It is a crime because
this man has hung the rebirth of a new life for Tanga. The dream of a housewife and the divorce with
the world of prostitution escaped with hair breadth from Tanga. Any woman, dreams of having a
shelter. For Atéba, Zepp’s attitude vis-à-vis marriage is a deception especially after the death of her
intimate friend Irène. This impure and ruined atmosphere initiated Atéba to another world -less
decent- which is the world of prostitution.
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The presence and the action of some male characters, in some of Beyala’s works, bring hope,
deception and chaos to the woman’s world. This disorder is, sometime, a socially- made act owing to
cultural unreadiness and people’s reaction to cultural and societal heterogeneity. Mégri’s father
abandoned her mother Bertha, and let her in an absurd world looking for answers to her nagging
questions over the future of her daughter.
Mégri, to some “extent, succeeded in getting an answer to her mother’s question over the
importance of “l’homme mari/et ou amant, réel et/ou désiré” (SLDS: 62); Mégri found in ‘Etranger’
the mysterious, enigmatic character who arrives
“ [to the] … village et provoque du désordre, la
remise en question de l’autorité du chef et de véritables débordements de la vie sexuelle, les femmes
de Wuel étant attirées par lui au point d’attendre devant sa porte qu’il veuille bien honorer l’une
d’elles de son attention […]” (SLDS : 69). Beyala’s heroine has succeeded in developing a
relationship with the man she loves, but which has unfortunately been destroyed by society, i.e., the
stranger (the man she loves) has been killed. The disintegration of Mégri’s dream and the way she
has traced for herself in society, in spite of her mother’s will to compensate for her daughter’s failure
through marriage, stands as a sort of criticism to the patriarchal society where women are not
considered and not even given choice to make free decision90 in their life. Neither the mother nor
even the social constraints could prevent Mégri from being what she is to be like, as she says: “Vers
la liberté, Je quitte mon mari” (SLDS: 258). Certainly she is so much attached to the stranger, but her
life is not determined by his presence; this is the reason, feasibly, why the death of her beloved is the
point whereby a new departure in the life of Mégri is launched.
The male character, in the novelistic world, is like a hook by which the reader can capture the
details that allow him setting a reasonable criticism. The love story of François Ackermann with
90
The notion of free choice and of freedom are very important, in that they are given a principal importance in chapter
four where I am to talk about Beyala’s existentialist characters.
189
Andela in HQMC is another type of social criticism. One understands that Africa, the African
tradition and the western mind are not any longer questioned.
Beyala’s assessment, in this novel, is owing to her concentration on both male and female
characters that are likely to be inseparable. Yet, the social stakes contributed in backing the
hypotheses that: “les hommes étaient égaux même si justement ils ne l’étaient pas” (HQMC: 42).
HQMS is nothing in fact but an attempt to set a sort of criticism to the egocentric self in a society
where the human is not mentally emancipated from the ancient classical captivity.
Through François Ackermann, the author is not criticizing the 2007’s French mind but the
1950’s. Through their relationship, Beyala, also, tries to underline the way how and the extent to
which racial and social prejudices annihilate any passion. In fact, François is very cowardly and very
selfish, but Andela is not naive as well. This state of matter does not, in any case, prevent her from
intensifying the love she has for him, and as a character in the story, she does not occupy a peripheral
position. Beyala speaks about the mixed couple and the racial dimension which lead to the
complexity and the worsening of human relationship. In reality, she admits that cowardice and
egocentrism are everywhere, but the problem remains in finding a remedy to racism and xenophobia
in the Third millennium, in a time great philosophies are echoing down the spheres of political and
economic decision maker as well as social and cultural advisers. It is a time, when people are called
to think in terms of chains of individuals and never in terms of individuals.
The Author’s novel seems to bear essentially the germs of social and racial discrimination, a
phenomenon which, frequently, rehears in the works of Bayala. The fate of her protagonists Andéla
and Mégri, respectively in HQMC and in SLDS, is a shared fate. Yet, the point of divergence lies in
the perspective. In the former, Andéla is the victim of a Euro-centric prejudgment while the latter is
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Mégri the victim of Afro-centric prejudgment. But both of them were deprived the right of realizing
the self through love and marriage, thus suffered despair of hope.
Sometimes, the reader feels that the writer is using an arrogant disdaining tone when talking
about “male” as a character, but in reality she never tries to deny his existence as a narrating voice or
run him down as an active literary character. This is important, especially that Beyala wants to equate
omen with men through a woman voice and most importantly to deconstruct traditional myths about
women and men, and presents a vision of woman as a ‘New Eve’91.
Certainly the narrator in the story does not unveil the negative qualities of François, for they
are (François and Andéla) so close to each other by love that the narrator avoids any value judgment
vis-à-vis the male character. The sequences of the story show the love this narrator has for this male
character. But mistakes are ineluctable and no one is perfect in this life. François’ mistake in life is
his “raison de vivre”, that is to say that he is constructed for social success and not for something
else. And this is the difference between Andéla and François: Andéla renounced to write and devoted
all her energy to him; she accepted boycotting writing because she loves him, in a time François
could not stand and resist his ambitions which are conditioned by his relation with Andéla.
Sometimes men never abandon their social situation in favour of love but women could do. It is here
where lies their power, and also here where resides the convergence between man and woman, and
thus between Ackerman and Andéla. In this case, if one pretends that passion is not human’s and
91
St. Irenaeus (c. A.D. 120-202) wrote, "The knot of Eve's disobedience was loosened by Mary's obedience. The bonds
fastened by the virgin Eve through disbelief were untied by the virgin Mary through faith." Irenaeus, Adversus haereses,
3:22) In “The Apologetics of Mary’s Mediation: Getting in the Way or Getting the Job Done” (2006), by Joe Tremblay.
http://catholic-skyview-tremblay.blogspot.com/2011/07/apologetics-of-marys-mediation-getting.html. Retrieved, April
18th, 2013. He adds “Just as Eve … being disobedient, became a cause of death for herself and the whole human race: so
Mary … being obedient, became a cause of salvation for herself and the whole human race” (St. Irenaeus, Against
Heresies, III, xxii, 4, in The MOST Theological Collection: Mary in Our Life, Appendix I: Selected Passages from the
Fathers
on
the
New
Eve
and
Related
Ideas"
http://www.catholicculture.org/culture/library/most/getchap.cfm?WorkNum=213&ChapNum=26 ,retrieved April 18th,
2013
191
men’s dimension, then this theory is will be put into question because simply passion really concerns
men, and that it exists to help women and not men.
Beyala’s 2007-novel is not the only one where the author has developed a positive halo over
her male character but, in LPPB and MAA, the voice which speaks is the one of Mamadou, a ten year
old child. So the choice of this-naïve- omniscient narrator has undoubtedly several implications at the
level of enunciation. Mamadou retraces the way covered by the parents: a mother who tries to
emancipate herself from social constraints through gaining many and having a sweet heart, and an
illiterate, Muslim, polygamous father. Here the relation between the parents takes a very important
part in determining the writer’s feminist position in these two stories. In LPPB, Mamadou is
punctuated by the letters that the father sends to his friend, and in the other novel MAM, Mamadou is
also punctuated but by the letters his mother sends as well to a friend of hers. As a son, he is
concerned by the two parents in that he takes as well into consideration the sufferings of his father.
This situation stands against “feminist perspective” and “feminist reading”, and most importantly
against a feminist interpretation.
In the above mentioned novels, Beyala’s task consists in putting an accent on the true self,
and giving social roles to both men and women. She denies difference to insert women into a
fundamentally unchallenged social and fictional structure where sexual conquest and self realization
and esteem were, however, to be pursued by a female protagonist. Yet, what could be noted is that
this difference is so altered to be celebrated. It is altered in the sense that the human conception of
reality as masculine feature and emotionality as feminine are to be accepted, but the advantage given
to the one at the expense of the other has to be reconsidered so that a construction of an alternative to
women’s tradition and perspective could be possible.
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Men’s view towards women is almost all the time subjective. Andéla and Mégri, for instance,
are subjected to negative objectivity. As women, they are looked at to confirm a subjectivity which is
defined in terms of separateness and autonomy. Unfortunately, through their need for recognition,
they continually undermine their autonomous status. Yet it is wise to say that Bayala’s male
character’s valorization, in some of her works, is to reconsider women’s subjective self, for
“women’s own denial of their subjectivity corresponds to the male perception of the mother. She
becomes in her mind an instrument earth mother. Thus, she serves men as their other, their
counterpart, the side of themselves they repress” (Jessica Benjamin, 1980:44-45). This dialectical
debate over the subjective self of the woman is of paramount importance in the fictitious world of
Beyala, because the situation in which her characters are entrapped requires a thorough and
conspicuous scrutiny. Hopelessness, despair, separation, escape, self-determinism, etc, voicelessly
haunt the souls of Beyala’s characters, and this may be owing to the conception of man over woman
as being the other self for the concept of otherness, from a male point of view, has become
synonymous to “the necessary condition of women, so that separation and subjectivity rather than
relationship and connection become the marker of identity” (Haugh Patricia: 1989: 21). The author
wants to correct that erroneous conception over the self for the separation is never an obstacle that
prevents woman from living as it should, i.e., that life carries on even without physical and emotional
presence. Pauline says that:
Notre père mourut d’une hépatite un an après ma naissance. Il paraît que dans sa
famille les hommes meurent jeunes et les femmes portent le veuve en jetant des
cauris, en buvant du thé entre copines et en faisant d’autres enfants […] (RP: 11),
She adds that :
Je me suis entrée dans la salle de bains où se trouve déjà maman. Toute debout
devant la glace, elle contemple ses fesses, elle soupèse ses seins. Elle semble très
satisfaite de son image […] (Ibid).
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The author is too ambitious and life for her is not just that interdependent relationship.
To permeate a message or to discuss, positively and negatively or even ideology, a given
objectivity or subjectivity, Beyala has sufficiently evoked some names of characters belonging to
different social classes, origins and most importantly different ideological orientations. This is
legitimate in that the author’s objective is to bring together all women, no matter what their
ideological orientations, their origins or skin pigmentations would be. The specific mosaic of her
cultural and ideological positions are important assets of the work, as a matter of fact, it provides her
works (personal point of view) with a certain universal credibility. A universal credibility in that the
author's objective as a black African Cameroonian woman writer goes beyond Africa to homogenize
the claims of “women all over the world” denying through and by that all sorts of vehement
animosity of social, sexual, racial, and religious discriminations, for the names in literature, as
Hobbes says, “… ont exactement la même fonction dans la vie sociale: ils sont l’expression verbale
de l’identité particulière de chaque personne individuelle” (Roland Barthes and eds, 1992 : 24).
The author’s suggestive choice of different woman names: Jeanne, Pauline, Carole, Nicole,
Molé, Kimbiwa, Akkono, Chantal (CSQB), belonging to different origins (ethnic and non-ethnic)
within the same context is but the very argument to the above set theory. The reader can come across
other names such as Ateba and Irène (CSQB), Anna Claude (Jewish woman) and Tanga, (TAT),
Assèze l’Africaine (AF), Irène FoFo (FNFN), Andéla and Rosa (HQMC), Pauline, Mme Jamot,
Mademoiselle Malthilde (RP), to mention just a few. The noticeable point, here, is the shift from the
combination (composition of African names and European) to the adoption of European names as it
is the case of the two last novels of Beyala (LQMC) and (RP) that are respectively published in 2007,
2009. This is not a coincidence and not even haphazard. The character as a form of representation
bears the brunt of the transformation and the evolution of the African society and mind.
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The literary representation is very important in knowing explicitly what a character is like and
reaching or deducing his traits that are introduced implicitly through the character’s actions. To go
back to the questions related to ideology, which were previously raised, and which the writer tries to
debate through her characters, it is very necessary to get close to her characters and analyze their
names, behaviour, as well as their attitudes, for, in fact, the characters are constructed by the author
to fulfill a certain function in a given context. So what is the writer’s objective beyond the
introduction of some Arab and non Arab names like Hassan, Ousman, or Jean Zepp? And why did
she make a clear reference to the origin of Anna Claude (Jewish origin), while she could have just
introduced her as a French teacher? Why did she, within different circumstances, allude to the
Christian confession of both Tanga and Atéba? The subsequent section may provide an answer to
these questions.
III.3. Beyala’s forms of representation: ideologically laden characters
Some ideological orientations, apparently, constitute very important elements in the set of the
corpus in question; they incite one to deal with certain manifestations in the light of the characters’
relations. Thereafter, one has to question the ideological positions that tight together both man and
woman, and which are likely to make part of the intrigue of the novels by means of denouncing
certain religious indispositions. For me, it is important to make clear both man’s and woman’s
position insofar as they are representative and, sometimes, the embodiments of ideologies (religious
ideologies). Therefore, it is legitimate to ask questions about the orientations Beyala’s characters do
have and the views they present. And in going beyond the very strict ideological framework, does the
writer try to set a sort of social objective criticism?
The reader is normally contributing to the construction of text’s meaning by filling the textual
gaps or blanks. Me, as a reader, I am to investigate what rises in my mind when I am reading
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Beyala’s novels. That seems normal, since my experience as man allows me to provide bifocal lenses
to scrutinize the very reality a woman is living.
Beyala’s account of the women’s plight, when scrutinized sceptically, still holds a large
measure of truth in her novels. There, as I shall presently suggest, the author established the idea of a
‘hopeless and denigrated woman’ as it had not been established before in African writing, and only
rarely in African women writings. The woman, Beyala has in mind is, of course, the one who was
born near the turn of the twentieth century, but her special reverence is reserved to any one (woman)
who endures callousness of life.
In much of her fiction, Beyala shows more committed to female universal and thus Global
cause; she wants an obvious break with the pre-globalized philosophies; the pre-globalized period
showed more individualism, tribalism, and xenophobic ideological repercussions that marked human
being’s way of thinking, and that allowed ajar parenthesis for mutual understanding between peoples.
This mark which Beyala is certainly not proud of, tends to make a very sound criterion of
differentiation. This indisposition has certainly, given Beyala, however, a subject- discriminationand suggested to her an aesthetic dealing with woman stigmatization on the name of ideology which
does not only refer to the set of beliefs motivated by social interests, but signifies the dominant forms
of thoughts within society. It is, therefore, necessary to review the ideological allusions in Beyala’s
texts and account for her objective beyond her presentation of characters as being subject to different
forms of thoughts. Thus a new reading of Beyala’s novels becomes important to decide for eventual
views and objectives.
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III.3.1. The Deconstruction of a Confessional Schema
In different ways, the very idea of universal feminism rehears several times, in the present
work. Beyala does not seem to have devoted her effort, just, to rid woman’s world of social injustice,
but to question and discuss certain
relations between males and females, blacks and whites,
Christians and Muslims, and between Muslims and Jews. Rangira Béatrice Gallimore has enhanced
this point when she said: “Tout en reconnaissant les différences ethniques et culturelles qui existent
entre les femmes du monde, la romancière camerounaise Calixthe Beyala plaide pour un féminisme
Universel” (1997:125)
These binary oppositions or dichotomies are, sometimes, seen as problematic. Yet, I believe,
Beyala’s choice of various and distinctly different characters representing different confessional
ideologies is, certainly, not haphazard. This mosaic provides a certain power to the author’s
conviction that there is no particular dominant ideology, at least, as far as her convictions are
concerned. The way the characters are juxtaposed and the nature of the link between them reveal a
certain way of seeing things, and thus putting into question a given schema. In this case it would be
of paramount importance to know the reasons why the author has provided the reader with a
confessional ideological schema. So what for the social schema since the author’s objective is
universal?
As it is agreed upon by critics and those who competently engage in discussions of works of
literature, fictional characters are things ‘made up’ or created at a certain time by an author, but which
might have never been created if the author had never written the relevant story. Thus, on the common
conception, fictional characters are contingent members of the actual world.
It is therefore important to underline that Onomastic literary theory is very significant for the
writer of literary works. This literary theory plays a pivotal role in naming the characters portrayed
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and dealt with by the author of a given literary work. The name as well as the meaning of the literary
characters is very important, in that a name gives a certain implication of the role assigned to a
character in literature. In fact, it provides the meaning of the expected role application, as it is
significant for the analysis of the characters’ behaviour. Nuessel shows that proper names are
connotative, because they denote the individuals who are so named, but they do not depict or imply
attributes as actually belonging to the person (Nuessel 1992:1).
Since onomastics92
denotes the name of the person, therefore showing the relationship
between names and social stakes seems important. Names and social constraints are very significant
in this section, for they provide a wide pictorial view and an adequate description to the cultural
background of the society in which they are employed. In his dissertation, Moleleki observes that
writers grow within their tradition and further believes that they learn their skills and their craft
within that culture (Moleleki 1988:15). Therefore, one sees their reflection in certain aspects of that
culture and in their writings too.
Beyala’s choice of fitting names in her literary works cannot be overemphasized, because, in
fact, the names of characters, in literature, are related to the common living situations in which they
find themselves trapped. This may give a plain indication that art exposes the writer’s experience and
opinion about social matters in society. For Richards, “Badness in literature” is observed by looking
at how names comment upon moral values in literary works (Altman-Alvarez, 1987:12).
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A primary requirement of onomastics is the clarification of certain basic terms relating to the concept proper name. In
casual usage, proper names, proper nouns, and capitalized words are often taken to be the same thing. This assumption,
however, can mislead, because the three expressions refer to three different things which partially overlap."
(John Algeo, "Onomastics," in The Oxford Companion to the English Language, ed. by Tom McArthur. Oxford Univ.
Press, 1992)
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As a reader, I am to identify Beyala’s characters by the names she gives to them. For, in this
section, they are central and very important, and not mere tags that distinguish one fictional character
from another; this is, undoubtedly, why Nesselroth believes that it is not surprising that theorists pay
so much attention to naming in fiction, since proper names are the nodal points through which actions
and descriptions are interconnected (1996:133). Therefore, deciphering them is, as well, an important
task as long as it helps in translating adequately the actions of Beyala’s characters’.
Beyond the use of characters’ names like Hassan and Ousman, there, undoubtedly, exist
certain thematic motifs and /or ideological toning; this would be significant in discussing Beyala’s,
both “overt and none-overt” message. Hassan and Ouasman (Arab names) have specific meaning in
the fictional world of Beyala; these two characters are social contextualized because of the
relationship they have with the Arabo-Muslim cultural heritage, and the choice of names reveals the
cultural believes of a certain community which is in line with their social setting. This has an
important pragmatic allusion and certainly a symbolic significance that deserves being dealt with, as
the analysis of names as expressions of experience, attitude and senses, is one of the ways used in
linguistic analysis with social and ideological considerations predominately at various points (Bal
1984:73).
Hassan is, in fact, the name of one of the companions of the prophet (his poet) the Muslims
Mohammed (PBH) and who is Hassan Ibn Tabit (555 – 560); it is as well the name of one of the two
sons (Hassan et Hussein) of Ali, another companion and Caliph of the Prophet Muhammed (the
Prophet of Islam PBH). Hassan ibn Alī ibn Abī Tālib is an important figure in Islam, the son of
Fatimah the daughter of the the Prophet of Islam (PBH), and of the fourth Caliph Ali Ibn Abi Talib.
He briefly succeeded his father Ali Ibn Abi Talib as the righteous Caliph following the latter's death,
before retiring to Madinah and entering into an agreement with the first Umayyad ruler, Muawiyah
ibn Abi Sufyan, Both Sunni and Shia Muslims regard Hassan as a martyr. The name Ousman has
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submitted a phonetic erosion /usman/ instead of Othman /uӨmæn/ owing to the linguistic
specificities of the African who mispronounce the sound /th/. Othman is the name of two of the
companions of the the Prophet of Islam (PBH) and Caliphs in Islam: `Othmân ben `Affân ben al`Âs ben Amîa (579-656). He is the third caliph in Islam; he reigned from 644 to 656; he succeeded
Abû Bakr and Omar. In the Arabo- Muslim world, because of cultural and religious conviction,
people give their children names which have either religious or cultural connotations. Therefore, the
religious dimension has marked the names of these two characters, and which the writer has shown in
relation, respectively, with the Black Christian African Tanga and the White Jewish French Anna
Claude. The writer might have not alluded to Islam reluctantly through her characters, yet this
allusion remains significant in the sense that three different monotheist religions, which remain
essentially different, are put together. Is it haphazard? Does is have a significance, and, thus, an
interpretation?
Although in literature nothing is haphazard, one may ask a question about the basis on which
Beyala has chosen her characters. He/she wonders if the writer had something ideological in mind
before writing Tu t’appelleras Tanga. The nature of the relationships between her female characters
(Tanga and Anna Claude) as well as male/female characters (Hassan/Tanga and Ousman/Anna
Claude) urges one to question the author’s way of doing with things. In this case, does the writer put
into question a given religious conviction? Does she have a message to convey? Does she want to put
confession above suspicion and incriminate man instead? Or, does she want, through this novel, to go
beyond any confessional standard by means of destructing religious schema, and introducing an
alternative social schema? These questions require a debate and a thorough scrutiny since they are
too meticulous.
The nature of the literary characters and their “raison d'être” in the story provide a certain
conception which that fictional characters are like artefacts in being created; they are contingent
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members of the real world. Although they are artefacts, as it is generally understood by competent
readers, they are not “concrete artefacts” like touchable things because they are not particular material
objects, and they lack a spatio-temporal location despite their creation which is signaled by a certain
time. Beyala’s fictional male characters Hassan and Ousman appear in a fictional context of discussion
so close to the real context. And since statements about Beyala’s male fictional characters within her
literary context may be read roughly as statements about what is true according to the story, it would
be interesting to discuss the author’s work from the real world perspective.
The idea that human beings are all the same and equal regardless their origin, sex or skin
pigmentation is tantamount to say that human beings are perfect and that the world is ideal. Yet, this
idea is preached in most of the monotheist religions: in Judaism, Christianity and Islam. If Hassan
and Ousman appear to be the main cause of the ladies misfortune in life, then one has to discuss what
their confession prescribes them to be like. The attitude of Hassan and Ousman, or whosoever
appears to have the same ideology of these two characters, is disdainful and does not reflect their
nature as righteous individuals.
It has already been mentioned, in the previous chapter, these two men are the cause of
misfortune of Tanga and Anna Claude. The argument that seems quite sound is that the author wants
to give a general view over the conduct of man regardless the religious or any other ideological
orientation; yet the semantic indications are, but undoubtedly a reference to the mosaic specificities
of cultural differences within one society which, according to the author, should not ignore and/ or
even deny the essence of the human being. A woman is by nature weak and does not give that much
importance to the origin or whatsoever when her feelings have become subject of discussion. As a
woman, Beyala must have seen herself through Tanga and/or Anna Claude; she can account for the
situation they are living in. This might be the reason why she judges necessary to forget about
feelings and think, instead, in terms of reason. What sounds reasonable, in this stance, is to regard
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man not as an enemy, but simply as a human being whose sexual instincts deserve being satisfied,
and as an individual who should view woman, also, as a human being.
My position, as a reader, which consists in unveiling the bilateral relationships occulted by
some ideological restrictions, urges me to view objectively Beyala’s commitment. In fact, in
hyphening sex and individuals’ way of thinking (behaviour), Beyala defines her mission as a writer.
In this sense Sartre says that:
L’écrivain engagé sait que la parole est action: il sait que dévoiler, c’est changer
et qu’on ne peut dévoiler qu’en projetant de changer encore. Et encore, il sait que
les mots, comme dit Brice Parain sont des pistolets chargés. S’il parle, il a choisi
de tirer, il faut que ce soit comme un homme, en visant des cibles et non pas comme
un enfant au hasard, en fermant les yeux et pour seul plaisir d’entendre des
détonations (Burnier, Michel-Antoine, 1982 : 15 )
The present study is not religious but literary. Yet, when the words in the literary text cease to
interpret the imaginary, and become the embodiment of violence, then it would be better to focus on
and investigate what exactly happens in the mind during the reading process. To contribute to the
construction of the text’s meaning, it is not enough to approach Beyala’s texts just from an aesthetic
side, because they need to be looked at more pragmatically.
The nature of the subject in question and the data to investigate (different characters bearing
essentially different religious connotations) require a religious debate. Having in juxtaposition
Jewish, Christian, and indirectly Muslim characters is certainly significant. Beyala position vis - à vis both sexual segregation and the punishment for adultery is needed to mould the social life of the
human being. Indeed in the studies linked to the African society, religion is given a deal of
importance. Shirley Ardener, in Defining Females: The Nature of Women in Society (1978) says that:
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En Afrique, à cause de la religion, l’affection maritale et la passion sont rarement
montrées dans la société. De plus, pour les femmes, le sexe est souvent acceptable
seulement pour satisfaire leur mari ou pour avoir des enfants (1978: 31)
Ardener’s point seems to be well backed because Beyala in La plantaion says :
- Ce n’est pas normal qu’un père de famille responsable pense à des choses comme
ça, dit sa mère. Il y a quelque chose qui ne va pas chez toi, Patrick. Il faudrait que
tu ailles voir un docteur.
- Voilà trois ans que j’attends, dit son père. Qu’est‐ce que je t’ai fait, ma petite
Lorrie adorée? C’est normal qu’un homme souhaite dormir avec sa femme, tout de
même!
- On a déjà fait ce qui est nécessaire, rétorqua Lorrie. On a trois beaux enfants.
Continuer maintenant serait de la sensualité perverse.
- Je suis ton mari et j’ai besoin de toi.
- C’est un péché que de penser à ça, alors que c’est plus nécessaire. (2005: 210)
The reference is not just to one religion but to all the religions, yet with particular focus on
Christianity and Islam. Hastrup says that:
La sémantique du mot « virginité » est liée au sens large de la sexualité de la
femme, qui est à son tour liée à la société. Souvent, c’est aussi la religion qui
impose ces règles concernant la conduite sexuelle. C’est essentiellement les pays
musulmans qui sont très stricts sur ce sujet, mais aussi la religion catholique, par
exemple demande que les femmes restent vierges jusqu’au mariage (Hadtrup,
1978:50)
It is noticed that many critics have dealt with the situation from a religious point of view; they
attribute the submission of woman to the teaching of Islam, by reference to Beyala’s works as if the
author’s focus were religious. Nnaemeka in The Politics of (M)othering: Womanhood, Identity and
Resistance in African Literature.(1997) shows Islam as a religion where the position of woman is
inferior to the one of man:
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Le mariage est un contrat qui dure toute la vie et qui demande un accord entre
l’homme et la femme; cependant bien qu’en principe la loi d’Islam garantisse les
droits égaux au cas de la divorce, en pratique c’est seulement les hommes qui ont
ce droit, en conséquence, en apparence l’Islam dit que les hommes et les femmes
ont les mêmes droits mais en pratique il comprend les règles qui limitent la liberté
de la femme (1997: 172)
Yet the following example from Beyala’s novel Le Petit Prince de Belleville shows that it is man
who is responsible for woman’s situation:
Sur cette terre où je serai à jamais étrangère, j’ai essayé d’être un bon musulman.
J’ai équilibré mes préférences. J’ai deux femmes mais j’ai mis tout en oeuvre pour
que l’une soit aussi favorite que l’autre. J’ai réparti mes gains équitablement entre
elles […] Voilées, protégées de l’exterieur, repliées et agenouillées sur elles-même,
je les ai libérées du mal des hommes. Les méchancetés subalternes, l’exclusion,
même l’égoïsme ne les concernaient plus. Une sorte d’immunité. Et qui les mettait
à l’abri du jugement des hommes (PPB: 187)
To show that Islam as it is alleged by the critics, it would be wise to refer to Quran. Some verses, in
Quran, provide the guidelines to the believers on some of these aspects of their lives so that their
social behaviour, speech, way of life and culture could take a definite shape of its own. That is why a
religious reading of Beyala’s text seems important. The author reminds the reader of things he must
have forgotten; she reminds him of the different ways of conduct, because her male characters, in the
story, appear to be like savage (see TTT: 29-30). Normally they should complete each other and
develop a certain relationship based on their contributing effort to avoid self-destruction and the
submission to the body’s pleasure, which are actually owing to the absence of self-control and selfconduct.
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Some religions account for the complementary relationship between man and woman, and for
their sort in life. In Judaism, woman is not blamed alone for the fall, but all three (Adam, Eve and
the serpent) are cursed by God. He cursed the serpent by requiring it to move on its belly. He cursed
Eve by giving her pain in childbirth and Adam by requiring him to work. In this perspective, one sees
that Judaism shares a lot with Christianity concerning the image of woman and her status in society.
In Christianity, woman is the only responsible for the fall from Eden. So the lord asked the woman:
“What is this you have done?”, and the woman said: “it was the serpent. He deceived me, and I ate”.
(Genesis, 3:13). God said to the woman: “I will intensify your labor pains; you will bear children in
anguish. Your desire will be for you husband, yet he will dominate you” (Ibid, 3:16). The punishment
of God, according to Christianity, therefore, does not only have an effect on Eve but on all humanity.
This fact provided a framework which backs the continuing punishment of woman and identifies her
with her body as a wicked thing. Many Christian interpretations consider sex as the consequence of
the fall and thus they insisted on its use for procreation and not for recreation. The Christians were
influenced by Greek philosophical ideas which viewed anything related to the physical aspects of life
as evil93. Thus, woman's body is 'evil' as performs sex and then her sexuality is disdained. In
opposition to 'sexuality', 'chastity (the virtue which excludes or moderates the indulgence of the
sexual appetite) is 'good'. Such dualism has specific negative consequences on woman sexuality. A
woman must choose between what is good and evil and in doing so, she sets herself in split terms
where virtue cannot go with sexuality. According to Torah, a woman is a mere possession of the
father or the husband: man may sell his daughter, but the woman may not sell her daughter, man may
betroth his daughter, but woman may not betroth her daughter. At marriage, a woman passed into
control of her husband as betroth makes a woman the sacrosanct possession, the inevitable property
93
A philosophical term denoting the religious or the theological system which would explain the universe as the outcome
of two eternally opposed and co-existing principles, conceived as good and evil, light and darkness or some other forms
of conflicting powers. The universe contains two radically distinct kinds of being or substance; matter and spirit body and
mind.
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of the husband. Since her responsibility of the fall is the point whereby these religions start shedding
light on woman concerns, woman has never been regarded as equal to man in rights and duties.
Woman is looked at as inferior to man both socially and economically.
As far as Islam is concerned and in so far as it manifests through the names of characters,
almost no one is strong enough to abide to the teaching of his/her religious convictions. Theory and
practice are two different conceptions that could be rarely associated, especially when the question is
of confessional order. God in Islam does not blame Eve for the fall from Eden. There is no single
allusion in Quran that Eve is the responsible for the fall; on the contrary, Adam is the most blamed:
But Satan seduced him saying: "O Adam! Should I show you the Tree of
Immortality and an everlasting kingdom? 94 (Taha: 120)1
And also God said:
They both ended up eating the fruit of the forbidden tree. As a result their private
parts became apparent to them and they both began to cover themselves with the
leaves from the Garden. Thus did Adam disobey His Lord and go astray. (Ibid:
121) 2
And:
Later on Adam repented and his Lord chose him, accepted his repentance and gave
him guidance. (Ibid: 122) 3
Even when Eve is mentioned, God does address her jointly with Adam:
But Satan tempted them with the tree to disobey Allah’s commandment and caused
them to be expelled from Paradise, and We said: "Get out from here, some of you
being enemies to others, and there is for you in the earth an abode and provisions
for a specified period (Albaquara -Cow: 36)4
94
All the verses in English are extracted from the translated version of the holly Quran by F.Malik. The numbers
following the religious text (Eg 1) refer to the original verse, in Arabic, in Annex 1.
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The status of woman in Islam constitutes, then, no problem as long as she is not the only responsible
of the fall. In fact, Islam grants woman equality with man in terms of her duties and responsibilities.
Allah states:
And their Lord hath accepted of them, and answered them: 'Never will I suffer to be
lost the work of any of you, be he male or female. Ye are members one of another.
Those who have left their homes, and were driven out there from and suffered harm
in My Cause. And fought and were slain-Verily, I will blot out from them their
iniquities, and admit then into Gardens with rivers flowing beneath; a reward from
Allah is the best of rewards" (A'Lay Imran – The Family of Imran: 195)5
In the Muslim world, practice censors the behaviour of both man and woman; it sets rules of conduct:
But the one who does righteous deeds, whether a male or a female - provided he or
she is a believer - shall enter paradise and will not be harmed a speck.( An-nisa' –
Women:124)6
In Islam, God puts both men and women on the same equal footing. This means that they are
the same, and that one should not disdain the other. The author has criticized the attitude of her
characters Hassan and Ousman who, according to their names, are contingent members of the actual
world; this possibilist view holds them to be members of another possible world (the world of the
Caliphs). What can be thought is that Beyala’s fictional world sets a sort of criticism to the way
people may conceive sexual or religious differences, for what the writer is aiming at could be
attributed to Muslim teachings. God said:
Rest assured that Believers (Muslims), Jews, Christians and Sabians – whoever
believes in Allah and the Last Day and performs good deeds - will be rewarded by
their Lord; they will have nothing to fear or to regret. (Bakara/ The Cow: 62) 7
In the above mentioned verse, there is a clear reference to the three monotheist religions:
Judaism, Christianity and Islam. This is because they were inspired and revealed throughout the
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history of mankind in order to establish peace, law, justice, and ethics upon Earth. All the three
religions share a unique source of knowledge which means the same judgment over the one particular
aspect.
It would be fruitful to mention other verses from Quran which make clear some women’s
legal right. God says:
And when you divorce women and they reach their prescribed time, then either
retain them in good fellowship or set them free with liberality, and do not retain
them for injury, so that you exceed the limits, and whoever does this, he indeed is
unjust to his own soul; and do not take Allah's communications for a mockery, and
remember the favor of Allah upon you, and that which He has revealed to you of
the Book and the Wisdom, admonishing you thereby; and be careful (of your duty
to) Allah, and know that Allah is the Knower of all things. (Bakara/ The Cow:
232)8
He adds:
And when you have divorced women and they have ended-- their term (of waiting),
then do not prevent them from marrying their husbands when they agree among
themselves in a lawful manner; with this is admonished he among you who believes
in Allah and the last day, this is more profitable and purer for you; and Allah
knows while you do not know. (Ibid: 233)9
What could be noticed is that woman is not just an object of lust. God, by imposing rigid
standards of behaviour between men and women, determines the responsibility of man and regulates
male attitude towards woman. These verses strengthen woman’s conception of herself, and make her
improve the myriad layers of her persona within her unique communal world and recognise her
worthiness as a woman and a person
My interpretation is not restricted to Hassan and Ousman, i.e., it does not develop an anti
Muslim view. On the contrary, it seeks to put an accent on the facets which are likely to be blurred by
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people’s misconception and misunderstanding. Since Beyala’s works bear essentially the brunt of
universality and the social world which is not that homogeneous. Therefore, I suppose both my
reading of the novels and my external interpretations should answer and fit the social questions. This
joins Pierre Bourdieu’s arguement that:
...les interprétations externes, en revanche, conçoivent l’œuvre comme un reflet du
monde social et relient directement les œuvres aux caractéristiques sociales des
auteurs [...] ou des groupes qui en étaient les destinataires réels ou supposes
(1994: 65-66)
I do not provide just one-dimensional anti-religious interpretation to the question of sexual
discrimination in Beyala’s TTT, but, also, allude to the position of women in the two other
monotheist religions: Judaism and Christianity. For, one may suggest a schema which qualifies the
nature of relationship between Beyala’s different models of representation (males and females) which
appear, essentially, different in terms of religious convictions.
Some lexicon items,
In Tu
t’appelleras Tanga, are clear and of a great reference to Christianity:
- Noël and le Père Noël (29-76-105),
- je voudrais être Christ (91),
- Nous serons de toutes les Eglises, de toutes les religions, partout Dieu Nous verra, il
sera obligé de nous voir et le père Noël viendra (105),
- Ciel (135),
It seems that the question of the African woman‘s situation goes beyond any religious
consideration, and that religious faith remains hopeless. Beyala’s pessimistic religious view: que
Christ s’est arrêté au Nord (109) and Dieu devrait penser comme Mala (144) shows that the issue of
woman is not attributed to religious difference, but to male’s ignorance of her value and his denial of
her essence and existence as a human being. This is owing to the lack of faith. In the Bible, one
reads:
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And the rib, which the LORD God had taken from man, made him a woman, and
brought her unto the man. (Genesis, 2:22),
and also reads:
And Adam said, This [is] now bone of my bones, and flesh of my flesh: she shall be
called Woman, because she was taken out of Man. (Genesis, 2:23)
If, in Christianity and Islam, the status and life of a woman is valuable, in the orthodox Jewish
community, a woman remains circumscribed by religious Jewish laws. It would be more rational to
account for the double alienation that Anna Claude was subject to; being beaten harshly and called
dirty Jewish: “Ils la battaient à tour de rôle en scadant “Sale Juive!” (140), is so traumatizing,
because being rejected by non-Jewish, in a time she believes feeling and affection are the best guide
in Man’s life, is something that could never be put up with. Since then, Anna Claude “ apprit à ne
plus être juive, à ne plus être, à s’habiller de rêves pour tuer l’angoisse. Heure après heure, elle posait
les fondations de l’imagination, etc.” (140).
One can ask a question about the narrator’s comment. Why does Anna Claude refuse to
remain Jewish and build a sturdy platform to release her imagination? It is not that easy to find an
exact answer, yet I believe Beyala’s reference to Jewishness is not haphazard. Like Anna Claude, I
suppose, any other Jewish woman, can understand that her Jewishness haunts her, and never ceases
to threaten her being as a woman. Actually, unlike Jewish Orthodox men who define themselves
through an ample and decidedly respected set of activities within community, women are defined in
socio-biological terms as wives and mothers who are relegated exclusively to home and family life.
What could be understood is that Beyala attempts to attract the reader’s attention to have a look at
Anna Claude’s real situation as a member of the Jewish women constellation, and marks her
adhesion (the author’s) to the feminist Orthodox Jewish movement.
The orthodox women who are engaged in this movement ask for more opportunities to fulfil
themselves not less than Jews and women; their search for self-actualization is translated through
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their efforts to modify the tradition, amending the Jewish laws, altering customs and through
attempting to enter the Jewish life. This idea joins the Jewish American Mary Antin’s philosophy
when, in her book entitled The promised land (1912)95, criticises the Jewish tradition through the
imbalanced treatment of both boys and girls; the portrait she provides is significant enough to set a
sort of criticism to the Jewish community and traditions; her descriptions of the differences in gender
roles within her own Jewish community in Polotzk, and her judgmental depiction of gender positions
within this town is often revealed in her description of the drastic differences between educational
opportunities available to men and women, with particular regard to those opportunities awarded for
religious study. Among the so many examples, Mary Antin can provide, is the following passage
which illustrates the imbalanced treatment of boys and girls. It appears quite early in her text, when
accounting for the importance of boys obtaining a Jewish education, and describing her own
brother’s experience in beginning his studies. She writes:
My brother was five years old when he entered on his studies. He was carried to
the heder (Hebrew school), on the first day, covered over with a praying- shawl, so
that nothing unholy should look on him…. After a boy entered heder, he was the
hero of the family. He was served before the other children at table…. If the family
were very poor, all the girls might go barefoot, but the heder boy must have shoes;
he must have a plate of hot soup, though the others ate dry bread…. No wonder he
said, in his morning prayer, ‘I thank Thee, Lord, for not having created me a
female.’ It was not much to be a girl, you see. Girls could not be scholars and
rabbinom. (1912: 33)
Antin seems to condemn the unfair consequences that education has on determining the value
of each gender. As Antin later phrases it, the community believed that “a boy stuffed with learning
95
Although Mary Antin wrote The Promised Land in 1912 with the ostensible intention of shedding light on the JewishAmerican immigrant experience for a non-Jewish audience, one can see through close readings that this autobiography
was also written to serve a secondary purpose. That is, Antin also wrote this novel for the Jewish reader as a means of
critiquing the religious customs that governed the role of women within traditional communities. Due to the fact that the
messages intended for her Jewish readers are far more implicit than those meant for her American audience
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was worth more than a girl stuffed with bank notes” (Ibid: 37). In other words, the author
demonstrates that academic limitations generate standards of personal value for community members
that women are hindered from ever reaching. Because women within these communities were not
given the opportunity to study at a heder, and to become as learned as their brothers, their fate of
being considered less valuable, and consequently, inferior to men, is an inevitable trap. This sounds
legitimate in that Beyala’s purpose is to bring together the different opinions about women, and to
find an alternative for this social order.
Being Jewish, Christian or Muslim do not make any difference in the eyes of Beyala, because
Aphrodite Clamar, in an article entitled Torah-True and Feminist Too: A Psychotherapist's View of
the Conflict Between Orthodox Judaism and the Women's Movement (1979), explains that
“historically, religions have been interpreted by men in ways that are detrimental to women, that
justify their lower socio-economic status and protect men from accountability. Misused and
misapplied religion has traditionally kept women in the yoke of second-class citizenship in the name
of God and faith” (Journal of Jewish Communal Service). The fact of alluding to the religious origin
of both male and female characters, either directly (the case of Anna Claude), or indirectly (the case
of Hassan Ousman and Tanga), means that Beyala, unlike Irshad Manji 96 the author of Musulmane
Mais Libre (2006)97, does not question religion in itself, but men who define themselves through a
96
Irshad Manji was born in 1968, in Uganda to parents of Indian and Egyptian descent. From 1971-73, the military
dictator, General Idi Amin, expelled thousands of “Asian” families, including Irshad’s. As political refugees, they settled
near Vancouver, Canada. She is the founder and director of the Moral Courage Project at New York University’s school
of public service. This leadership program equips students to challenge political correctness, intellectual conformity and
self-censorship - within their families, communities and organizations. As a reformist Muslim, Irshad strives to put moral
courage into practice. Her latest book, Allah, Liberty and Love, is a guide to reconciling faith and freedom in a world
raging with repressive dogmas. Irshad’s previous book is the international bestseller, The Trouble with Islam Today: A
Muslim’s Call for Reform in Her Faith. Irshad is a Muslim refusenik; she refuses to join an army of robots in the name of
God. "Refusenik" is an English-Russian portmanteau word first used for Russian Jews who refused permission to
emigrate, and then for Israeli conscientious objectors who refused to do army service on the West Bank.
97
This book is an open letter to the Muslims and the non-Muslims all over world in which, vigorously and clearly, the
author calls everybody to think about and question the traditional Islam. In very provocative and personal terms, she digs
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wide and highly respected set of religious principles, believing themselves in the very idea that no
single man accepts the premise that his denomination seriously discriminates against women. Stanley
Fish, in his article entitled Is Religion Man-Made?98 , identifies that “religion is man-made claim” as
the “strongest foundation of atheism” because [...] it undermines the divinity of man, which is, after
all, the entire point of religion: man is not divine, but mortal, and he is dependent upon a creator who
by definition cannot be contained within human categories of perception and description. “How
unsearchable [are] his Judgments, and his ways past finding out! For who hath known the mind of the
Lord? or who hath been his counsellor?” (Romans, 11:33-34).
Likewise, Beyala’s male characters, male’s attitude increasingly abuse women experience.
Thus, one understands that the writer is committed to women‘s equality regardless of their faith, and
she devotes her mental endeavour to narrow the little space existing between the views. In fact the
writer’s commitment appears in her effort to eliminate gender discrimination.
Certainly, the predominantly feminist/womanist perspective is not the unique objective
beyond Beyala’s question; transcendence of human being seems to be the universal cause of any
writer. Society which is, in reality, a cradle for both religious and cultural diversities, and one of the
places where man (human being) is subject to destroying practices, paved the way to both history and
fiction to meet. This situation leads one to ask questions about the possibility of getting a “model
human being”, an existing model, emancipated from slavish mentality and all the sorts of captivity:
traditional, cultural, racial, regional, ideological (religious and non religious), sexual, etc. The
up the disturbing foundations of the drift of Islam: tribal splits, anti-Semitism and blind acceptance Koran. Irshad Manji
explains how, concretely, Islam could be reformed to revalue women, guarantee the respect for the religious minorities
and encourage the debate of ideas.
98
http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2007/06/24/is-religion-man-made/ retrieved, Nov the 11th , 2011
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Cameroonian writer seems to account for woman’s achievement, her aspiration for success and her
self-idealization; she believes transcending woman’s value is capital, but remains meaningless as
long as society is seen as a “vertical society”, and therefore, biased by inequality. It is, in fact, to
view woman as differing from others along a hierarchy where rank has its privileges. In a “horizontal
society”, on the contrary, individuals are equal, and woman’s self is seen as having the same status as
other selves.
Wishing to attain a modern society based on horizontal way of thinking, the author of Tu
t’appelleras Tanga, through her literary texts, is likely to destroy the classical ideological
confessional schema which is a sequel to the vertical society, and suggests, instead, a new social
schema based on new ways of viewing the self, and which contributes to the understanding of a
cultural value system. Albert Jaquard says, in a conference entitled Comment définir l’être humain
(2007), that:
Ce n'est pas au nom d'une volonté divine qu'il faut "aimer son prochain", mais au
nom de notre lucidité sur la réalité humaine. Cette lucidité est pour moi le
fondement de la laïcité. (Conference, in L’Ardèche, Privas, Friday the 21st of
March 2007).
In this perspective, one may ask a question which remains, however, open to different suggestive
answers; how can a writer like Beyala change the order of the social, at least, in her literary context?
III.3.1.The Construction of a Social Schema
What is Beyala but one of those writers whose literary texts constantly question the role of
female characters. Both her social and literary endeavour is said to be an explanation and then a
solution to women’s absurd situations, in an absurd world. A fact in point is that the author’s
challenge is not that new in the world of literature, because, before her and for years, female writers
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have been struggling to find answers to women’s queries; their literary works supposedly furnish an
opportunity to look into the lives, thoughts and actions of females during certain periods of time in a
fictitious form which paints a picture of females who have failed to break away from their male
companions” (Cannon, 1988: 38).
Beyala’s fictitious world introduces the reader to a society where the social and cultural
values are denigrated by an egocentric perceptive image. She puts on the image of females who are
seen as submissive individuals with complaint attitudes and shattered egos, and who could hardly
struggle to live their own life in accordance with the existing social values and cultural norms. The
author’s ambition is, certainly not, to have another society parallel to the existing one, though, it
seems impossible; yet her enthusiasm is translated in her philosophy vis-à-vis the substitution of
individuals’ positions, and the requalification of pe-existing rapport between the members of the
human constellation.
The matter here is not an effortless question of literary representation and/or presentation,
because the literary texts perpetuate the gender-imbalance, a myth that typically portrays Vertical
African societies, in general. Undeniably, this myth does exist, yet genuine alternatives remain one
of the prerogatives of any given writer. The Vertical society, where gender-imbalance,
ideological/confessional difference and racial discrimination are substantial, should be substituted by
another society where the nature of relationship between individuals is not based upon gender
difference or skin pigmentation , or even religious conviction. Beyala has tried to show, in her novels
C’est le soleil qui m’a brûleé and Tu t’appelleras Tanga, through different models: males and
females, blacks and Whites, and Jewish/Christian and Muslim, that human relationship is not that
simple and that feeling can forge other human dimensions that could not be qualified. The author,
through the failure of certain bound, has shown that a compensation for the failure is pre-requisite.
The self identification between Tanga and Anna Claude, which is much obvious in the title of the
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novel Tu t’appelleras Tanga (Your Name shall be Tanga), and the repeated answer of Anna Claude:
“je suis elle, repète-elle” (TTT: 174), as well as the complicity between Irène and Atéba: “Irène,
mon amour… Il ne fallait pas me faire ça… Tu m’as fait une de ces peurs! Tu ne peux pas savoir…
Viens dans mes bras… Viens tout contre moi … Je t’aime…” (CSQB: 152), underline the very new
woman idealized or expected self.
To define women precepts in life is to emphasize that continuity exists in woman’s world, and
which is based on their very complicity; the writer’s social schema is, therefore, not a male-based
society, but rather a female-based society. In Beyala’s vertical society, other types of relations
appear. Anna Claude avows that: “un jour, une lumière quand lui permet de se situer, se connaitre
alors que la poursuite insensée d’Ousmane, cette reconduction incessante du rêve ne lui a pas donnée
la définition d’elle-même, trop occupée qu’elle est à gravir les échelles du malaise” (TTT : 88). The
writer’s social schema sets a sort of criticism to the egocentric view which belittles women and
prevents them from gaining a more positive image of themselves, because “…de tout temps, la
femme s’est prosternée devant l’homme. Ce n’est pas par hasard si Dieu l’a fabriquée à partir d’une
côte de l’homme” (CSQB : 107). It would be important, in the eyes of the writer, to make efforts or,
at least to attempt to promote pride or self-respect and prove one’s existence regardless of the
differences, and this is well be illustrated by Anna Claude when she said that: “ Le sang n’est ni
blanc ni noir, il est tout simplement rouge” (Op. cit, 90). One can hardly provide evidence that he/she
emanates from the very literary representation, because continuity of women means the continuity of
their life, and thus their existence: Anna Claude said to Tanga: “t’as rien à craindre j’existe, donc tu
seras” (Ibid: 177), and quite the same thing happened between Iréne and Atéba, when the former
thought she was an illusion, that she does not have any physical or psychological existence:
- Iréne : sans lui je n’existe pas, je suis une illusion et personne ne me continuera.
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-Atéba : arrête de dire des conneries. D’abord tu ne vas pas mourir, ensuite tu existes
parce que la femme existe, en fin tu me continueras (Op. cit : 143).
Beyala’s role and process of thinking lead to a new identification within a space which may
help her not to feel any compulsion to conform to extreme traditional forms of femininity or to abide
to males’ superior captivity. She could foresee a new position, or at least, could aspire to an adhesion
to different visions of the world. It is, in fact, an attempt to go beyond the predefined set category of
norms and rules, for the self-concept is not instinctive, but rather a social product developed through
experience, and thus a woman can perceive herself in a way different from the way others may see
her. The change at the level of the perceptive self is the supremacy of the new feminine identity over
the socio-cultural barriers which have long been established by the other. The ego development and
self-interpretation (Anna Freud, 1946)99 are, certainly, what preoccupy Beyala.
The author’s newly-set discourse is likely to be framed to advocate a peculiar universalism in
that it is an unusual articulated feminist discourse and which is certainly qualified as a global
discourse. Beyala, like many other writers, is no longer interested in what differentiates the local
from the global, for the simple reason that she is developing more vertical paradigmatic thinking than
horizontal syntagmatic one. Michael Kalton interprets most art as expressing vertical transcendence;
he says:
I view much of our experience of nature as emphasizing vertical transcendence as
well because these sorts of experiences emphasize a dimension beyond the real, the
ordinary (Philip Clayton, 2007: 101)
Calixthe Beyala seems to operate with new assumptions that are judged appropriate, for the
feminist women writers, during the last decade of the 20th and the 21st centuries, who have
Anna Freud (Sigmaund Freud’s daughter) gave central importance to ego development and self-interpretation, while
Freud (1900), who provided new understanding of the importance of internal mental processes, and many other of his
followers hesitated to make the self concept a primary psychological unit in their theories.
99
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endeavoured to align themselves to some degree along this vertical axis; their vertical thinking
strategy is usually concerned with how to solve the problem of the woman, for they already know
everything about themselves as women. They do not need to make a diagnosis to understand why
such a particular problem occurs; they know almost everything related to their living situation. In
reality the experience of going beyond specific experiences (vertical paradigm) (Ibid: 100) is the
most accessible one, because along the horizontal axis, things are taken in the way they are without
imposing on them levels or degrees of reality. (Op.cit.)
So what is essentially Beyala’s new world order, but an effort towards globalism which,
imperatively, requires the regeneration of lenses that acquaint one with new praising human
philosophies, and existential questions. The question of the self is among many other questions asked
about the “one self “and the “other self”; it is based up on differences in man’s and woman’s
perception of the one but unshared social reality. The dialectical view that exists actually is between
the actual self and the expected self, in that the synthesis, the feminist thinkers and writers are
making, is based on what a woman was, or what she is and what she will be or wishes to be.
In the suggested social schema, the question of the “self” or “female self” is very important,
in that Calixthe Beyala is likely to challenge the liberal humanist notion of Man- the idealized eternal
creature- by forcing one to think about the gender of a so-called “universal” humanity. She seems to
show that the predominant verbal and visual representations of woman’s self (the female self) in
society, in general, and in the African culture, in particular, are not mere reflections or
representations of a biologically-given “female” or “feminine” nature-that is natural and
unchangeable. She tries to argue that woman is not supposed to adapt to the socially determined
notions of femininity she was taught, and which are themselves the product of those representations.
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Through her female characters, Beyala proves that when women meet on the global ground,
they do not appear as equals, yet their sameness as well as their difference are essentially linked. She
argues that their importance beyond their link is that they are socially conscious of their oppression
as second level citizens representing the one self, while the first level citizen or the other self is man.
Accordingly, the question asked about the ‘two selves’ is undoubtedly based upon divergent
perceptions of the one but about shared social matters. This situation makes feminist women writers
constantly asking themselves whether this issue deserves being dealt with dialectically as an
essentially asymmetrical issue or not, because symmetry is something that is imposed on the world in
that it is the construction of human civilization. This is undoubtedly why some feminist women
writers engage in meaningful debatable subject matters over the female self: the actual self and the
expected self or the idealized self.
The question that is raised over the relationship which exists between the two facets of the
same self (the African woman’s self) is substantially philosophical. Carl Rogers (1947), who
accounted for the importance of the self, explains that it is the central ingredient in human personality
and personal adjustment. For him, the self is a social product, developing out of interpersonal
relationships and striving for consistency. So, like many other post modernist writers, Calixthe
Beyala, through different forms of representation, regardless of confessional and ideological
orientations, develops a positive halo over woman in general. In Beyala’s Romanesque world,
woman mostly appears as the epitome of change; she stands between two worlds; the world which is
infused with stiff and unchangeable predominant, traditional, visual representations, and the world to
which she aspires and for which she longs. This world which is based on equal opportunities and
mutual understanding and respect is far from any vehement animosity of sexual discrimination and
self stigmatization. In Beyala’s society (pre-modern), “identity” is determined by social role, and “the
individual is identified and constituted in and through some of his or her roles” (MacIntyre, 1985:
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160). Therefore, “the individual discovers his true identity through his roles, and to turn away from
these roles is to turn away from himself.” (Berger, 1984: 154)
Beyala bears witness to capacity for self-determination in a society deprived of its sense of
direction. The question of self determinism, for Beyala, is not determined horizontally, in that she
does not push man backward but proves to be strong-minded women. It is important to offer a rich
approach to understanding the process by which women construct their identities within an actual
social context; what is noticeable is Beyala’s initial presentation of the self by means of written
discourse. To determine the character’ sense of emotional well-being or self-worth, the author of Tu
t’appelleras Tanga tries to emphasiz that an individual like Tanga learns more from the environment
which is hostile and frustrating; her (Tanga’s) social experience is to be translated into a basic sense
of worthiness which, undoubtedly, serves as a foundation of self-esteem, or simply the way one
frames his/her particular self-view.
I believe Tanga’s specific self-view cannot be measured except when associated with others’
specific self-views. This explains, certainly, Tanga’s and Anna Claude’s complicity. Tanga’s story
allowed Anna-Claude to share her sufferings and integrate her as a new constructive element of her
identity. Therefore, they have constructed the “Oneself”, and this is owing to the fusion of the two
identities as Beyala demonstrates at the end of the novel: “Elle (Anna Claude) se couche contre elle
(Tanga). Elle sait que, pour mourir Tanga l’attendait, ouverte, offerte, pour lui donner à parler avant
de passer les frontières et de s’étendre dans la nature morte” (TTT : 176). In this perspective, one
would ask a question about the common identity or the shared identity as an important constituent
within Beyala’s attributed social schema.
III.3.3. Shared Identity versus Self-Conception?
220
To provide a thorough analysis of the way Beyala’s characters think, in Tu t’appelleras
Tanga, one could make sense of the idea of self-conception on which the characters stake their being.
It is certainly a highly influential determinant of the characters’ self-esteem. Although only faintly
alluded to, the writer endeavours to demonstrate that female’s specific self-conception or expected
self/idealized self comes, most of the time, through self-identification.
Tanga died after bequeathing her name, identity and history to Anna-Claude; this is what the
title of the story reveals essentially: Your Name shall be Tanga; here Tanga is talking to Anna
Claude. And on the other hand, the dying girl-child woman could have constructed a new identity
through her reincarnation in her cell companion Anna Claude. The fusion of the two identities does
not come about straightaway. For in the very beginning of the novel the two women could hardly
communicate owing to their cultural differences, and to keep abreast of their situations and stories,
the white Anna Claude was obliged to abandon her to a white society:
Alors, entre en moi. Mon secret s’illuminera. Mais auparavant, il faut que la
blanche en toi meure. Donne-moi ta main, désormais tu seras moi. Tu auras dixsept saisons, tu seras noire, tu t’appelleras Tang (Ibid : 14).
Focusing particularly on interaction involving Beyala’s characters, one hopes to understand
better the relation between women, and hence their self- conception. In doing so, one tries to answer
some preliminary questions about the structure of women’s oneself, or the different facets of females’
oneself. If woman’s own view of herself as well as her belief in the way others may perceive her is
seen as the actual self, then the attributes that someone believes a woman possesses, the attributes
that someone would like the person to possess, and ought to believe the person should possess, are
considered therefore as the expected self or the idealized self. Beyala’s characters, in Tu t’appelleras
Tanga, for instance, are always worrying and uncomfortable; the protagonists Tanga and Anna
Claude describe and account for their conflict in terms of the unfortunate females and males;
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although they are shadowed by Hassan and Ousman who are, in reality, illusory persons, they remain
nevertheless insecure. About the actual self Karen Horney says that:
His inside knowledge of himself shows unmistakably in his dreams, when he is
close to the reality of himself […] Usually the reality of himself intrudes painfully
and unmistakably […] (Horney 1950:111)
The characters’ complicity demonstrates Beyala’s efforts to deal with the notion of selfawareness, and to victimize woman’s actual self. One can understand from the portrait which Beyala
provides that the question of self awareness is not a matter of assumption that attention may be
focused on the self or on the environment, but not on both at the same time as Duval and Wicklund
(1972) argues. Beyala’s characters are self-focused; they focus attention inward. The continuum of
their stories makes of them the mirrors of each other or one another, for self focusing situations,
sometimes, include gazing into a mirror (another significant woman). I think the attention is paid
more to Tanga’s and Anna Claude’s selves or their self-identification, in that the shared woman voice
and the common feminine instinct made of them oneself. And since they are conscious of their
situations and convinced of their interlaced story, they are considered in a state of ‘objective selfawareness.
The commitment of Beyala’s characters to their self-conception consists in unveiling the
feminine essence. The end of Beyala’s first novel C’est le soleil qui m’a brûlée shows the
embodiment of Irène in the person of Atéba. It is when the latter kissed the body of her victim,
symbolically, as if she were Irène. When Beyala says: “autrefois quand Atéba était femme. Quand
elle était des milliers de femmes… Quand elle était Atéba et toutes les femmes étaient elle. Quand
elle séduisait la pluie et le vent”(17), she is certainly associating her character’s name to all women
all over the world, and therefore, showing the extent to which a woman can be a representative figure
and can speak on behalf of any other woman. It is important thereafter to note that Atéba is,
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symbolically, the feminine essence. Beyala’s self-focused characters are shown to stick more to their
own feminine essence and to become more conscious of their presence as women. For, at a given
moment, “consciemment ou inconsciemment, la femme a fini par penser qu’elle ne peut pas se passer
de l’homme” (Rangina Béatrice Gallimore, 1997: 107).
To conceptualize the notion of the female self, it is not necessary to ignore or even deny
man/woman relationship, and thus it is needless to push backward man. For women are conscious
enough of their problems. To survive, woman has to cease to “coudre sa presence autour de
l’homme” (CSQB: 21), and to reach that “état d’esprit attendu” or the expected self; she has to accept
the three rules set by Beyala’s protagonist Atéba:
- Rule number 1: Retrouver la femme
- Rule number 2: Retrouver la femme
- Rule number 3: Retrouver la femme et anéantir le chaos (Ibid : 88)
The notion of the self from a Beyalean perspective, in the present work, is likely to be
complex; especially that it is important to understand the author’s feminist discourse. Beyala seems
to have advocated a universal feminism, to praise a universal feminist discourse, to destroy the
barriers which divide women among the feminist movement. It is legitimate thereafter to state that
Beyala’s intention is to make her cause a universal one, and this is not just only as a writer but as a
woman as well. The obliteration of the ideological as well as the racial differences between women
homogenized both women’s voice and cause, and created, as well, the oneself or the female self.
Atéba has never written to a man, but to women through individual singular names: “Elle a écrit aux
Jeanne, aux Pauline, aux Carole, aux Nicole, aux Molé, aux Kambiwa, aux Akkono, aux Chantal… A
toutes les femmes qui peuplent son imaginaire et lui volent ses nuits” (CSQB: 34); she has written in
this way to show that the feminine voice is never a singular voice of peace, but a plural voice.
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The notion of the self presents one principle with diverse interacting entities, bodies and
mental forces; they act complementarily to perform a certain function tending towards one objective
which is the redefinition of Man. So, an actual woman, from a Beyalean perspective, owes her
existence to the reality that she is completed by another woman and that she does not represent only
herself. According to Karen Horney, "when an individual shifts his center of gravity to his idealized
self, he not only exalts himself but also is bound to look at his actual self from a wrong perspective"
(Op.cit: 110).Therefore the expected woman’s self is the one which is translated by other woman’s
ideas and knowledge. The expected voices are consequently the ones of those women with new
confused, divergent, and limitless ideologies.
To deal with the question of the actual self and expected self, it is to suggest a new discourse
based on unrestricted rational thoughts. Writing a positive feminist self-discourse is very important to
communicate the author’s ideas; it enhances his/her reputation, and helps propagate his/her thoughts
and ideas. Beyala’s knowledge of the woman, as a subject she wishes to write about, helps her, a
great extent, to deal with women’s requirements. So, does Beyala’s process of writing have a didactic
objective? Undoubtedly, the wide audience, her literary works have so far gained have ceaselessly
enhanced her reputation and made of her novels great achievements. This is certainly owing to the
subjects whereby she engaged a Knowhow of writing a discourse based on new thoughts which do
not, compulsorily, favour women at the expense of men, and which praise highly all that is
essentially human.
As a third feminist wave and certainly, to a great extent, as an activist writer, Beyala tries to
unit women across ethnic, racial, and whenever possible, class divisions. For Andrea Benton Rushing
shows that activists manage to promote a greater transnational and cross-cultural sisterhood among
women from various races, classes, religions, socio-political backgrounds, sexual orientations and so
on (1983:134). But what is striking is that Beyala’s sense of effort tends towards the prominence of
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such a sort of application of theory while her orientation, as an Afro-French feminist, barely included
feminist social movements’ percepts. Contrary to American feminism which included a concern with
practical and radical feminist social movements, French feminist theorists did not lay emphasis on
such practical application of theories. This is why Beyala does not put concretely abstract thoughts
and ideologies into practice.
To study Beyala’s fictitious world is to put an emphasis on African women’s issues in a world
where women are, almost, denied. Considering world’s women as one single unit of analysis is
certainly providing new orientations and perspectives of analysis in the present study. The question
of the self, being an important notion in the pronunciation of a given feminist discourse, creates a
distinct opportunity of looking at the world’s women in its regions and sub-regions in their
particularity. The particularity of women’s experiences, relations and thus complicity is especially
relevant if the argument that the notion of self-conception is socially constructed. Unsurprisingly,
such a construction must be understood as emerging out of the particularity of women’s situation and
history. It stands to reason, therefore, that constructions of women react to social realities from which
they are drawn.
Beyala’ universal presupposition of what it means to be a woman, and what feminism is, as
well as what it ought to be, resides essentially in the way she subtly deals with the question of female
self through the development of glorious idealized image100. The presumptions of her feminist
discourse are to trivialize certain denigrating anti-feminist discourses and to valorize natural
multidimensional and anti-racialist social realities.
The author’s polyphonic feminist discourse
entails having a woman with different but complementary idiosyncratic behaviours. Beyala
fundamentally questioned the assumption that woman’s expected or idealized self exists only in her
Robert B. Ewen says that the repressed aspects of the neurotic’s personality and the painful inner conflicts, are further
concealed through the development of glorious idealized image (2003:119)
100
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own egocentric desires. She has shown in the treated novels that the characters’ desire for change,
thirst for new experiences in life, recognition, knowledge and love construct a common voice calling
for an objective perceptible reality. And it is here where the originality of Beyala’s conception of the
expected self or idealized self resides.
III.4. Beyala the creator of her “New-Woman” Character
The universal appears as a quality of the individual and the particular reality
becomes manifest and can be experienced within appearances, the general
principle is expressed as the specific impelling cause, for the individual case being
specifically depicted (Georg Lukács, 1978: 34-5)
In reflecting the artistic reality, Lukács considers society as the very source of inspiration,
where man is acting as being a part of the whole. And in considering the process by which
individuals with different cultural views live together, without mutual understanding and empathy,
one is certainly underlining the issue of human beings (males and females) development over their
lifetime. Therefore, some individuals (males) are capable of having their world as they want it
relatively easily, in a time others (females) are supposed to compromise their objectives and content
themselves with the possibilities at hand. Males are able to come close to their desired world without
compromise, provided they act in accordance with their own outlook and ideas. Yet, females have to
content themselves with what is possible and resign themselves to what is out of reach. In pursuing
continuation and subsistence activities that may allow them to express themselves within a
patriarchal social milieu, or even in striving to become a success in the conventional sense, women
(females) find themselves subject to nagging constant exerted pressure to surrender, and thereafter
abandon their quest, internalize required modes of conduct and behaviour, and admit the dictated
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behaviour; they may bear the loss of dignity and the feelings of horror and shame. But are they really
supposed to admit defeat, and accept making concession?
The raised point is debatable in that the existence, itself, of women writers, is a step towards
the rejection of this sort of compromise. Erik Erikson describes compromise as being not only an
acceptance of the dominant ideal, but also an unconscious agreement with the judgement of
inferiority (Erikson, 1974: 117- 8). Calixthe Beyala’s status as a writer made her create the model of
female character who does not accept compromise, but confrontation. She believes that compromise
simultaneously endures the humiliation of being informed of woman’s inferiority.
Beyala’s fiction, undoubtedly, draws the reader’s attention to one particular aspect of her
writing: her depiction of femininity. Beyala’s women protagonists stand out; they may provoke,
shock, or surprise, as they may stir pity and open the readers’ eyes to problems which are likely to be
a priori inconceivable. They may provoke the reader’s emotional reaction, in that he can either laugh
or cry; they can also provoke sympathy or contempt, but one thing is sure is that no single reader will
ever stay “untouched” by Beyala’s women characters.
To account for the process of transformation in Beyala’s fiction is to underline the facets of
femininity: “femininity as entrapment and “femininity as self-invention and role mobilization”
(Palmer 1997: 31).In fact Beyala’s trajectory as a writer displays a shift from femininity as
entrapment to the femininity as self-invention, which means that Beyala’s women characters in her
earlier works such as C'est le soleil qui m'a brûleé101 and Tu t’appelleras Tanga102 can be considered
101
Ateba, who is nineteen years-old, has lived for many years in a well-behaved, orderly and obedient manner with a
tyrannical aunt. However, underneath this submission hides a temperament of fire and "she will have to be burnt in all the
suns, all the fires of desire, customs and the most oppressive, outmoded traditions before she is finally able to discover
herself..."(Back cover).
102
Two young women have been thrown together in the same cell. The first one, Tanga has experienced nothing but
debauchery and poverty; she has been subjected to all sorts of abominations and vices meted out by a corrupt society. She
is now about to die and the police want to force her to talk. The second woman is only a pawn in the police game, but she
is definitely not mad as her tormentors claim...
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to be more of the “entrapment”- type and the women characters in the other novels such as Seul le
diable le savait, Maman a un amant, Assèze l'Africaine, l’Homme qui m’offrait le ciel or le Roman
de Pauline are more of the “self-invention”-type.
In the author’s manifestations of the first
femininity-type she represents woman as a puppet, performing scripts assigned to her by a malesupremacist culture. In this statement, one notices that the “puppet metaphor” is of utmost
importance in the understanding of Beyala’s portrayal of the woman she defends, the woman who is
viewed as being the embodiment of passivity103, as she does not have any power of her own.
What might have urged the author to think in terms of creating a new model (New-woman) is,
for sure, that Beyala has long shown oppressed female characters by some other male characters, the
incarnation of male authority, an aspect which I have already alluded to in the second chapter. The
puppet women that Beyala tries to substitute in her fiction are those who, unwillingly, internalise
traditional roles, their blind submission, or subconscious acceptance without questioning the
rightness, regardless of their intention.
Beyala’s substitution consists in giving her characters other attributes which might make of
them new women praising essentially new social critical apparatus; for in a patriarchal society as the
one criticised by the author, a woman cannot be a self-made, self-reliant woman, but rather, seen as
dependent on man. Objectively, the author of Tu T’appelleras Tanga aims at the creation of a literary
character that is able to say No! This literary representative form corresponds to what Paulina Palmer
has termed “femininity as self-invention and role mobilization” (Palmer 1997: 31), and it is
categorized as “New Woman”. This new model character can be considered as the opposite of her
former subservient female literary characters.
103
CF chapter Two: Beyala’s Protagonists facing the Incongruity of life
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Since Beyala’s objective tends towards concretisation of the utopian ideas about "global
sisterhood"; she writes in a sense as to lay the groundwork for more equitable social relations among
women across borders and cultural contexts. Thus Beyala wants her female characters to belong to
this type of women who are actually in possession of a strong sense of action and self-determination.
“New Female Characters”, Beyala’s sees, should live their lives according to their own rules
and ideas, needless to be controlled by a “puppet players who are in general “Men”. She believes
these new women are much more self-confident and self-assured, and they take the strings into their
own hands and live their lives according to their own rules and ideas. Beyala’s Femme nue, femme
noire is, in backdrop, the portrait of a corrupt Africa which seems to take pleasure in its failure; an
Africa which abandons hardly its "mascots" and which does not “cadeaute” ( to borrow Beyala’s
neologism), or simply does not give presents to those who want to enhance change. This story invites
the reader to discover one of Beyala’s new female literary characters, within a new cloth, something
unusual in Africa.
It is not the writer’s trademark which is amplified by the clairvoyance of sex in the very
beginning of FNFN:
Que celui qui se sent mal à l’aise passe sa route...parce que, ici, il n’y aura pas de
soutiens-gorge en dentelle, de bas résille, de petites culottes en soie à prix excessif,
de parfums roses ou des gardénias, et encore moins ces approches rituelles de la
femme fatale, empruntées aux films ou à la télévision (2003:11).
This seems unusual since Beyala’s kleptomaniac female character Irène Fofo for whom besides
flight, sex alone can provide her with a comparable pleasure; she declares:
je suis là, en exploitation, libérée des entraves et des obligations. J’erre sans autres
finalité que celle de satisfaire cette quête carnassière qui, chaque jour, m’incite à
m’approprier des choses qu’on ne me donne pas (Ibid: 14).
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Irène is a freed woman and an ardent eater of man; she takes advantage of carnal pleasures
defying all the prohibitions of the society. In a raw and daring language, Beyala makes the reader
discover one more time her (Beyala’s) talents in a style which leads him intensely to be acquainted
with her novelistic world. However, a point is to be noted. The novel of Calixthe Beyala seems to be
a "universal" erotic novel and not simply "African", for sexuality is a world-shared individual
pleasure and is all what every person expresses freely and in the language of her choice. Therefore,
sexuality is seen as a new language spoken by the new woman in a time; it is one form of expression
that gave Beyala’s character Irène a sort of self-confidence, in that she has become aware of her
sexual need and desire. What can be seen both as a result of the control over their lives and as a
source for the control she has achieved is carnal love which is expressed openly because for her
“L’amour est mort bien avant notre ère” (Ibid: 65), needless to talk about romanticism. Irène’s
argument is not that weak, for in a given moment Ousman’s wife Fatou believed that she can set
control over her husband through sexual intercourse: “Parce que tant que je le tiens en haleine
sexuellement, il ne m’abandonnera pas” (Ibid), Irène replied: “Tu parles de sexe et non pas d’amour”
(Ibid).
Beyala’s representation of the new woman, in this novel is a bit particular; her female
protagonists remained in a reader’s mind as almost different characters as far as the African literary
tradition is concerned; it is exactly here where the new conception of woman lies. It is certainly that
mystical embrace where Irène and Eva cross and uncross the knots of abstinence that new visions are
born in their nude bodies. The homosexual union of Irène and Hayatou’s wife Eva is formed to
destruct, undoubtedly, the forces that suck the vital energies that empower creativity. Through this
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characters’ sexual complice action, a new space is taken up. In such a context, a woman becomes
self-assured and considering herself to be valuable and significant in life104.
In this respect, Irène, in Femme nue, femme noire, differs greatly from, Tanga and Anna
Claude (TTT), or Atéba and Irène (CSQB) who are seen as puppet women, because they take up as
little space as possible, in order not to upset their men; in TTT and CSQB, it is only men who
possesses the ultimate power to take up space; the more women make themselves “invisible”, the
more they are accepted in this world governed by men. Eva and Irène’s bodies and sexual complicity
can be viewed as a concrete symbol of rebellion against traditional male expectations of women.
Interestingly, all these situations of Beyala’s characters seem to be looked at in the writer’s
native culture as illustrations of typical male behaviour. Actually when dealing with males, these
sorts of behaviours are in general accepted and even interpreted as a sign of their manliness. Yet,
transferring this behaviour to females, they are directly regarded as disgusting and atrocious.
Beyala calls attention to the existing norms for women who are constructed by a male-centred
society. She acquaints the reader and thus the world with the idea that in life certain norms “choke”
women and repress their nature as women who have feelings and the right of expressing themselves,
and being what they want to be like, and act and react as they please.
In her vision, the author imagines women to react differently. In this context a powerful “New
Woman” is a symbol of freedom and self-determination. A woman who dares to say: “I am here”, I
exist; her existence is a reaction against the oppression of the other; it is an answer to the allegation
that woman is subject to male supremacy.
Beyala’s fiction puts forwards ideas about her unrevealed thoughts as well as her vision of
the future which seems, like any other human being’s, too optimistic. That is why another reading of
104
The notion of oneself has been already dealt with within this chapter.
231
Beyala’s novels seems important, at least, to discover other different dimensions in Beyala’s
novelistic world.
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Conclusion
The new world order which is, in fact, the result of writers’ common efforts towards
globalization, imperatively requires the regeneration of lenses that acquaint one with new way of
praising human philosophies, and existential questions.
Breaking the taboos is a key in marking feminine expression. Beyala’s efforts are seen
through her female characters’ voice. The very challenge of the African woman living in a chaotic
alienated absurd world is to reject, at least verbally, the role she was assigned by man: the everlasting
subordination to man and the blind subservience to man’s requirements. Despite the uncomfortable
situation of women, the writer did not veil her fundamental adhesion to a liberal–humanist belief to
make “true self” discovery very possible. Yet Beyala has dealt with the notion of liberal-humanism
according to what she could intend by “male” or “female”. The non- obstruction of male characters is
owing to some ideological ends and even literary ones.
In her novelistic world, Beyala’s male characters increasingly abuse women experience, and
therefore, the space devoted to males is undoubtedly to show that the author wishes for an equality
among human beings regardless of their faith and/or ideological orientations.
I see it important to approach Beyala’s novels from another point of view, making abstraction
of all the dimensions that may affect my understanding of her works. To destroy the schema
determined in terms of race, gender, religious difference, is to allow a more objective criticism.
Going beyond the vertical transcending tenets and principles is undoubtedly having a very overt
opinion of the world of males. That is, certainly, why the suggested horizontal schema, which is
based on pure human criteria, stands for an adequate alternative to draw attention to the idea that
continuity, which is based on women complicity, exists in women’s world. The writer’s social
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schema is, therefore, not a male-based society, but rather a female-based society in which even male
are considered human beings and not only women.
Likewise, in postmodern thought, Calixthe Beyala’s view has challenged the liberal humanist
notion of Man- the idealized eternal creature- by forcing the reader to think about the gender of a socalled “universal” humanity. Her physical and mental endeavours (works and social preoccupations)
are likely to show that the predominant, traditional, verbal and visual representations of woman’s self
(the female self) in the African culture are not mere reflections or representations of a biologically given “female” or “feminine” nature- that is natural and unchangeable. She tries to argue that a
woman is not supposed to adapt to the socially determined notions of femininity she was taught, and
which are themselves the product of those representations.
Therefore, through writing a rational discourse, the author tries to account for selfidentification which is substantially linked to female’s specific self-conception or expected
self/idealized self. Both selves (actual self and expected self) provide the reader with a sort of
dialectical debate about the way women are living, and the complexity of the world they are living in.
(where is the verb?) This could be called a positive feminist self-discourse which is certainly very
important to communicate the author’s ideas. Beyala’s philosophical conception of the self,
germinates into a new model in literature that one considers as being the “new woman”, the new
female character which are essentially different from the “puppet women”, and which are also seen
through the classical character.
Beyala’s novels are open to other different readings and interpretations, what I will do in the
Fourth Chapter is just a single iota from many other several readings and approaches an ordinary or
even a professional reader can do because of the writer’s unrevealed thoughts.
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Chapter Four
The Unrevealed Thoughts of a Woman Writer:
New Way to the Social Arena of the Time
Introduction
IV.1. Quest for the self: a theory of self awareness
IV.1.1. Simultaneous existence of the dangling African
IV.1.2. The African woman between mystery and hope
IV.2. Affinities between Sartrean Existentialism and Beyala’s Feminist Orientation
IV.3. Questioning the Patriarchal World: Ateba's Remedial Endeavour
IV.4. Transgressing Boundaries and Creating Universal Solidarity in Beyala’s novelistic World
IV.4.1. C’est le soleil qui m'a brûlée
IV.4.2. Tu t’appelleras Tanga
Conclusion
Introduction
One may see it necessary to review the way people might have read Beyala’s novels. Sure,
every reader is free to state his point of view the way he sees it fitful to the objectives he has put
forward. Myself, I have tried to approach her novels from another orientation. Philosophy, in my
eyes, is an adequate approach, at least, in this context in which human value is given a great
importance. The author’s novels deal with the human value; Beyala’s dealing with woman value is
not that haphazard in that she does not exclude herself from the women’s constellation. Actually, the
author does not exclude herself from the entire human constellation and not only the women’s. I, for
one, believe that different interpretations may provide Beyala’s works with a certain richness
regardless of the nature of the subject matters, for the theme is almost always the same throughout all
her works.
Albeit different ideological orientation both I and the author have, there remains one common
end which is the essence of the human being. It is interesting, thereafter, to explore, in the present
chapter, the theory of self awareness which, I judge, very linked to the author’s conception of the
self; the question of the self and the nature of the African society oblige me, as reader, to look for
further rooms to set relevant interpretations to the question of the self in so far as it is accounted for
by the author in question.
The quest for the self and the question of self-determinism are major in this chapter in that
they are central. Man (human being), at the expense of his culture, traditions and customs, gropes
for an immortal value embodied in the everlasting happiness that could be reached through selfdeterminism, and thus existence. Through allowing an existential reading of Beyala’s works, I am to
prove that any human being is free and that he is the master of himself (self-master). His selfconsciousness enables him to define his own essence far from any restricting, guiding standards. The
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reason may be why Beyala’s characters are seen in perpetual change of their space to develop new
scopes of vision which allow them reconsidering the self, reviewing it and thus giving it a new form
of existence. I see Beyala’s women struggling against the mist of society to promote change as far as
the self is concerned in a society where sexual injustice is, certainly, a critical issue.
Dangling between reality and dreams as well as between hope and mystery is not a choice,
but it is imposed on women; this very situation urges any one, no matter what he is, to raise many
questions about the nature of the life, of human being, and his status. It is a very long journey that the
African woman takes to reach an acceptable satisfaction.
Yet, it is too difficult, not to say,
impossible to reach satisfaction, for one does not expect to see woman as having the same value 105
especially that the concept of woman is seen differently. The author wants to reconsider women and
their values through the suggestion of another type of women. For her the “new woman” is the one
who is able to say: No; the one who is completely different from the traditional African woman who
says just: YES without commenting. She refuses that a woman remains passive and accepted being
manipulated by man as a “puppet”106.
The writer has a different opinion in that she sees that to be a “new woman”, a woman can act
verbally and physically. One has not to go far away and try to find an explanation to physical
reaction, because the writer, in her novels might, have answered this mysterious expected question.
The physical reaction could be translated simply by her sexual act. She shows that giving the body
willing to a man is a sort of freedom, because it is only woman who possesses her body; it is her
property and not man’s property. This sound awkward in a sense, but as far as I am concerned, I
think, that free women are the owners of their bodies and their sexual organs; no one obliges them to
105
I mean by same value, in this situation, woman belonging to the same category: pure, virtuous, faithful, uncorrupted,
unadulterated, tainted , prostitute, adulterated
106
Indeed this idea was dealt with in the previous chapter, yet it is important because it enhances the understanding of the
author’s conception of woman’s value. This is why it is reintroduced in the introduction of this chapter
238
act against their will. Beyala wants her woman to be free from all the restriction and to be herself the
master.
239
IV.1. Quest for the Self: a theory of Self-awareness
The fact of not getting ones identity well defined leads one to put many question marks about
individual status and his identity in a space of despair. The alienated and/or marginalized hero in
quest of rebirth can engage in a quest for freedom a state of emptiness and alienation/marginalization.
In order for the individual to be aware of his existence, he questions the existence of environmental
stimuli: "When attention is directed inward and the individual's consciousness is focused on himself,
he is the object of his own consciousness--hence 'objective' self-awareness" (Duval & Wicklund,
1972: 02), which predicts that high self-awareness will strengthen the relationship between selfdiscrepancies and emotions. His conflict is actually internal; this means that “it comes not so much
from the outside world but rather much from his own inner mind; he experiences himself as the
source of perception and action" (Ibid: 03). In this case, he has taken himself as the object of thought;
he can think, act and experience, and he can as well think about what he is doing and experiencing.
Overall, an individual is likely to direct his attention outward or backward on himself as a function of
the characteristics of the situation.
The theory of self-awareness assumes that the orientation of conscious attention is the essence
of self-evaluation. Focusing attention on the self brings about objective self-awareness, which
initiates an automatic comparison of the self against standards. In other words, self-awareness theory
makes people focus attention on the self to increase self-awareness.
The theory in question originally assumes that people will reduce divergence by changing self to
match standards. Yet, recent research, however, has suggested that people will also change their
standards to be consistent with the self (Carver, 1975; Gibbons, 1978); they become able to create
clearer perceptions of internal states, emotions, and traits.
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The question that could be raised in this case is whether an individual, like the African
woman, is able to fit within social principles, and to show stronger emotional response to either meet
or fail to meet them. I suppose, woman’s tendency to change the self to match social principles or
values depends essentially on other variables, particularly perceptions of how hard it will be to attain
them. The values and the principles a woman is likely to meet and stand require a certain effort from
her part. Basing one’s reasoning on Duval’s and Wicklund’s philosophy, one would say that woman
should, at a given moment, focus attention on herself or on the external environment. Because
focusing on the self enables woman self-evaluation.
The process of comparing the self with values allows her to change her behaviour and to
experience pride and dissatisfaction with the self. Self-awareness is thus a major mechanism of selfcontrol her action as woman and her ideal as human being. The question of the quest for the self is
essentially linked to the theory of Self-awareness because woman’s effort to look for an
identification, within a world overwhelmed by sexual injustice, requires a particular focus on the self;
she needs to be self-conscious as objective evaluator of herself and needs as well to increase her selfawareness through certain outlets.
IV.1.1. the Existence of the Dangling African Woman
When man decides to answer by words, in a society where patriarchal laws are reigning, he
gets himself in front of rigid and strongly controlled situations that may draw him to set questions
over his situation and identity. An African subjected to such standards may resign as he also
contrives certain will to confront and challenge. To dangle is to be certainly looking for something he
must have lost. A dangling man is undoubtedly questioning himself over his real identity. In fact, it
is rather a question for the self. This is not something new for an ethnic individual, for Joseph, the
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character of Saul Bellow107, the Jewish American Writer, in his novel Dangling Man (1944), is
shown in permanent quest for the self and identity which is neither American nor Jewish and not
even Canadian108.
Dangling between reality and dreams as well as between hope and mystery may undoubtedly
push one to ask question about the nature of the new life. One asks whether this life is better or worse
and whether it is comfortable or not. The African’s journey in time and space is also similar to
Joseph’s, in that reviving the souvenirs and bearing essentially history as being a stimulating pretext
may, nevertheless, lead to misinterpretation of facts and reality: leaving the continent Africa towards
Europe looking for comfort, an adequate substitute to sufferings, is to draw oneself into a maze. For
to ignore the future which is likely to be mysterious is, inevitably, an adventure. Therefore, to look
for the interpretation of certain behaviours in the metropolitan country is synonymous to the
acculturation and to the self-identification to the other who is French. Yet, one believes that comfort
can be but the fruit of one’s identification to the other. In this case, a question about the future of the
African woman who got caught in a critical situation of her denigrating patriarchal culture is
prerequisite.
IV.1.2. the African woman between mystery and hope
Unquestionably, man is the victim of his social guiding rules; he decides, however, to be what
he is and what the other want him to be like. That is, perhaps, why fleeing the country is seen as a
107
American author, winner of the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1976, one of the major representatives of JewishAmerican writers. Bellow's works influenced widely American literature after World War II. Among his most famous
characters are Augie March, Moses E. Herzog, Arthur Sammler, and Charlie Citrine - a superb gallery of self-doubting,
funny, charming, disillusioned, neurotic, and intelligent observers of the modern American way of life.
108
Saul Bellow was born Solomon Bellows in Lachine, Quebec, a suburb of Montreal. His original birth certificate was
lost when Lachine's city hall burned down in the 1920s, but Bellow customarily celebrated his birth date on June 10.
Bellow's parents had emigrated in 1913 from Russia to Canada. In St. Petersburg Bellow's father, Abraham (Abram), had
imported Turkish figs and Egyptian onions. He said: “I am an American, Chicago born—Chicago, that somber city—and
go at things as I have taught myself, free style, and will make the record in my own way: first to knock, first admitted;
sometimes an innocent knock, sometimes a not so innocent." (from The Adventures of Augie March, 1953)
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form of substitution to patriarchal rules and standards; rules that deprive human being of his emotion
and put him under the yoke of the governing tights. Therefore, a quest for self-determinism seems
prerequisite and looks like requiring, nonetheless, a commitment and before that a predisposition. In
this sense, one may ask whether man is ready to sacrifice his culture, traditions and customs in favour
of an everlasting happiness that is marked by self-determinism, and therefore, existence. This means
that man is a self-master, able to define his own essence far from any restricting, guiding standards.
Europe is a new space where man can develop new scopes of vision, which allow him reviewing
himself and his existence. It, undeniably, stands for the best stimulus towards self-determinism
It is not, however, awkward to see Beyala’s characters in such situation, though she does not
feel alienated because she considers herself, as she explains in an interview, that in her books she
does not talk about Paris “ en tant que tel “but” de l’Afrique transposée à Paris” (Narcisse Mouelle
Kombi. 1992:11). Moreover, by rightly, describing Beyala as “Parisienne jusqu’au bout des ongles”,
Sylvie Genevoix shows the writer’s ability not only to present simply the juxtaposition of cultures in
her work but to infiltrate and challenge French identity itself (1993). Here one can come back to the
quest of the self and say that being incorporated into mainstream French culture does not
compulsorily mean looking for self-identification to French as she cannot be seen as “ideologically
problematic”. For Beyala, herself, insists on that she is French and has no problem in addressing her
compatriots with plenty of patriotism: “Française je suis, française je reste; française je suis fière
d’être, n’en déplaise à certains” (2000 :30)
Beyala’s slow process of self-assertion and integration could be seen in her two political
essays LASO and LAFAC.
In these two essays, the author adopts, almost, two different but
complementary positions: by African, she allows herself an acceptable position among the French,
pretending an agreement on the coherency of this structure, so that she can penetrate even deeper and
then proclaims herself an “Afro-Française”, allowing herself by that a margin of manoeuvre, for the
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hyphened word “Afro-Française” means that there is always a possibility for and acceptance of a
separation.
Beyala’s endeavour consists in reality, in obliterating that ideological view over man’s
belonging, believing in that human being’s life could not be attributed to someone else , but to
himself, and that life should not be determined by geographical space or political position. But man is
what to be like, and where so ever.
In fact, almost all Beyala’s novels gravitate around the redefinition of fixed hegemonic labels,
no matter whether they are set in post-colonial Africa or in France. it is conceived that the two first
novels, CSQM and TTT, are set to offer a backward glance, yet the formulation of Beyala’s idea of
home is the very objective aimed at in la Poétique de l’espace (1958). Gaston Bachelard defines
home as the crucial site of one’s intimate life and a refuge. For him this space is felicitous (espace
heureux); a space like an anchor without which couples like (male and female), (man and woman),
(boy and girl) become fragmented individuals. However, Beyala’s philosophy of home does not join
Bechelard’s view in that she believes Africa is a disintegrating home which can no longer provide
comfort to its sons ; on the contrary, she believes man can define himself and stand the arduousness
of life to eschew deception.
Albeit strong and decisive, Bellow’s character Joseph remains captive to his desires of being
considered by the Americans, to be recognized by the Americans as an American citizen; he kept
asking himself questions over his identity and origin; alas no single adequate answer to his over
nagging questions was found. Indeed, he has fetched for convincing answers in history, but realized,
unfortunately, that his image was stiffly attributed to Holocaust; this might be the reason why Saul
Bellow decided to stimulate him through providing a literary new model (character), seen as a new
modern hero, representing the new Jewish image or simply (Schlemiel). The writer has attributed a
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new identity to the Jewish literary character; he has adopted Hemingwayesque forms of
representations (tough guys). Bellow must have found in history a way to the future; he refuses to
lament his character’s situation, but look for consistent and reasonable alternatives to reach a way out
to his characters. Beyala says, in AZAF, through her character Assèze: “il faut interroger l’histoire”,
yet her question does not reveal an extreme anxiety, as the narrator states at the very beginning of the
novel: “je ne parle pas de désespoir. Je parle vie” (Ibid: 20). This means that she is not looking for a
“WHY” , but rather for a “HOW”, she does not complain but needs a way; a way history has created
what she calls a “ sacrificed youth”, or a “lost generation” from which she does not exclude herself.
Like Saul Bellow, Beyala is convinced that the present could never be built without reference to the
past, without judgments and without developing negative critical apparatus; for her observation and
understanding are very important steps in life. In this sense, Beyala says:
Peut-être je n’apporterai pas grand-chose mais en psychanalysant cette jeunesse,
on pourrait avoir un début de solution pour le petit monde (Ibid)
The author is likely to destroy the complexes that are preventing African youth from finding
and meeting the true existential freedom. This may take on back to the notion of felicitous space and
the African reality that kills African youths and Bellville’s view over freedom. The passivity and
difference vis-à vis man described by Homi Bhabha as “a symbolic space of cultural revival- a
melancholia in revolt”. “This disincorporation”, he argues is, however, “an attempt to break the
marginality of the social and the political limits of space to redraw the boundaries in psychic,
fantasmic space” (1992: 65). This new space is in reality mediation or rejection of those predefined
categories of identity which prevent Beyala’s characters from developing an individual identity away
from the imposed collective one. This is undoubtedly why the author of AZAF, as already mentioned,
considers herself an African and as an Afro-French; this appears through the development of the
double identity: the “Idem” and the “Ipse” identities: respectively the self which is similar to the
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other, and theself which is different from the other. In other words, Beyala recognizes herself as
similar to the other individuals or girls and recognizes herself as well as different to the other
individuals and individualizations109. But the reality is that woman in Africa has been always doomed
to live under the thumbs of male members of their families; the female’s existence is secondary, in
that it is conditioned and modelled by cultural and social standards, the very reality which, earnestly,
translates the transformation of women’s status from cultural inferiority to natural inferiority. One
has to question the woman nature, and thus the human nature. The writer might not have in mind the
question of the woman nature, but it is an important element around which almost all her novels
gravitate. It is the question of human nature and human existence. In this case, it is necessary to talk
about the affinities between existentialism and Beyala’s feminism.
IV.2. Affinities between Sartrean Existentialism and Beyala’s Feminist
Orientation
Though disturbingly shocking brutal pornographic descriptive sexual scenes, Beyala’s novels
remain stories of women’s passionate frantic identity quest; stories of women who are full of desire
to break free from all unfair, irrational, and intolerant constraints of the native society. Through
characters, some Beyala’s novels show that a woman is faced with the lack of any external source of
value and determination, and that she is faced with the responsibility of choosing her own nature and
values. In doing so, she must face the awesome responsibility of choosing human nature and values
for all men (human beings) in her free choices. Atéba (CSQB) or Tanga and Anna Claude (TTT) are
subject to this situation. Being anxious in general means that one is unable of making a choice, and if
he/she makes it, then he/she remains always subject to this anxiety. The three characters are the
product of society, and they had no choice; on the other hand, society incriminates them for being
prostitutes. They were thrown into maze of the world they are living in; they found themselves
109
Means simply the discrimination or perception of the individual within a group or species
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existing in a world not of their own making and indifferent to their concerns. They are not the source
of their existence, but find themselves thrown into a world they do not control and did not choose.
The character’s anxiety is but the result of this irrational throwness. Therefore, a need to create their
selves is imperative, for they must despair of any hope of external value or determination and restrict
themselves to what is under their own control, because there exists a real contrast between the world
they are thrown into and which they cannot control and the absolute freedom. The question that could
be asked is how can women, like the characters of Beyala, be free if their bodies, their abilities and
their environment are determined by the other’s presence?
Beyala’s unrevealed thought tends more to put an accent on these factors. Indeed, these
factors are, may be, determined; yet human being is more than simply those things. His real self lies
beyond the reach of external determination in virtue of its absolute individuality. The reality that
women's lives were already determined deprived them all forms of free will. To begin with, the first
effect of existentialism puts every man in possession of himself as he is. The African woman has
never been in possession of the self, but was rather defined by "man" and was possessed by him.
Existentialism is therefore very appropriate to be put in parallel with feminism through much
of what Simone de Beauvoir expressed in The Second Sex. The themes of choice, authenticity and
social criticism can be seen in Feminism. A feminist chooses to detach herself from gender roles and
lives her own independent life. She chooses not to become a Prostitute, Narcissist or Mystic, but to
be a subject, a person. To lead an authentic existence is to live up to the situation instead of becoming
self-deceiving. A woman needs to make a decision courageously and to be true to herself. She must
not settle for less than she knows she deserves. Feminism demonstrates social criticism by attempting
to deconstruct gender roles, which is a concept constructed by society (Men), and only set forth
through fear and ignorance (1971). Moreover, Beyala, through her existential female fictional
characters or heroines who choose their way of life, who suffer the anxiety associated with freedom,
247
isolation, and nonconformity and still remain free, demonstrates the tenets of existentialism which are
characterized by the awareness of individuals,
their choice in life, and its eventual definition
according to a "meaningful context". Because these individuals have no predetermined nature or
essence that controls what they are, what they do, or what is valuable for them. Jean-Paul Sartre,
about the human existence and essence says:
What do we mean by saying that existence precedes essence?
We mean that man first of all exists, encounters himself, surges up in the world—
and defines himself afterwards. If man as the existentialist sees him is not definable,
it is because to begin with he is nothing. He will not be anything until later, and
then he will be what he makes of himself. (Priest, Stephen, 2001: 30.)
The author of CSQB shows that woman was not only in males’ possession, but she was
considered to be useful only in terms of her body and was denied any real essence. African realities
have always been full with examples of exploitation and abuses of female body, one of which is
female circumcision aiming at killing a rightful human pleasure and reducing her into a mere sexual
object for the full and sole enjoyment of the male . She was only an exterior devoid of any
recognizable interior, while human is radically free to act independently of determination by outside
influence; it is a free choice through which human being creates his own human nature and his
values. To bring both females’ action and liberty Beyala herself said:
L'être humain a le choix de rompre ou pas ce qui apparaît comme déterminisme
social, théologique, moral ou philosophique dès lors qu'il possède des outils
nécessaires qui lui permettent de procéder à cette rupture. Celle-ci pourra se
caractériser par une forme d'indignation, un choix de vie différent, de religion
opposée à celle des géniteurs par exemple. Mais ne serait capable de le faire que
l'être ayant choisi la liberté à tous les prix, quitte à en payer le prix fort, à savoir le
rejet, les humiliations qui en découlent et dans certaines sociétés, la mort... Oui,
chaque humain est unique, a le libre choix de sa destinée... Mais encore faudrait-il
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qu'il en ait conscience (On Line Interview with Beyala, March 2nd, 2013 see Annex
4)
Beyala’s characters Atéba (CSQB) and Assèze (AF) actions highlight the effort exerted towards the
creation the nature, for human being, in general, is thrown into existence first without a
predetermined nature and it only by and by that he can construct his nature or essence through his
actions. Yet, these actions require a certain liberty. Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel says: “c’est
seulement par le risque de sa vie que l’on conserve la liberté” (Albert Jacquard, 1997:113); the
pleasure in enjoying liberty is undoubtedly linked to the capacity of thinking for tomorrow; a
capacity that is purely human. Indeed, the discovery of the future is a human initiative, which leads
imperatively to set questions over the nature of man’s future that can be either a stage for anxiety or a
source of hope. It would be wise to admit that the real world is not, however, an illusion of one’s
senses, and that the shift from the present to the future is feasible.
The evaluation of the real world’s phenomena of unexpectability does not seem sufficient to
make obvious or prove that freedom is possible; on the contrary, it makes it almost impossible. In this
case, one has the right to pretend being free, at least, within the imposed constraints of this universe.
This is illustrated by Albert Jacquard when he said:
Vous avez le droit de vous sentir libre. Mais se sentir d’être libre n’est-t-il pas une
illusion ? On croit être libre alors qu’on est déterminé, sur le plan social par
exemple, déterminismes socioculturels, inégalités, préjugés, etc; mais sur le plan
psychologique, avec les motivations inconscientes. Nous ignorons simplement les
causes réelles qui nous font agir (Ibid : 115)
Calixthe Beyala, as a human being and as an intellectual, has been shaped by the set of
norms, rules, behaviours and opinions which are brought by the human beings who surround her.
She is, therefore, the product of the intersection between concrete mechanisms and psychological
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influences; yet this product, I believe, is in a so complicated position that it could contribute to her
own construction. This auto-construction allows her to bring something to what she is and what she
represents, and certainly to what she is (on behalf of other women) to be like. She proves through her
interviews and writings that if she were the product of the external force, she would have been just a
fabricated object with passive achievement. She wants to be “herself”. In le Republicain of the11th
of January 1998, Beyala answered the questions asked by the journalist; she said:
Je suis un auteur francophone, je considère que la langue française est la mienne ;
j’estime que je n’ai pas de leçon à recevoir des gens du 6eme arrondissement de
Paris, de ceux qui disent : une Africaine doit parler comme cela, écrire comme
cela, dormir de cette façon, sinon c’est une sauvage (Républicain, Janvier 1998)
The idea that she is able to think this way through the use of “Je/ I”, which means,
paradoxally, to speak about the self, in the third person singular “Elle/ She”, is in itself a sign of a
very determined power. Moreover the influence of the entourage and the social constraints have
become an adequate source of materiel to erect a building or create a structure conform to her own
choice.
The author gains her essence through individual choices: “Je suis un auteur francophone, je
considère que la langue française est la mienne” (Ibid), and actions when she decided to write and in
her likeness and the way the others want her to do. It is through this process of thinking and living
that she could define herself, because an individual must form his own conception of existence by
asserting control of and responsibility for his actions and choices.
One should not deny the very reality that a human being as well as human reality exists prior
to any concepts of values or morals; this means that existence precedes essence and the diagram
below shows this very relation existing between the human existence and his essence.
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EXISTENCE PRECEDES ESSENCE
To Jean-Paul Sartre, appearances are only this and nothing more. They should not be taken as
a standard to define who people really are. Appearances certainly should not negate the existence of
an interior essence which is of an even greater value. In his preface to l'Etre et le Néant, Sartre
states :
Il est certain qu’on s'est débarrassé en premier lieu de ce dualisme qui oppose
dans l'existant l'intérieur à l’extérieur. Il n’y a plus d'extérieur de l’existant, si l’on
n’entend pas là une peau superficielle qui dissimulerait aux regards la véritable
nature de l'objet (Sartre, 1976:11)
The entire binary opposition appearances/essence is exactly what an African woman writer expresses
against stressing the right to be valued as they are, as women, and not to be dishonor and debased for
this. Equally, Sartre believes in the same idea when arguing: “nous pouvons également rejeter le
dualisme de l'apparence et de l'essence. L'apparence ne cache pas l'essence. Elle la révèle : elle est
l'essence”. (Ibid: 12)
The essence of the human being is what really defines him. This essence manifests through
the actions and states of being free. In this regard, African women's discontent with their status and
their rebellion against rules that suppressed their essence is their manifestations of their essence:
L’être phénoménal se manifeste, il manifeste son essence aussi bien que son
existence et il n'est rien que la série bien liée de ces manifestations. (Ibid: 13)
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The Africa woman had no chance to possess an essence of her own; hers essence was never
complete because it was shackled and predefined just because of her nature as a born a woman.
Sartre says that:
Les choses, en général, "sont", mais leur être consiste à manifester leur essence. L
'Être passe en l’Essence ; on peut exprimer ceci en disant ; "L’être" présuppose
l’essence. Bien que l'Essence apparaisse, par rapport à l’être, comme médiée,
l'Essence est néanmoins l'origine véritable. (Ibid : 47)
Referring to Sartre conception of existence, one can say that the African women’s life is an existence
out of essence. African women have dangled within indetermination and lingered there for so long;
therefore, nothingness, "le néant" became their identity, a complete void, absence of determination
and of content. Their being, thus, becomes an equivalent to pure nothingness as put by Sartre:
"L’être pur et le néant pur sont donc la même chose." (Ibid: 48)
There is not nothingness out of nothing. There has to be a given something to be nullified:
"LeNéant n'est pas, le Néant ‘est été’; le Néant ne se néantise pas, le Néant est néantisé ." (Ibid:57)
Thus the claim that the African women's identity is naturally nothingness is absurd as they would
have formed their own identities if given the chance. Spinoza notes that every determination is a
negation: "Omnis determinatio est negatio." In this sense, feminists' determination is to negate a long
history of women's submission and enslavement shedding light on what was missing, or on what was
rather obliterated. This determination is defined by action because for the existentialist, there is no
reality except in action:
Nous constatons que l'action implique nécessairement comme sa condition la
reconnaissance d'un 'desideratum ', c'est-à-dire d'un manque objectif ou
encore d'une négativité.(Ibid: 488)
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Independence, from colonial rule in Africa, gave African women a sense of freedom which Sartre
considers the starting point of rebellion. Freeing the spirit requires from the African women a
complete detachment " néantisation" from the being-in-itself "en-soi" forced on them and create a
being-for-itself "pour-soi"110 which is the image of the African woman such as she believes she ought
to be111. This very act of "néantisation"ensures a total change on the African woman who chooses to
act in rebellion to create a new essence:
En tant que néantisation, il est été par l'en-soi ; en tant que négation interne
: il se fait annoncer par l'en-soi ce qui n'est pas, Est conséquemment ce qu'il
a à être. (Ibid: 682)
It is only by pure detachment from the self and from the world that African women could expose
their suffering as unbearable and hence head in revolutionary acts. This implies the permanent
possibilities for the human consciousness to disconnect itself from its proper past, to bring itself a
new to the light through the completion of a project whose aim is to introduce a fundamental essence
which was missing.
Considering that African feminist activism break open mainly, in the
postcolonial era, makes one question. What has exactly the colonial experience added to the African
women's mind and consciousness? On the one hand, it has brought more oppression, more malecentered thought, more pain, violence and cruelty to the woman's body; on the other hand, it has
fortified the sense of rejection within their spirit, which propelled them forward to eliminate their
silence and to make their voice heard.
110
The first is being-in-itself (en-soi), which is characterized as fixed, complete, and having absolutely no reason for its
being - it just is. This, basically, is the same as the world of external objects. The second is being-for-itself (pour-soi),
which is characterized as dependent upon the former for its existence. It has no absolute, fixed, eternal nature. Thus,
human existence is characterized by "nothingness" - anything that we claim is part of human life is of our own creation,
often
through
the
process
of
rebelling
against
external
constraints.
See:
http://atheism.about.com/library/glossary/general/bldef_sartre.htm , 05.24.2012
111
Here the pour-soi is a very good reference to the point I have dealt with in the previous section: the question of the self
(the actual self versus the real self. And here a reference is more to the idealized self or the expected self)
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IV.3. Questioning the Patriarchal World: Ateba's Remedial Endeavour
At the very beginning of Beyala's first novel CSQB, the narrator says: "J'ai connu Ateba
lorsqu'elle entrait dans sa dix-neuvième année"(05). Nothing seems striking about the statement
which, however, becomes surprising when knowing at the very last of the novel the narrator, or
"Moi" as she refers to herself, is Ateba's spirit: "Mais c'est Moi...C'est Moi ton âme tu ne me
reconnais pas?"(153). In this case, why until the age of nineteen that the heroine’s spirit has realized
what is she and what does she belong to? Why has she been absent all this time? Moreover, why has
she decided to speak out at last? The reason of Ateba's spiritual absence and silence is not deliberate
willingness from this character’s part, she does not even realize she has one until she reaches that age
and goes through hellish conflicts within herself. In so many instances, the narrator refers and tries to
draw attention to her unrecognizable existence even from Ateba herself as she mournfully states,
Moi, troisième interlocutrice [Ateba, Irène, et Moi] dont elles ne pouvaient
percevoir, ni même sentir l’existence. Moi que tous piétinent et que nul n'écoute...
(14)
In another instance, she even makes a clear reference to her death for being so unrecognized, so
invisible and so unheard:
Je savais...Je savais ... Je ne pouvais rien dire. Je ne pouvais que hurler ma douleur
car personne ne frappait à ma tombe pour me demander mon avis. (103)
The story, therefore, is that of maturity, of consciousness struggling against consciousness,
and a delineation of how African social reality with its male patriarchy aims at degrading women to
the point of depriving them their "free spirits" so as to render them submissive, non-defensive
creatures and childbearing machines .
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In post-colonial African society, there was a double colonization of women who represented
the "Other" both from a European and African point of view for being exploited (sexually, culturally.
socially and even politically) by both of them. In societies like the one depicted in the novel, women
are defined as inferior by laws of social traditional norms. They are condemned to eternal silence by
laws of dominating masculine discourse, and are considered the weak negative constituent of the
binary opposition "man/woman" by laws of religious conventions because as says Jean Zepp, the
man who wants to take Ateba as his wife in the story:
De tout temps, la femme s'est prosternée devant l’homme. Ce n’est pas par hasard
si Dieu l'a fabriquée a partir d'une côte de l’homme. (109)
Since those women's spirits are killed, their lives are therefore devoid of true meaning, valuable
essence and personal purpose. Their sole and only mission that matters in such an absurd
meaningless universe is to function naturalistically according to its absurd social, traditional and
religious values. In this sense, Ateba should be considered as an existential protagonist par
excellence because she can identify this absurdity and thus choose to defy it.
In CSQB, the existential flavour is essentially at its very beginning when alluding to the void
that wraps African women's lives and prevents them from breathing the smell of freedom: "Ici il y a
un creux. Il y a le vide, il y a le drame. Il est extérieur à nous. Il court vers des dimensions qui nous
échappent. Il est comme le souffle de la mort."(05)
According to existentialist Nietzsche112, there is a certain nihilistic void and emptiness
resulting from the indifferent vacuum of values and the irrational inescapable vicissitudes of the
112
Nietzsche (1844-1900) strongly influenced by Romanticist Schopenhauer. .Nietzsche developed an individual
literary style, as opposed to the academic style of those such as Kant. Born for a Lutheran father, Nietzsche had had a
simple life. However his intelligent and brilliance were far from being simple at university as he was offered a
professorship even before finishing his degree (which he accepted). Being always of ill health, he was obliged to retire in
1879. By this time, he had contracted syphilis and was gradually deteriorating in physical and mental health. He found
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morally indifferent universe where man is being victimized and imprisoned by this void. The latter
functions as an operator of absurdity proving the pointlessness and meaninglessness of human life,
unless one defends himself by revolting and rebelling against this absurd emptiness; it will take over
his life, maximize the uselessness of his existence and minimize his efforts.
This nihilism is exactly what governs Ateba's neighbourhood and makes them repeat their
actions behaving in a senseless meaningless vicious circle:
Toute l’année, dès que l'aube levait son rideau gris, elle s'asseyait sur un banc [...]
Et tous les jours, Combi racontait la même antienne. [...] Et, tous les jours [...]
Ateba recevait sa dose d'ordres thérapeutiques (05-06)
Ada, Ateba's aunt and the other women believe there are predestined static values which they have
to follow and to be submitted to simply for being born women. The narrator complains about this,
stating:
Et, tous les jours, en vertu d'un décret qui prétendait que toute vérité était
quantifiable, et qui, devant l'abondance infinie des vérités, des êtres et des choses
établissait des invariantes. Ateba recevait sa dose d'ordres thérapeutiques qu'Ada
sa tante lui administrait. Sa tante clamait qu’à les suivre elles aboutiraient, elles ne
se tromperaient pas. Ellse ne pourraient se tromper ... (Ibid)
They have forgotten the real taste of life, that of freedom, and that of the very being they really are,
and doing only what they want and not what those "invariants" or principles assert. According to the
French philosopher Bertrand Vergely, those invariable moral principles are only the creation of some
out that he no longer accept Christianity and worked in an attempt to discover new meanings to human existence. In
January 1889 Nietzsche suffered a mental breakdown in Turin, Italy. He was found in a street, weeping and embracing a
horse. He stayed in the cure of his sister whom he loved very much until his death. After his death, his sister edited his
works greatly. Among his most popular books are the Birth of Tragedy, the Anti-Christ and A Genealogy of Morals,
Beyond Good and Evil, etc
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oppressive conservative System or "régimes" meant not to be creative and inspirational, but
repressive to people's lives. Also, he significantly questions :
N e cherche-t-on pas trop à vivre selon de grandes idées ou de grands principes en
oubliant de vivre ? Et si c’était le fait de vivre et de vivre bien qui donne sens et vie
à un principe et non tel ou tel principe qui donne sens à la vie ? (1999: 06-07)
For those black women, their lives, the moral system they should adopt and their histories and
destinies are all predetermined even before they are born ; the reason why in the novel all women are
involved in their own business trying to survive according to the rules their rather chaotic universe
has set for them.
Unlike, all other women whose souls and spirits are being silenced and killed, the narrator is
involved in an existentialist quest; indeed, she already exists, but within the dark incomprehensible
flux of the traditional and cultural system of her society, “les ténèbres" as she calls them. The fact of
living in this darkness, all that time, has made of her an invisible creator, but who struggles for
morally set values, merely like anyone else does: "Souvent elle est sombre et débouche sur une vie
que l'on réprime”. (Vergely: Ibid); Ateba's spirit has realized this very quality about the moral
system of her society; hence she no longer accepts being unheard or unseen; she decides to revolt
against this indifferent patriarchal immoral values and yearns, instead, to create one of her own :
Aujourd'hui, j'en ai marre ! Ras le bol ! J’ai envie de parler de cette aube triste, de
ces heures qui ont couru avant l'arrivée de l’ homme ... Je puis dire sans attenter à
la vérité que c'est sa faute ...Tout est sa faute. (CSQB: 07)
She therefore realizes she does not fit the societal prescriptions and expectations of what women
should be like; she blames her torment on man she chooses to explore her own views of womanhood
refusing her current identity that of the subdued invisible woman, and gets determined to engage a
search for a more dignified one.
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In determining who she must be and how she must act, the narrator is, certainly, going
through an identity crisis and becoming able to identify the injustices of her society towards her.
Although this process causes her great pain and confusion, yet the fact of becoming conscious about
such a thing is itself a systematic process of enlightening and change. Her awareness is what will cast
a shadow of light in the "ténèbres" where she is living, as it is explained by Vladimir Jankélévitch in
his book La Mauvaise Conscience (1966):
La conscience morale est dans une lumière qui se voit elle-même […] Là où les
âmes cadavéreuses ne voient rien. Les natures morales discernent une foule de
problèmes possibles, ou comme nous le disons, de cas de conscience. (54)
He just calls those who accept to live according to someone else's morality "les âmes cadavéreuses."
(Cadaverous souls) for unlike other alive ones, they cannot consider the problems of that system as
only dead fish which is swatted by the current. G.W.F Hegel brought another distinction of souls
different to the one of Vladimir Jankélévitch; he called this distinction of souls: "les belles âmes"113,
those who refuse to abide by a certain moral system when not fitting their insights.
What has been stated above about the narrator's existence, for a long time before finally
deciding to speak out, is an accurate reflection of the existential notion that "Existence precedes
Essence". She already exists, she has existed for nineteen years and nineteen months actually, and
now she believes it is high time she started creating an essence to her senseless existence, "Il était
temps que je regagne ma place auprès des astres " (07), as she puts it.
Sartre himself speaks of a similar thought when arguing that:
113
In Phénoménologie de l’esprit (2006), Hegel describes the state of the moral consciousness anxious (les belles âmes)
about the only purity of its intention, idealistic in the excess and unsure by fear of soiling its magnificent interiority
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...man first of all exists, encounters himself, surges up in the world - and defines
himself afterwards. If man as the existentialist sees him as not definable, it is
because to begin with he is nothing. He will not be anything until later, and then he
will be what he makes of himself. (Lawrence Cunningham and John J Reich, 2010:
745)
There is no inherent meaning or purpose in life; there is no essence only existence, and essence is
what man creates afterwards. This very thought is best expressed when the narrator says:
Il n’y a pas d'avant, il y a la terre sans avant, il y a les hommes sans avant, puisque
avant c'est devant, la route est droite. (Opcit: 11)
She says that "avant" is "devant" meaning man is only what he makes of himself afterwards, and his
essence is not predetermined but that which he creates as she expresses:
L 'Homme marche droit devant lui sans hésitation, sans chanceler, ne se retournant
que pour actualiser d'autres avants enfouis dans la mémoire collective. (Ibid)
Creating an essence beyond that which is set for her is Ateba's noble existential mission that matters
in her life. This is unquestionably an illustration of an existential heroine as:
Many things in your life matter, but only one thing matters absolutely. It matters
whether you succeed or fail in the eyes of the world. It matters whether you are
healthy or not healthy, whether you are educated or not educated. It matter whether
you are rich or poor — it certainly makes a difference in your life. Yes, all these
things matter, relatively speaking, but they don't matter absolutely. There is
something that matters more than any of those things and that is finding the essence
of who you are beyond that short-lived entity, that short-lived personalized sense of
self ( Tolle Eckhart, 2003: 51-52)
Ateba rejects the stereotypes of what women should be and chooses not to live the same life
as her aunt, her mother and all the women she knows. She only desires to live according to what
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pleases and satisfies her, to what seems right in her own eyes. Jean-Jacques Rousseau speaks about
this when he said: “Je n'ai qu'à me consulter sur ce que je veux faire: tout ce que je sens être bien est
bien, tout ce que je sens être mal est mal”. (1996: 36) However, this brings Ateba into conflict with
her society which is also another existential feature present in the novel. Existentialists believe that it
is not the reality that we live in a certain society that makes us human beings or moral creatures , but
rather the fact that we choose to be who we are , even if this does clash with societal or whatever
institutional system .
I love the great despisers [...] I love him who makes a predilection and a fate of his
virtue: thus for his virtue's sake he will live or not live [...] I love him who is of a
free spirit and a free heart. (Robertt Pippin and Adrian Del Caro, 2006: 08)
Ateba, in this sense, is exactly what Zarathustra speaks about; a pure existential heroine for
being a despiser of what makes her suffer, for being a free spirit and a true creator which is the
reason why everyone in the novel, even her own aunt, is against her :
And Behold! The good and the just! [...] Whom do they hate most? Him who
smashed their tables of values, the breaker, the law-breaker - but he is the creator
(Ibid: 12-14)
In Beyond Good and Evil (1886)114, Nietzsche also distinguishes between "slave morality"
and "master morality." To him values do not already exist and it is for us to discover them. They
should be rather invented. Those who live according to "master morality" create their own values
and are called "noble human beings”:
The noble type of man feels himself th he determiner of values , he does not need to
he approved of' , he judges 'what harms me is harmful in itself he knows himself to
114
Beyond Good and Evil was translated by Helen Zimmen in 1973, and reprinted in 1990 and reprinted with New futher
reading chronology in 2003
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be that which in general first accords honour to things , he creates values . (Helen
Zimmen, 1990: 195)
Antithetical to "master morality" is "slave morality." Those who live on its ground are not
free, they are “...those who abase themselves, the dog-like type of man who let himself be mistreated
[...] the abused , oppressed , suffering, unfree ...(Ibid). Nature and its laws are to Nietzsche merciless
and unjust; hence, one's ultimate task is to revolt against this and create his own system; Nietzsche
about the difference says:
You want to live according to nature ? [...] Think of a being such as nature is,
prodigal beyond measure, indifferent beyond measure, without aims or intentions,
without mercy or justice. [...] how could you live according to such indifference?
To live, is living not precisely wanting to be other than this nature? Is living not
wanting to be different? (Ibid: 39)
Being aware of the injustices and unfair treatment of her society towards Ateba is in itself her
first step towards creating her own identity and being the master of herself and the master of her
values, unlike other women who live as slaves to the morality of their society.
Existentialists believe that there are certain “human conditions” generated from the
meaninglessness and absurdity of the universe. However, they present themselves in a way that
humans believe they are meaningful and that they are the only inescapable human conditions one
must live in.
To say that Ateba is a purely existential protagonist, one would to stress the idea that she is
able to unveil the false nature of her living conditions, to reveal the naked meaninglessness of her
social reality, to refuse false justification of her existence and, more importantly, to able rationalize
the way she used to be treated. Ada, in a moment of time, said about her nice Atéba the following : "
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j’ai réussi à lui programmer la même destinée que moi, que ma mère, qu’ avant elle la mère de ma
mère. La chaîne n’est pas rompue, la chaîne n’a jamais été rompue."(06).
Ada’s declaration represents the state of her mind. She believes the the destiny of women is
similar, and that their world is always absurd no matter what the generation is. The question that is
raised certainly by Atéba is about the intention behind their common fate and behind the
meaninglessness of her life. One may attribute this state of absurdity to her nature as an African born
woman. Yet, what seems logical is that Ateba's suffering and misfortune could not forcibly be
attributed to the her state of being an African miserable woman who shares fate (prostitution and
sexploitation) with the rest of the other African women. Atéba’s questions are more overtly dealing
with her disobedience to and non-acceptance of such absurd system which, regrettably, regulates her
behaviour, determines her decisions, and questions her refusal to be just like other women. In this
respect, Ateba is an existential heroine - par excellence - as according to existentialism, even though
a person's facticity ( his past, the place where he was born, his society, and so on ) co-constitutes him
and makes part of his reality, he should not let it determine who is he. This actually makes existential
heroes suffer “bad faith” as they disregard any predetermined social, biological and religions system
and go in conflict against them.
The narrator mentions the idea, that one does not only represent his past, when states: “Le
temps s'est désaxé. L’homme s'est désaxé qu'importe le reste...il ya bien longtemps quand, la
mémoire toujours tournée vers le passé..."(15). The use the expression: “il y a bien long temps”, is of
great significance; it means that Ateba has looked back to her past since long time. Because to live
only in the past is to ignore a large part of reality and to be blind to the point of not seeing injustice
which is being set upon her. The existential notion of throwness is also presented in the novel in such
a passage as:
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Les façades des maisons ressemblent à de vieilles dames ridées et les vieilles dames
ressemblent à de vieux bidons rouillés, les uns comme les autres rongés par la vie,
momifiés par l'attente de la vie. (CSQB: 11)
One is, merely, thrown into this absurd universe, he/she exists, and he/she is only waiting for
his/her moment of inspiration when he/she realizes it is hight time to start giving his/her own life a
purpose and a meaning. Ateba's inspirational moment is when she states, "ilétait temps que je
regagne ma place auprès des "astres" (07). After existing, invisibly, for nineteen years and nineteen
months. The narrator states: "Des vrais? Qu' est-ce qui sépare le vrai du faux?"(12). She just realizes
that there is no right and wrong in a universe that absurdly gives some people (males) the right to
exploit other people (females). Everything seems to her a nightmarish illusion as she carries on
saying: “Ou 'est qui sépare la joie de la souffrance? Qu’est-ce qui sépare Dieu de l’homme ? Et
l'ombre de l’homme ?”(13)
In the eyes of Ateba, God does not exist, or rather reduced to the level of man (l'homme); by
man “l'homme” she does not mean the human being but “male”. For her, both God and man are
synonym by virtue of their power and dominance: they are both oppressors. She considers that
normally one is free and responsible for his actions, yet he/she feels “abandoned” by God who seems
rather unfair and unjust, at least in her eyes, because of his creation of such binary oppositions as
male/female, which give one the supreme dominance over the other.
Beyala, therefore, condemns the chauvinism, prejudice and patriarchy of the Judéo -Christian
religion. Throughout thestory, Ateba continuously questions the identity of God as well as
hisauthority andjustice. Her life seems so chaotic that she perceives it as a picture painted by a mad
man trying to escape his madness, and this picture is full of chaos and disorder:
...obsédée par Dieu, elle l'avait interrogé. D'où venait-il ? Qui était-il ? Était-il
marié ? Heureux ? Créer pour exister au plus profond de l’être ! Était-il fou ? La
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vie ne serait-elle qu’un tableau peint par un fou pour fuir la folie qui l‘assaille ? Il
y a trop de désordre dans son art. Souffrait-il ? Avait-il le vertige d'où il était ? Les
hauteurs donnent le vertige. Avait-il la nausée? (37)
She asks questions but she does never have an answer from God from whom she expects a
lot:
...elle l'attend comme l'aube qui viendra ensemencer et décanter le sens réel du
sacré. Dieu n’est pas venu. Elle décide que Dieu est vieux et probablement sourd.
Si Dieu ne peut entendre, il ne reste que le geste ou l'écrit. (37-38)
She decides to write to Him. However, she only realizes that life is so meaningless and so is
God to allow this patriarchy which debases women and humiliates them. Burning the letters she has
written, she decides to struggle and revolt against this oppressive system:
Dieu a certainement raté sa vie pour avoir créé de telles imbécillités. Et elle
souffre. Ateba. Et elle souffre pour Dieu qui souffre d'avoir raté son œuvre. Elle
essuie ses larmes. Fille brûle la lettre page par page, mot par mot. (38)
In order to be herself, Ateba nevertheless has burning conflicts within herself as well as
within the narrator who represents her spirit telling her about her own suffering. Her suffering comes
from within, from her inside, trying to make connections to understand her world, to find meaning to
her absurdity; but all these lead only towards more confusion, towards more conflict and suffering.
She wants to make the world understand how "man" is both the cause and the reason of not only her
own sufferings, but of all humanity:
Je voulais qu'ils sachent comment l'homme pleure au lieu de rire, comment il parle
au lieu de chanter. Je voulais qu'ils apprennent comment la confusion des valeurs,
des notions, des sensations, des souvenirs avait fini par tuer l'histoire jusqu'aux
origines. [...] J'ai terriblement envie de parler de cette aube triste, de ces heures
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qui ont couru avant l'arrivée de l'homme ...Je puis dire sans attenter à la vérité que
c’est sa faute ...Tout est sa faute ...(07)
To the existentialist, the within suffering and struggle is nonetheless inescapable, yet
necessary. They are burst and motivation of all actions and revolts. Arriving to make a real everlasting commitment is realized only through existential and spiritual crises resulted from emotional
and spiritual pain which is usually accumulated for a long time as the person who bears it, like Ateba,
questions who is she? What is her place in the universe? And why is she suffering? This existential
crisis leads those who go through them to the right path to decide whether or not to continue living in
conformity with the norms of their universe such as what happens to Ateba in the novel.
According to Eckhart Tolle, in his spiritual and existential book Stillness Speaks (2003),
suffering is crucial for one's definition of himself and creation of his essence. Without it one would
never arrive at knowing who really is. He explains:
Is suffering really necessary ? Yes and no. If you had not suffered as you have,
there would be no depth to you as a human being, no humility, no compassion. You
would not be reading this now. Suffering cracks open the shell of ego and then
comes a point when it has served its purpose. Suffering is necessary until you
realize it is unnecessary. (2003:118)
In fact, this is what happens to Ateba's spirit. She suffers until she can no longer suffer anymore:
J'appelais les asters, je chamboulais les états d'âmes, personne ne m’écoutait,
personne ne me regardait, tout s'occupaient plus de leurs morceaux de tôle que
Moi, en un mot JE GENAIS, j’encombrais, il était temps que je regagne ma place
auprès les asters. Je scellai la bouche pendant dix-neuf ans et dix-neuf mois. [...]
J'attendais, je vieillissais, je m'affaiblissais ... (Opcit: 06-07)
Throughout the novel, there is an air of confusion which is also an existential trait. This air is
presented when the narrator realizes the absurdity of time and of laws that run the universe:
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Janvier, février, mars, elle ne comprenait plus ... pourquoi janvier avant février ?
Pourquoi octobre avant décembre ? L’homme avait fauté dans son classement des
mois. (Ibid: 15)
She is not only refusing to acknowledge such an absolute system, but also blaming man (the
male human being) for this absurdity and anarchy. Because in a former passage, when the author
wants to refer to human beings, she uses the word “l'Homme” (with a capital “H”), but in this
passage she is using “l'homme” hence meaning the dominant component of the binary opposition
male/female.
Even the setting of the novel reveals the absurd nature of the universe. It is set in Quartier
Général, QG as its inhabitants call it. It is filled with filth, misery and sorrow. Its channels stinks and
its rubbish is piled up everywhere like “montagne d'ordures” and never collected even filthy taxi
drivers refuse to go to such a place. The taxi driver says to Jean Zepp when asked for a ride to QG:
“bad luck! S’exclame le chauffeur indigné. Tu as vu mon taxi ? Aller dans un trou pareil ? Jamais!”
(09)
The narrator does, however, refer to QG, to places which are upper than it and to people who
are upper than QG inhabitants, as "crasse" (filth). The reference to social class difference indicates
her pessimism and distrust in human nature and her strong belief in the evilness of humans since all
are filth. This state of fact reveals an existential matter. Sartre explains, in Existentialism and
Humanism (1948)115, that people complain that existentialism is too gloomy a view of things, and
that it over-emphasizes the evil side of human life. However, in doing so, he argues, existentialism is
only presenting certain facts and realities about living human conditions (25).
115
French edition of this book was published in 1946 by les Editions Nagel, Paris, under the title l’Existentialisme est un
humanisme
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IV.4. Transgressing Boundaries and Creating Universal Solidarity in Beyala’s
novelistic World.
IV. 4.1. C’est le soleil qui m'a brûleé
Through this novel the author introduces the reader to a world which is based on chaos. The
characters are shown to be involved in their own business trying, making efforts to meet the
requirement of this world. They try to survive according to the rules this rather chaotic universe has
set for this “survival game”. However the narrator, which is also Ateba’s spirit, is involved in
an “identity quest”. She already exists, but within a dark incomprehensible flux, “les ténèbres” as she
calls it, which has turned her invisible for accepting to live just like every one else.
But now she no longer wants to be unheard and unseen. She is revolting against this
indifferent immoral value system and yearning to create one of her own: “j’en ai marre! Ras le bol!
J’ai envie de parler.” (07) She is thus refusing her current identity that of the invisible subdued
woman, and is searching for a more dignified one.
This reflects the existential notion that “Existence precedes Essence”, because the narrator,
Ateba’s spirit, already exists; she has existed for nineteen years and nineteen months actually, and
now she believes it’s high time she started creating an essence to her existence; she said: “Il était
temps que je regagne ma place auprès des astres.” (Ibid)
For the existentialists is no predetermined nature or essence that governs people’s attitudes
and decisions and forces upon them a certain moral system, then human beings have the total
freedom to act the way they want and to set their own moral and value system . There is no such a
thing as an “absolute” morality. One is only who he is and what he creates of himself, Ateba says:
“...sachez qu’on ne vit pas et qu’on ne meurt pas à la place des autres...je garde mon identité...” (15)
She says this about her aunt Ada, stating that she is not her mother inspite of their relationship; the
aunt Ada has raised Ateba who, nevertheless, does not consider her a mother as she has only taken
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the value system and role of her mother, thus, the role and identity she has taken are not hers. That is
exactly why Ateba does not want to be like her aunt and other women she knows, she is able to see
that one functions only according to his own value system creating his own role and identity, and not
on some predisposed norms.
The novel, thus, does not only depict the life of poverty and misery of modern Africa, but the
struggle and battle to break free from the absurd social constraints and social reality. It is a novel full
of despair, anguish and disappointment. It is more about the desperate search for truth and the ardent
quest for identity. This novel is about a world where “death”, as horrifying and terrifying dream, is a
symbol of salvation and hope. The narrator states talking about Ateba and Jean Zepp, " pour qu’il ne
la touche plus. Pour qu’il ne la secoue plus, pour qu’ 'il ne l'insulte plus”. (16) And introduces the
possibility of her salvation from this stating: “Et si elle sautait par la fenêtre? Elle tomberait. Tomber.
Ensuite, s’élever. Vas y femme, tombe. C 'est ton destin,” (15)
She even goes further stating that death, though dark and empty is what would end her living
darkness and nihilism: “Allumer le flambeau des ténèbres [...] Il s'agit d'une route, femme...D'une
route en sens unique [...] Et après ? Rien femm.” (Ibid) Existentialists believe that after death there
is nothingness, blank and emptiness. Death is but a black hole; it is however the end of experience,
the end of suffering and absurdity, the end of anguish and despair and the only hope and salvation for
desperate people who cannot cope with the absurdity of their universe;
Ateba herself says :
“Madame la mort, je vous vois m'attirer vers vous avec douceur. Je sens votre chaleur, pourtant j'ai
si froid” (20)
Ateba wants death by which she is attracted, but she rails to reach it. This failure, all along
with life's bitterness, emptiness and suffering compels the narrator to declare that God is as unjust as
“l’homme". Existentialists also believe that great men and fixe spirit take refuge in solitude
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disconnecting from the rest of the world, not as a way to escape it, but as a way to have their own
independency and their own reflection and thinking about the creation of their own value system and
essence . According to Nietzsche if one has to rule over his life and becomes a superior human being,
he must realize that he is an individual separate from the all for “Every superior human being will
instinctively aspire after a secret citadel where he is set free from the crowd, the many, the majority”.
(Op cit: 57)
Existentialists also believe that great men and free spirit take refuge in solitude disconnecting
from the rest of the world , may not be escaping from it , but as a way to have their own
independency and their own reflexion and thinking about the creation of their own value system and
essence as explained by Nietzsche in his Beyond Good and Evil:Prelude to a Philosophy of the
Future (1886-1989), that:“... men without solitude one and all, without their own solitude, are but
good clumsy fellows who, ... are unfree and ludicrously superficial.” (72)
Solitude is the path towards freeing the spirit. Men without solitude are like those who live
according to the rule of the crowd; they are in Nietzsche's eyes 'clumsy,” "unfree" and "ludicrously
superficial." This is mainly because taking refuge in solitude and isolation as does Ateba, gives her
the time to think of her existence, to listen to the voice within her spirit, and to ultimately make the
choice to free it from the iron threads of all patriarchal social constraints this is because “When each
thought absorbs your attention completely, it means you identify with the voice in your head. Your
thought becomes invested with a sense of self. This is the ego, a mind-made me.” (Eckhart: 2003:
53)
This may explain why Ateba is always alone, all with her ownself alone though being in a room full
of other people; she is always in solitude with her own thoughts and believes she is a free spirit. The
narrator says that: “...elle est seulement restée avec elle, sans se voir, sans s'entendre avec quelque
coups d'œil dehors, vers les autres.” (20).
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About the free spirit Nietzsche says:
Is it any wonder that we free spirits ' are not precisely the most communicative of
spirits? ...we [free spirits] are born .sworn, jealous friends of solitude, of our own
deepest, most midnight, most midday solitude-such a type of man we are, we free
spirits! (Nietzsche: Ibid)
Even the notion of individualism is present in the novel not only in Ateba’s actions and beliefs, but
in an instance where the guests in a party in Ada’s house talk about how young people think only of
themselves:
L’égoisme, c’est la mode maintenant! Les jeunes ne savent plus donner...Vous ne
pensez pas qu’ils ont raison après tout?...La famille, la famille, la famille, toujours
la famille ! Il serait peut-ètre temps qu’ils songent un peu à leur propre avenir. (2526)
What matters is one’s own life, future, essence and purpose.
Irène, Ateba's friend seeks pleasure in the QG's clubs and has sex with men for money. She
gets pregnant and takes a fatal decision and abort the baby, but dies when having the abortion. Upon
this tragic event, Ateba snaps. She goes to a club, gets back home with a man and kills him by
beating his head against the floor after having sex with him and hence discharging and venting the
violence and anger that have long been accumulated inside her. Beyala's novel is a tragic one, but at
its heart resides the quest for freedom and dignity for African women beyond the misery and
oppression of their surroundings.
V. 4.2. Tu t’appelleras Tanga
Beyala's writing style and thematic have taken a huge leap towards literary maturity in her
second novel Tu t’appelleras Tnaga. Many factors contributed to the success of this novel among
which Beyala's rich and complex narrative strategies. The narrative strategies are seen in the nonlinearity and story fragmentation, flashbacks when looking retrospectively to stories in the past: a
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mixing of standard and street languages, frequent switching from past to present tenses as well as the
multiplicity of voices. The two novels share some thematic concerns such as the victimization of
women, poverty, sexuality, prostitution, violence in everyday life, and survival. Yet TTT seems to be
centered on the language and focuses primarily on the theme of female solidarity beyond boundaries.
The story opens up with a woman telling her story. This woman is actually a young girl
frequently referring to herself as “the girl child-woman". Tanga is sixteen years old; she has been
physically and psychologically battered by rape and incest at the age of twelve by her father. After
her father's death, she is forced to be unresponsive to a clitoridecotomy and to go into the market of
prostitution by her own mother in order to feed the family.
The protagonist Tanga, as a girl child-woman is forced to live as a girl-child without
beginning known as childhood, though childhood is accepted as a universal experience shared by
every human being; the narrative begins with Tanga in her death bed in a prison cell and another
European woman Anna-Claude with whom she shares the cell. Anna-Claude is involved in
subversive actions and is thrown into prison. She keeps asking the dying girl about the reasons
behind her detention. Tanga is extremely damaged and exhausted and cannot speak to the woman.
Anna-Claude proposes they should hold hands so that the girl's story is transmitted into her body.
This act of a black woman holding hands with a white European woman illustrates the first signs of
the universality of women's sufferings and thus their solidarity. Tanga then spends what little
remains of the short life telling the cell mate the different stages of her life which have gotten her
nowhere.
Beyala's novel is told through a girl child-woman to voice African children's concerns. In
many instances, in the novel, the author speaks directly to the African child. This is why the child is
mentioned in different circumstance in Tu t’applleras Tanga.
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The novel is highly critical of the numerous flaws the African society suffers from. It
criticizes both men and women. For example, Tanga's father is portrayed as a ruthless, violent ,
unfaithful man who rapes his own daughter's body and soul, and Tanga's mother who instead of
protecting her own child, terns her from a girl into a girl child-woman to bring material gains to the
family. Tanga is nevertheless determined not to let such tragedies stifle her effort to protect children
from a destiny like hers; she is thus the embodiment of the existential heroine who wants to stand
against the wrongs of her society and who ultimately hopes to bring forth solutions to such
inadequacies. Tanga proposes to share her story; her story telling attempts to destroy the obstacles
between women and to bind them all together in order to end their victimization. Likewise Tanga,
Ateba, or any other girl child-woman of a similar destiny wants to control her own story.
Anna-Claude is but an exemplification of the universal image of the victimized women. She is
white. European yet suffers as deeply as Tanga and shares with her a kind of madness which has
resulted from the imbalance between their internal selves and the externally imposed notions of race,
sexuality and gender. The character of Anna-Claude offers a trait of women's internationalization of
solidarity.
TTT is considered by some critics as manifesto. It is both a manifesto shedding light on the
civil rights the children of Africa are supposed to enjoy, and a political manifesto for the social and
economic rights of women. The novel is also undoubtedly a social criticism as it vigorously contests
illegitimacy drawing attention to a female child's rights to have others value of existence, and a
female child's cry to possess her own body.
Beyala’s second novel is in fact a strong rejection being exercised against psychological,
political, social and economic determinism, against the Machiavellian and tyrannical rulers which
presume the right to mold Tanga's life and to own it. Tanga's struggle calls for the basic existential
requirement in a world governed by determinism. Tanga does not call herself a victim nor has she
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succumbed to feelings and despair. Her truest goal is to project herself into a future where the
African child is a king and his parents are there for the sole duty of protecting him, thus the
protagonist is utterly unique for she does not nearly want to save herself from the oppressive society
but rather wants to change the whole system so that later children will not go through such a harsh
experience as hers. The obstacles that encounter her through her life journey and which kill her very
soul neither reach her determination nor weaken it. She still believes she owns enough agencies to
make a change. These agencies are seen in the last act she does before she dies to make her story
widely known and shared.
Despite the deterministic elements that surround shackle her life, Tanga becomes aware of
knowing, being and becoming as she undertakes huge efforts to know and to ultimately become a
human being, a subject instead of an object. Tanga is in a state of meaninglessness; she feels
abandoned by all external or superior authority that may help her; she reached the point to negate the
power even the presence of God: "Peur? Qui parle de peur? La peur est une illusion. Comme
l’homme. Comme Dieu. Même lui a peur” (06)
Although Tanga tries to udertake action, she falls in the existential state of "abandonment"
that is, God does not exist, about God’s absence Sartre says:
And when we speak of "abandonment" a favorite word of Heidegger we only mean
to say that God does not exist, and that it is necessary to draw the consequences of
his absence right to the end. . . . Dostoevsky once wrote "If God did not exist,
everything would be permitted"; and that, for existentialism, is the starting point.
Everything is indeed permitted if God does not exist, and man is in consequence
forlorn, for he cannot find anything to depend upon either within or outside himself.
He discovers forthwith, that he is without excuse. . . . One will never be able to
explain one's action by reference to a given and specific human nature. . . . Nor, on
the other hand. . . . are we provided with any values or commands that could
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legitimize our behavior. Thus we have neither behind us nor before us a luminous
realm of values, any means of justification or excuse. We are left alone, without
excuse. That is what I mean when I say that man is condemned to be free. (Elie
Maynard Adams, 1993:106)116
Tanga goes further saying, "Even he knows fear" meaning even if God exists, he is not of any
use. She attributes to God a human trait “fear” to degrade him to humans or even less than that:
Qu’y puis-je, femme? Ma mort existe avant moi, c’est la façon de Dieu, sa manière
bien personnelle de faire place nette des indésirables. Sinon, il mourrait
empoisonné, tué par son œuvre (Op.cit)
Naturalistic fate strikes in that Tanga is desired to die by God: A predetermination of her
death. Tanga sees herself as undesirable by God because she realizes that she has committed a bad
thing and must be punished by God who is not entirely honest and just in his decisions and she uses
the verb “get rid”. Again a human trait is attributed to God: "killed" that is death, which means that
even God is mortal. Tanga fails to understand what God is, where God is, why she is abandoned
when feels the need and why she is being punished by God who had abandoned her before; Tanga,
since then, has become a negation, and the the mysterious has become a substitute for her identity.
In a particular moment: Anna Claude has asked Tanga about her name, so the mysterious had said:
116
From dust jacket: Citing his personal quest to reconcile the contradictions among biblical religion, democratic
liberalism, and modern science, E. M. Adams, in Religious and Cultural freedom (1993), explores the foundations of
religion and its role in the culture. He asks, what would constitute a responsible religion in our time? ...Adams focuses
on Judeo-Christian religion in Western civilization, and draws on literary, historical, ethical, and philosophical examples.
Maintaining that religion is logically accountable in its belief system to the culture of which it is a part. ...he insists that
[religion] has a responsibility to work for coherence and intellectual respectibility within a free culture. ...Adams offers a
realistic theory of the language of the humanities and lived experience...and, on the basis of this theory, he reconstructs
the intellectual enterprise and interprets meaning and truth in religious discourse. Interested in what he takes to be a
negative turn in religious consciousness and the fate of religion in modern Western civilization, Adams concludes that the
time may be ripe for a humanistic revolution that would create a fully accountable and intellectually credible religion.
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Ma mémoire s’est fermée sur lui. Laisse mes pas entrer dans les ténèbres sans
laisser de trace. Que t’importe? Laisse-moi quitter la vie sans déranger le sommeil
des hommes (Ibid)
Death becomes Tanga's ultimate salvation though she has expressed earlier that it is “God’s
way”. Death is her only hope to escape her bitter dark present. Yet she does not see it as an
illuminated and better place; she refers to it as “darkness”, a very existential feature. Her life thus
proceeds pessimistically from darkness to darkness, which, compared to the Christian slogan “from
ashes to ashes” puts Tanga as a symbol: all men rise from ashes and go to ashes, on the other hand,
the fate of Africans, who are also human beings, proceeds similarly but from darkness to darkness.
Anna-Claude lives in a fantastic, utopian world of her own creation. She finds solace in her
imagination to escape her eventless existence and to fake everything she wants but did not attain.
Eventually her real and ideal worlds get mixed up, and she goes pursuing illusions and wasting by
that her life. Anna-Claude has also been a life-time prisoner and the actual prison cell she is in stands
just as a phase of imprisonment: “Et dans son regard, toujours les mêmes questions, toujours l’air
égaré d’un enfant” (07)
Likewise Tanga, Anna-Claude is in-depth still this bewildered child; she has not outgrown
childhood. One's childhood shapes one’s consciousness. Anna-Claude's childhood was a torment.
Deep inside, she still feels she is this persecuted vulnerable child. Her consciousness that collects and
maintains memories governs a large part of her actions, and all her actions are summed up in
“escapism” it is seen that Anna-Claude is cut off from all social relations with her family, no sister,
no brother, not even a mother or father; the only remaining asset is her sharing faith with Tanga who
wants her to get into her mind, her body and becomes her soul mate:
Donne ta main, et mon histoire naîtra dans tes veines. Tu verras comment, dans
mon pays, l’enfant naît vieux, puisqu’il ne peut porter en lui le bouquet du
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printemps. Comment il ne possède que ses bras pour donner aux champs
d’arachides (14).
Tanga starts up narrating her story to Anna-Claude by describing how a child in Africa is
predetermined to live in such a way. The African child thus becomes a stereotype, and his fate in life
is traced and defined by other’s existence; because Tanga said that “Avant, j’existais, je rêvais. Je
m’affalais sous un manguier durant de larges heures et courais les images […] "(14-15), but after that
she realized that her existence is not that personal, in that it is determined in terms of others
existence; she said:
Je n’existais plus seule. Pourtant j’étais seule. Rien que moi. J’amenais mon corps
au Carrefour des vies. Je le plaçais sous la lumière. Un homme m’abordait. Je
souriais. Je suivais. Je défaisais mes vêtements. Je portais mon corps sur le lit, sous
ses muscles. Il s’ébrouait (15)
Tanga expresses her being all alone in a market of all others encountering the same fate. A
very existentialist feature since one is ultimately alone in isolated islands of subjectivity in an
objective world. Tanga's dreams were dashed down to earth and the idyllic life she hoped to fulfill
was switched by the life her mother forced her into. As the existentialist Sartre states that human
situation is characterized by three notions: facticity (throwness), anxiety, and despair117, Tanga's
situation is no exception; she first finds herself existing in a world, not of her making and indifferent
to her concerns; she is not the source of her existence, but finds herself thrown into a world she does
not control, and did not choose. She, then, finds herself faced with lack of any external source of
value and determination; and in seeing the contrast between the world she is thrown into, the one
which she cannot control, and the absolute freedom she has to create herself, she despaired of any
hope of external value, since she was raped by her father who was supposed to protect her, and
117
These three notion have already dealt with in the previous section
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forced into the market of prostitution by her mother; Tanga’s hope and existence are fully imbued
with man’s satisfaction:
Je m’indigne, j’abhorre ce mélange d’agressivité et d’indifférence que confère le
droit absolu. Mais je me réjuis: il m’a donné à savoir que quelque chose de beau,
d’achevé, vient d’exister en moi. Si je ne suis pas l’épouse, si je viens de plus en
plus loin qu’elle, j’arrive à l’égaler… Car j’existe là aux yeux de l’homme, juchée
sur son désir. (23)
This quotation is to be approached through the French existential feminist figure Simon de Beauvoir's
the Second Sex. It is man who defines what is meant to be human, including what is meant to be
female. Since Tanga is not a male, she becomes the “other”, an object whose existence is defined and
interpreted by the dominant male. Being subordinate to the male, Tanga discovers she is a secondary
or non-existent player in the major social institutions Iningué.
J’aurais aimé lui dire: je n’ai plus envie de partir nulle part, au hasard, trop de
vide résonne encore sous mes pas. J’aurais aimé lui dire: je veux troquer mes
rêves, j’ai envie d’une maison aux fenêtres bleues, d’un lit, de la même voix
d’homme qui me reveillerait chaque matin. J’aurais aimé raconter le balcon,
quelqu’un, toujours le même, en peignoir, en robe de chambre, en chaussons.
J’aurais aimé dire le café, des cris d’enfants, le chien, la pie au bout du pré.
J’aurais aimé, j’aurais aimé (26)
Tanga's hopes are to reconstruct the cozy conventional prototype of home and family. Having not had
this as a child, one sees Tanga attempting to define herself by defining what she wants to have. Tanga
expresses her prospects towards African childhood:
Derrière mon bandeau, je ferme encore les yeux, creusant l’abîme où serait enterré
hier, où seraient enterrées les vérités d’un peuple englué dans l’exploitation de
l’enfant, tandis que le reste de l’humanité s’élance, radieux, sur le chemin de
l’enfant-roi (30)
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Tanga who constantly refers to herself as girl-child-woman does not find her mother; that is
undoubtedly why she wants to be the woman who exists for her child and cares about this child,
when she said: “je dois retrouver le mien et me fixer à jamais dans l’état de femme, pour ne plus être
l’enfant-parent de ses parents” (31). Tanga expresses her belief in that their lives (hers and other
women’s) are controlled by forces that are uncontrollable. She gives the metaphor of two grains of
sand in the wind. Everything around and inside them is already destined.
Dans dix ans, il sera peut-être là encore avec une femme-fillette oubliée de ce
monde, ce monde qui s’entretient dans la conviction de l’enfance libre d’Afrique,
de la savane nourricière, et lui, il sera là avec cette femme-fillette, vivante par le
souffle, morte depuis la naissance des étoiles. (31-32)
In speaking about this girl child-woman, Tanga speaks of herself; she thus refers to herself as
forgotten by the world and dead.
J’ai envie de pleurer sur rien et je comprends soudain que, jusqu’ici, je suis entrée
dans des histoires qui se ressemblent, des histoires qui se chevauchent et ne laissent
aucune trace d’amertume mais qu’aujourd’hui je veux les épisodes suivants, ceux
qui libéreront la femme et enterreront à jamais l’enfance morte. (Ibid)
What is noticed here is that Tanga realizes she only exists to be submissive to what are not her
choices. Now she realizes it is time for her to define what she would like to have in her life and for
the life of African children. Tanga is speaking on behalf of the woman and children, being herself a
girlchild-woman. Tanga sees the enslaved woman, and at this stage, she rebels against this and wants
to reject this social construct of femaleness. She wants to establish and define for the African woman
a new identity. She wants to set women free. “God created woman on her knees, at the feet of man”.
Tanga becomes an illustration of a woman who refuses “to be on her knees at the feet of men”.
Physically battered and psychologically damaged, Tanga is determined not to let the tragedies that
have become part of her daily life stifle her efforts toward self-actualization. The existentialist notion
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“existence precedes essence” means man defines himself, which is often perceived that man can wish
to be something and then be it. According to Sartre’s account man is defined only in so far as he acts.
As Sartre puts it in Existentialism is a Humanism:
What do we mean by saying that existence precedes essence? We mean that man
first of all exists, encounters himself, surges up in the world -and defines himself
afterwards. If man as the existentialist sees him is not definable, it is because to
begin with he is nothing. He will not be anything until later, and then he will be
what he makes of himself (Lawrence S. Cunningham et John J. Reich, 2009:745)
He goes further saying that “Man simply is. Not that he is simply what he conceives himself to be,
but he is what he wills, and as he conceives himself after already existing” (Ibid)
Tanga's hope to create to herself an essence; she wants, actually, to exist differently: “je veux
exister autrement” (42); a new contents of life are illustrated throughout certain pages of her novel:
Je veux être autre, moi la femme allaitée dans la force et le caractère. Je veux
réveiller dans une peau vierge et propre. Je veux exhorter mes démons à couper
leur queue, à baisser leurs cornes, pour que mes anges déploient leurs ailes. Sur la
toile de fond de ce qui arrive, je veux peindre l’instant, moi qui n’ai aucun droit,
moi l’obéissance. Je veux me propulser dans l’extraordinaire, être comme tout le
monde. Ailleurs, les rues ne sont-elles pas riches de soupirs d’amoureux, des grains
de leurs rires? Je veux ouvrir mon corps. Je veux que s’y déversent tous les
possibles de l’amour. Soleil! Arbre! Palmiers! Où sont passées les potions que
concoctaient les grand-mères pour que survive l’amour en dépit des morales
défaillantes ? […] Je veux dire le renouveau dans ce fatras où s’éveille le rêve […]
Il me me faut sauver les fondations précaires de ma raison. Je ne suis pas une pute
(20-21)
The culmination of Tanga's desires is expressed when she wants to exist differently; she wants to
define herself as a new differently existing individual.
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Ce soir, je veux endormir pour toujours la vieille la mère, le Malheur; tout
ensemble, pour être heureuse tant que je veux. Manger et boire du Bonheur (52)
Tanga wants to exist happily robbing all sources of her sorrow beginning with her mother: "
Je leur fais mes adieux, je n’ai plus rien à leur dire” (53). She wants to leave behind every dark
memory that hindered her from being happy; she has determined what to be and how to live: “J’ai
decide de vivre, je n’ai plus rien à voir avec la veille la mere” (Ibid) Tanga then puts her decisive
ideas into practice when she defies her mother: “Il n’ yaura pas de demain. J’arrête” (Ibid) She has
made up her mind to create an essence to her life. Existentially speaking, man defines himself only
when he acts. Similarly, the existential hero Tanga decides to adopt one child; she wants to create
meaning for herself by creating a life for nobody's child Mala who is a sample of hers and many
other children's sufferings.
Mala represents the tormented African childhood Tanga has gone through. She feels a
responsibility toward the childhood of Iningué and wants to set it free; she sets herself free because
she is still that child, or meaningfully that girlchild-woman who has not outgrown childhood: “Je suis
une enfant. Je n’existe pas. Mon âge m’annule. Mon Coeur est enraciné dans une forêt de sable" (28);
Tanga keeps on talking about the children, mentioning by that: “la fille de Moulé, prostituée” (67),
“le fils de Dakassi, vendeur de cacahouètes” (Ibid), “du fils Tchoumbi, l’enfant aux mains fendillées
jusqu’aux poignets. Il dit que c’est le poids des valises et des sacs” (Ibid), “du fils du Yaya, le
mendiant aveugle (Ibid.), ainsi de Ngono la fille de Ngala, celui-là qui a envoyé sa fille en ville chez
son frère. Il lui avait confié une poule. Il lui avait dit que là-bas chez son frère, il y aurait la lumière,
l’école, le riche mari” (68). Actually, Tanga, on behalf all the children who are thrown adults into
the wilderness of life, not only those mentioned above, says:
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Ainsi de l’enfance, tous ces enfants qui naissent adultes et qui ne sauront jamais
mesurer la sévérité de leur destin, ces enfants veufs de leur enfance, eux à qui
même le temps ne promet plus rien. (Ibid)
To change the casual situation of the child’s life, Tanga sees it necessary to adopt a child,
one of those lost children and provide him with a status he has never be given, and this is when she
said:
Et là, étendu seule et agitée, je me dis que demain, j’en adopterai un, car il faut
toujours commencer par le premier, celui qui désherbera le sentier de l’amour.
J’adopterai Mala le fils de personne, je lui donnerai l’enfance oubliée et tout le
monde se souviendra car il faudra se souvenir de l’enfant-roi, celui qu’il faut
porter sur son dos, vers la clarté, vers plus de lumière. (69)
Here again reappears existentialism in the principle of responsibility and choice. Tanga's
decision is one of a free will. Tanga believes her decision will pave way to a more promising and
brighter future for childhood. This very fact of choice is to be better understood referring again to
Sartre’s Existentialism and Humanism (1948), when he states:
When we say that man chooses himself, we do not mean that every one of us
chooses himself; but by that we also mean that in choosing for himself he chooses
for all men. (29)
Sartre goes further giving a deep clarification of Tanga’s positive choice:
what we choose is always the better : and nothing can be better fin- us unless it is
better for all ...our responsibility is thus much greater than we had supposed, for it
concerns mankind as a whole (Ibid)
Tanga's final choices to stop prostituting and to adopt Mala and be her mother embody her
dualistic nature, still a child on the inside, yet treated by the indifferent world as a mass of flesh, a
grown up woman. Her choices thus transcend her to contain childhood and motherhood as two
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entities. What she has chosen is better for all not for her own profit. Tanga, in fact, wants to remodel
the whole social System of Iningué.
En marchant vers la maison, je croise des femmes-fillettes qui avancent à découvert
sur leur corps offerts. Elles sont femmes ou enfants, définies par l’humeur ou le
profit, sœurs d’une même destinée, d’un même désespoir, une odeur mêlée de
femmes-fillettes qui traversent la vie sans laisser d’autres traces que les vibrations
éphémères d’un papillion. Respirent-elles seulement? Voient-elles la mort grimper
le long du corps, le nouer avant de l’abondonner raide froid entres les mains de
quelque pourvoyeur de sang? (1988: 33)
This can be explained by the existentialist notion of the “other” and the “look”, where it is
stated that the experience of the other is the experience of another free subject who inhabits the same
world as one does not. Tanga in this passage defines herself and her experience through describing
the experience of « sisters of a similar destiny » as she puts it. She is thus unprotected, girlchildwoman offering her body, breathing despair and knowing in advance the will go through this word
leaving no trace because this is the traced line such girlchild-woman eventually encounters. Tanga
asks whether they do even breathe, which includes her as well: do I even breathe? Similarly asking
whether they see death crawling up their bodies, she is asking herself too: do I see death crawling up
my body?
At this point of Tanga’s story, she still does not fully realize that what she sees is in front of
her eyes happening to those “sisters destiny”, is what will ultimately reoccurs to her; she blindfolds
herself to the inevitable fate. Tanga experiences herself as seen in the other’s look in precisely the
same way that she experiences the other as seen by her as subjectivity. This acts as limitation of
freedom. Tanga is entirely caught up in situation of prostitution she is already in. Suddenly, she sees
similar examples in front of her and becomes aware of herself as “seen” by the “other”. She is, thus,
filled with shame, anguish, sorrow and despair for she perceives herself as anyone who would
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perceive someone else doing what she is doing: “Et puis il y a la Camilla, ta soeur d’ici. Blanche
perdue au milieu des désires africains” (1996: 109)
As the story progresses, Tanga meets a living concrete example of a woman, a white woman,
undergoing the same fate. Tanga sees Camilla, the white woman who will make the world forget
about her:
C’est la Camilla. Elle s’est approchée de moi, pour réconcilier nos destins,
m’amarrer à l’éternité du désespoir. Je le sens, je le sais. Mais moi la femmefillette, je veux appartenir désormais à l’amour avec la maison, le chien, l’homme.
(111)
What does Tanga want to express, here, is that she has absolute freedom over her internal
nature and that is up to her to construct her nature and her essence through her actions. She thus
denies having a given nature that determines what she is and what her ultimate purpose or value is.
This is the first principle of existentialism. Tanga reaches the point to deconstruct every force that
may interfere in determining her. She believes she possesses herself and it is to her to determine her
actions and beliefs.
This point has been elaborated by Sartre in Existentialism and Humanism as he says that: The
first effect of existentialism is that it puts every man in possession of himself as he is (Op.cit). In
addition to existentially, there is no such a thing as an inherent human nature in human being that
controls who one is, what he/she does or what is valuable for him/her.Tanga exemplifies possessing
herself by acts of free self creation of her essence:
C’est pas marqué sur le front […] Je ne suis pas une pute […] Oui! NIER,
REFUSER. Cela s’impose. Courant coupé. Plus de liaison. S’éloigner du passé. Se
ressembler. Mais, je sais aujourd’hui qu’on ne peut pas changer de vie rien qu’en
sautant sur un balai. Et j’aurai pu lui dire : tes mots, femme, sont des milliers
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d’aiguilles plantées dans mon espace pour que subsistent shez l’Homme les souffles
de l’âme. (112)
Tanga rebels against the way circumstances shaped her life, but she knows she is not to blame for
that because these were not her choices:
Je me dis: “Tanga. C’est la faute du vieux et de la vielle si tu en es là. C’est leur
faute si tu es condamnée à la boue.”(124)
In a certain moment in the story, Tanga has questioned her relationship to the rest of the world
surrounding her: her relative and particularly her mother, because, in the African culture, a mother is
seen as an important element of the social set. It is a very concrete link within the chain of the family.
When Tanga arrives to aim at the deconstruction of the relationship existing between her and her
parents is that she wants to prove an act of freedom; she believes she is free of all the social
constraints that pushed her to the world of prostitution.
Je déstructure ma mère! C’est un acte de naissance. Folie que de croire à
l’indestructibilité du lien de sang! Bêtise de penser que l’acte d’exister dans le clan
implique une garantie d’appellation contrôlée! Doutons du poteau auquel nous
amarrons notre bateau! Nous ne brisons rien puisque rien n’existe, puisqu’il nous
appartient d’inventer le circuit sans fin (59)
This implies that there is no human nature to bond even members of one family together, which is
very existential; one, is sometimes, abandoned in the world to look afterhim/herself completely.
What is this existential tendency in some Beyala’s novels but a way of compensating for the
absurdity and cruelty of human a conditions? Beyala seems to have chosen another form of
expression and another way of expressing the existence of the female character in her novels.
Pornographical writing and sexuality are other ways to say that women exist and that they are free. It
is, I suppose, a belief that the only valid rule is that which gives woman the chance to achieve her
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unlimited potentials and to satisfy her rightfully free identity quest for she, as human being, is born
free.
The exceptionality of Beyala’s characters is meant to create an essence in their tasteless
purposeless existence, to create a free self, beyond the alleged social order. The opinion of the author
of C’est le soleil qui m’a brûlée joins the idea that female’s existence is mainly a reactionary attack
against the naturalistic conceptual view of the universe as being a material mechanism which is,
undoubtedly, dictated in terms of governing laws of science and reason. Woman, in this case, is more
than just an intellect and abstract ideas, and much more than just “rational thoughts” which reduce
her to some kind of an unfeeling machine, for existentialists argue that there is rather a wide variety
of “irrational” thoughts and feelings impossible to be accounted for by natural science for those
feelings are a uniquely human mysterious quality proving humans’ freedom and making them
victimized “aliens” (because they are the only creatures having such a quality) in a chaotic strange
universe where their mission that matters and their noble task is to create a meaning to it and to
escape their imprisonment in nature (Lawrence S. Cunningham et John J. Reich , 2009).;
Existentialists go further explaining that “man is alone in the universe,” and so has the total
autonomy and freedom to choose his “actions”; there is no such a thing as “human nature”, nothing is
absolutely right, or absolutely wrong: right is what serves man’s existence and wrong is what stands
on its way.
In the novels of the Franco-Cameroonian writer, the feminine characters, in defiance of the
social rules and of the ethics, intend "to enjoy" as they think best their sex. It is no longer the
question of being the second, the third or the fourth wife of a man. The first right which the African
women have to conquer, according to Calixthe Beyala, is the one of their sexual liberation. In the
African context, the novelistic writings of Calixthe Beyala are struck by depreciation, even by
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prohibition118. Her novels are considered as immoral, or at best amoral, and offer finally a "bad"
image of the African culture. The author breaks the "chastity" of the African society where the
question of sexuality remain a taboo subject, while most of the African novelists refuse in their works
to speak about the sexual act, at least, in its erotic aspect:
Pour le sexe justement, je vis sur une terre où l’on ne le nomme pas. Il semble ne
pas exister. Il est comme une absence, un bouquet d’astres morts, un contour sans
précision, une ombre curieuse, un songe presque, une cellule infime à quoi seules
les grossesses ou les engueulades entre les couples donnent une matérialité sous la
contrainte des besoins quotidiens (FNFN, 2003:12)
The work which is most explicitly pornographic of Beyala remains Femme nue, femme noire in
which the reader is acquainted with the pornographic contents while introducing the first verse of
“Femme noire”, poem of Léopold Sédar Senghor (1945):
Femme nue, femme noire, vêtue de ta couleur qui est vie, de ta forme qui est
beauté…” Ces vers ne font pas partie de mon arsenal linguistique. Vous verrez:
mes mots à moi tressautent et cliquettent comme des
chaînes. Des
mots qui
détonnent, déglinguent, dévissent, culbutent, dissèquent, torturent! Des mots qui
fessent, giflent, cassent et broient! Que celui qui se sent mal à l’aise passe sa
route… Parce que, ici, il n’y aura pas de soutien-gorge en dentelle, de bas
résille, de petites culottes en soie à prix excessif, de parfum de roses ou de
gardénias, et encore moins ces
approches rituelles de
la
femme fatale,
empruntées aux films ou à la télévision ( Ibid :11)
From the very title, one understands that the black African women, in this novel, are incited to
abandon any feeling of chastity and live their sexuality freely. This liberation cannot take place, but
just when the women writers decide to show that the sex of a woman is not the "property" of a man,
French ‘Interdit” ; Le registre érotique, voire pornographique, émaille tous les textes de Beyala. De C’est le soleil qui m’a brûlée
à Maman a un amant en passant par Tu t’appelleras Tanga, Seul le diable le savait et Le petit rince de Belleville, c’est une véritable
gravelure” (Mborm, 1994: 62)
118
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but rather her own property (woman’s). The latter, for Beyala, has the right to choose freely her
partners without being afraid of undergoing the brunt of traditions and those of the religious
censorship, because the scandal is such brilliant that sexuality finds itself combined with a very
profound religiosity, so that the erotic discourse gets involved in the mystic ode. The theodicy119
serves the writings of Beyala as it torments its Romanesque universe. This mystic which takes root in
the pain caused by the Deus absconditus120 takes its expiatory shape in the sexual frenzy. The subject
so gets lost by its own physical destruction and its energy expiration. Sexuality and sacrifice are
strictly connected:
Mes jambes sont écartées comme celles des femmes passées, des femmes à venir.
Je suis l’animal du sacrifice, celui destiné à flatter l’orgueil des dieux. Il me couvre
de son corps et je le laisse passer sans résistance. Il me fend l’âme comme un éclair
déchire la voûte céleste. Le désir grimpe à ma tête, à moins que j’aie bu de l’alcool
de maïs. Mon être, tout mon être prend feu par petits bouts jusqu’à se transformer
en cendre (Ibid: 183)
Irène Fofo is so given in holocaust for the good of the humanity. She identifies her self to
Jesus/Christ and sacrifices her body121 to save the soul of the world. From then on, the ostentatious
immorality of the characters hides profound spiritual wounds and a disturbing disagreement with the
world. The corruption which strikes the outside universe contaminates the interiority of every
consciousness and the only means to make sure of its existence consists then in outbidding in evil.
Beyala’s freedom embodied in the freedom of her characters in choosing their actions; the
willing sexual acts, in Femme nue femme noire, are acts of freedom regardless the social constraints.
119
The branch of theology concerned with defending the attributes of God (vindication of the divine attributes),
particularly holiness and justice against objections resulting from physical and moral evil. The term 'theodicy' was coined
in 1710 by German philosopher Gottfried Leibniz in his work, Théodicée.
120
The apparent absence of God from those who seek him, or from circumstances where the godly are in extreme
trouble. So Beyala herself says in Comment cuisiner son mari à l’africaine (2002): Mon mal est profond et Dieu m’écoute
sans se perturber (53).
121
Christian point of view (Biblical).
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These beauvoirian conceptions of sexual acts have nothing natural in her novel; the author’s
objective is not to enhance a natural sexual lust, but rather a more rational mind-set.
The paroxysm of sexuality is used as a weapon to break the silence and to underline with
violence an abberant existence and implement within a scope of a dynamic described by Gilles
Lipovetsky as “un hyperinvestissement du privé et conséquemment la démobilisation de l’espace
public” (1983: 48). In the sexual conception suggested by Calixthe Beyala, an obsessive conception,
in Femme nue femme noire (2003), is typically postmodern according to Gérard Pommier, because
the body becomes an ideal “lorsque les Idéaux traditionnels s’effondrent” (2000 : 75-76); The erotic
representations, the scenes of coupling, the sexually explicit postures, are a part of the cultural
heritage of the African societies. What seems disturbing more is the way the writer deals with
sexuality in that she uses less African terms, and undoubtly, too much western ones; according to
Best and Crowley (2007), this tendency to adopt a pornographic language would be a relatively
recent phenomenon in French literature.
It is, however, noticed that the author’s desire to say every thing about sex and about the body
of her characters is significant, in that it reveals her conscious and willing mind and to make her
revolte intentional and willingfull, which seems operational through words that describe sex; the
African women’s need of writing and expressing the self, in general is explained by Rangira Béatrice
Gallimore, as being “le souci de se réapproprier leur corps, objet de tous les fantasmes de la part du
sexe male” (75); she keeps on saying:
Lasses de la dictature masculine, les héroïnes de Beyala rejettent la résignation et
la passivité. Elles optent pour un militantisme au féminin. Elles refusent la
subordination de la femme à l’homme. Ces femmes n’acceptent pas que le monde
féminin soit un monde qui n’existe que grâce au contour que lui imprime le regard
masculin (Ibid).
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In Beyala’s novel the woman’s body is not any more a simple instrument of seduction, but
has become, a weapon which provides her with that omnipotence to impose her will and to get a
place in the western society; if Miss Aïssatou courts the Whites, it is to convince herself of the good
integration:
Moi, je suis une Négresse blanche et la nourriture est un poison mortel pour la
séduction. Je fais chanter mon corps en épluchant mes fesses, en râpant mes seins,
convaincue qu’en martyrisant mon estomac les divinités de la sensualité
s’échapperont de mes pores (CCSA: 21)
Sexuality of woman seems to be a guarantee of her existence, the heroine Irène Fofo offers to many
persons her body:
Ce jour-là, sept, peut-être huit hommes m’ont fait l’amour avec une avidité
abstraite (…). Ainsi écartelée, j’ai découvert d’autres océans. J’ai traversé des
continents et des mers (68).
For the Cameroonian writer, woman should have the ultimate liberty of choosing for herself sexual
partners. The narrator Irène Fofo confers to sexuality a multiple value. It allows an individual to
impose on other individuals her existence and to construct an identity. It provides her with certain
certitude, that of being and of knowing the world. Undoubtedly, in the conception of the character,
sexuality acquires the value of recognition. Hence it is connotated positively.
The desire of woman to be the only “masters” of their bodies, to break the taboos, lead to
sexual libertinage. In Femme nue, femme noire, the narrator describes the sexual act in its least
details. Eva one of the protagonists in the novel notices:
J’ai tout essayé. Je l’ai étrillé. Je l’ai titillé. Je l’ai bichonné. Je l’ai agacé de mes
quenottes. J’ai flatté et gobé ses burnes, sans succès. Et ce n’est pas tout! J’ai
gratifié son sexe de mille massages au beurre de karité. Le pagne, imprégné de
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camphre, n’a pas donné plus de résultats. J’ai utilisé les positions les plus
scabreuses: celle du singe perché se balançant sur une branche; celle de l’âne
cabré assis sur ses fesses; celle du poisson-chat pétaradant à la nage…! Toute cette
thérapie n’a servi à rien… Sa tempête refuse de se déchaîner. (119)
She goes further saying:
Ils s’agglutinent derrière ses fesses, posent leurs mains à tour de rôle sur son
corps. Ils la touchent. On dirait que des dizaines de crabes se promènent sur son
postérieur. Elle frissonne, elle peut entendre les palpitations de leur pénis. Le
minuscule Félix trouve une place de choix entre ses cuisses. Sa langue s’accroche
sur son pubis comme une cigale sur une branche de palmier. Il l’étrille, la
feuillette, la titille, la tire-bouchonne, gémit, halète, s’ébroue. Puis, il la culbute,
l’écartèle et l’inonde d’un plaisir sourd et brutal avant de se laisser tomber sur le
sol. D’une main Hayatou ébouriffe les cheveux d’Eva. Il l’encourage, enfonce son
index dans sa feuille de saule trempée, torture ses pamplemousses mûrs, la stimule
avec des mots qui fracassent et éblouissent. (158-159)
The author treats as well subjects such as lesbianism, making love to four persons, and some
themes related to traditions, religion, moral, which are practically inexistent in the novels of the
African women writers. In Beyala’s novel, women are shown in pornographic scenes making love to
other women:
Elle m’entraîne derrière la case, me fait asseoir sur un banc devant une bassine
d’eau chaude. Elle me frotte le dos et ses mains savonneuses sur mes seins et mes
hanches me font l’effet d’une coulée de miel. Chacun de ses gestes est ponctué de
mots anodins aux intonations si tendres qu’ils amadoueraient le plus récalcitrant
des hommes. Ses doigts glissent comme une plume sur mon ventre. J’ai envie de
saisir cette main, de l’enfouir entièrement en moi pour alléger les crispations de
mes sens (62-63)
It is noticed that Beyala is different from the other women writer in terms of writing in the
sense that she praises a sexual revolution. Analyzing Beyala’s novel, Herzberger-Fofana notices that:
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En donnant à la prostituée une place prépondérante, Beyala montre comment la
prostitution peut servir d’arme pour se libérer de l’oppression mâle (2000:320321)
One has to underline that the female characters, in Femme nue, femme noire, despite their
eager desire to have sex, are not “prostitutes” as noted again by Herzberger-Fofana. Although the
female characters offer for free their bodies, their objective remain non materialistic; their sexual lust
is in reality a quest for “liberty”. The African criticism has qualified Beyala’s novels as
“pornographic” destined to a western public eager to know about sexual eroticism. Marie-Madeleine
Borgomano, standing by Beyala, makes observable that the author’s writings are chocking, but she
has the advantage to break with the different conformism which confines the African woman to
silence:
L’écriture de Beyala, en accord profond avec les mondes instables où elle situe ses
personnages marginaux, peut apparaître elle aussi, comme déplacée. Bien sûr, les
censeurs, s’autorisant des connotations péjoratives du terme, lui reprochent,
justement son inconvenance. Il est vrai qu’il s’agit d’une écriture brutale,
volontiers provocante…Ces audaces choquent d’autant plus que l’écrivain est une
femme et que les femmes écrivains africaines adoptent une écriture sage, conforme
à la norme, voire conformiste, se pliant aux lois scolaires apprises du beau
langage. Calixthe Beyala, elle, refuse les conformismes linguistiques, signes
fréquents d’acceptation des règles. Elle ne respecte pas la loi du silence: elle écrit
aussi ce qu’il ne faut pas dire (Rangira Béatrice, 1997: 102-103)
In using street vocabulary, a violent and disdaining writing, Calixthe Beyala wants to
marginalize herself so as to attract other’s attention to the problems that women live every day.
Speaking about the African feminine writing, Rangira Béatrice Gallimore notes:
Quand la femme écrit, elle force son entrée dans un locatif qui lui était
préalablement interdit, elle s’élève à un rang supérieur et se place en dehors de la
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structure sociale qui lui était réservée. Par ce mouvement subversif, elle enfreint les
règles préétablies par la tradition et la coutume et se marginalise inéluctablement.
Pour la femme, écrire, c’est se placer volontairement en marge de la société.
L’écriture féminine africaine est donc par essence une écriture marginale, une
écriture qui s’effectue en dehors de l’univers muet et silencieux où les normes
veulent la maintenir (Ibid: 15)
Pierre N’DA says, in Le sexe romanesque comme moteur et enjeux de l’écriture
postmoderne, that:
Calixthe Beyala, Giselle Aka, Alain Mabanckou, Sami Tchak, pour ne citer que
quelques-uns, violent les interdits et se délectent, pour ainsi dire, dans une écriture
osée du sexe et dans une langue provocatrice fortement charnelle, volontairement
choquante. Ils parlent du sexe, sans retenue aucune; ils décrivent le sexe, crûment;
ils dépeignent, avec force détails et sans maquillage, des scènes érotiques ou
pornographiques, des séances d’orgies sexuelles; ils présentent complaisamment
des sexualités déviantes, interdites, transgressives, désordonnées, débridées ou
libérées. (Atcha, Philip Amangoua, Coulibaly, Adama and Tro Deho, Roger, 2011:
69-70)
In this novel, Beyala puts sexuality at the very core and centre of the story. Sexuality has as
individualization as function. Irène, being atypic who places herself in a very excentric as far as the
social norm is concerned, and she is motivated by the desire to reveal every thing about sex within a
community where this aspect of of human life is almost obliterated. Her project of exhaustivity and
of truth is affixed by the affirmation of an unlimited freedom of the body. In her novel, Beyala shows
the highly-sexed body of woman, as it is described by the woman, herself, as constituting the means
of its individualization, of putting into question the norm, and most importantly, instituting new norm
of a new sociability. This point stresses Beyala’s innovation.
I believe there is nothing for free in the pornography of Beyala. She hampers and surprises
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just as much as she seduces human’s most primary instincts. She disturbs because she dares to say
overtly what is implied in the popular art. She denounces the state of being not in the nature of
things; perceptibly it is the state of the man who is corrupted by the will of mastering and setting
control over everything. This use of the pornographic scenes is found in the works of some
contemporary authors like Michel Houellebecq122: the modern, globalized, consumerist world is the
one of the generalized prostitution. To depict it, it is to unsettle cogs and to reveal the hypocrisy
which characterizes a universe threatened by crisis and obsessed by the immediate enjoyment and the
accumulation of the assets.
Consequently, the only effective weapon to resist consists in sending back materialism against
itself and in using vulgarity to fight the vulgar. It is an aesthetic and ethical choice which proves
effectual. The hypo/crisy of the world hides the importance of the crisis which has an effect on all the
dimensions of the existence; modernity limits the necessary decision-making to maintain a certain
sense of existence. That is why madness seems to swamp the novelistic universe of Beyala, where all
the characters are treated as “fou”. Thought it is “la colère qui […] pouss[e] vers la folie” (SLDS,
122
To know him go to his official web site: http://www.houellebecq.info/
And contact him go to: http://www.michelhouellebecq.com/
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Conclusion
This chapter is rather a focus on Beyala’s narratives, in that it allows one to deal with certain
inadequacy relevant to both the way how African literature can be approached, and the nature of the
African society which is seen by some people as being stiff in a time there is always lieu for social
transformation.
The question of woman and of the African female figure either as a symbol of
gendered oppression or of liberation from gendered oppression, remains capital. D’Almeida, Irène
Assiba sees that much of the contemporary research has demonstrated a commitment to representing
women’s lived experiences through a questioning of patriarchal customs and women’s yearnings for
freedom (D’Almeida 1994). Yet the female figures generally operate as abstract bodies; women are
not given that considerable deal of importance to be discussed as existing human bodies.
I am to pretend that there is always a need to argue that females’ bodies are significant
enough,
in that they represent a considerable number of latently conflicting social and political
projects, as they represent positions in postcolonial African societies. The Writer Calixthe Beyala
sees the need to make problematic the ways in which the female body is represented as a sign and a
bearer of social and political ideologies embedded in discourses of patriarchy, nationalism, violence
and desire. It is certainly why one can read through the author’s novels her eager desire to question
some transmitted ideologies which are seen by the patriarchal society as being the only guiding
ideologies in this universe.
This chapter, actually, recaptures the processes through which both Beyala and the readers
construct representations of social realities; two essential points which have made the spine of the
two previous chapters (Two and Three). Beyala’s great effort to get closer to woman’s self through
bringing all together female isotopes enhanced her belief in the existence of progressive way of
seeing things in life.
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If the woman’s body in the African societies is considered the battleground of conflicting
discourses on nationalism, identity and sexuality, then Beyala has made of it a key to existence and a
means of expressing freedom. In so doing, one can see the extent to which Beyala has changed the
concept of the female’s body from an object of lust to a tool of self affirmation. It is thereafter,
important to underline how the woman’s body, owning to Beyala’s writings, becomes an important
figure through which many social claims are mediated.
The author’s objective is reaching the belief in “human existence”, and “value
transcendence”; because, one does neither expect humanity without existence nor even existence
without praised values. May be the choice of the novels in this chapter is not dictated in terms of
chronological order, because, human existence or value are not determined in terms of time or space.
The novels I studied portray women troubled by conflicting values in a society where she is supposed
to be subservient to the requirement of the other. Therefore, woman finds herself torn between
docility and resistance. The writer, as an African feminist writer, attempts to challenge social and
cultural practices that legitimate the idea of a passive body, but she cannot, in any case, destroy
traditions and ways of thinking that have been prevailing for centuries. The writer, invites,
particularly, the African reader, and the reader who is captive of certain ideologies, to free
themselves and to see woman as, first a human being and to accept reading, if they are willing to, the
woman’s body as a social context and to be able to translate certain actualities in postcolonial context
burdened by authoritarianism, neocolonialism, gender issues and the emergence of sexual behaviours
which were once forbidden, and taboo.
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Conclusion
La liberté n'est pas la possibilité de réaliser tous ses caprices; elle est la possibilité
de participer à la définition des contraintes qui s'imposeront à tous. (133)
Vivre, pour un être humain, ce n'est pas seulement laisser agir les métabolismes
que déroule notre organisme, c'est profiter de la conscience que nous avons d'être
pour devenir une personne. (166)
Albert Jacquard (1999). Petite philosophie à l'usage des non-philosophes,
Québec: Livre de Poche
As a matter of fact, by arresting woman as an entity being an integral part of a society, and by
laying bare her incoherence and her internal contradictions, she raises, in different terms, the question
related to the role of the feminine writing, so approaching a new turn for the feminine African novel:
that is of a novel which would not allow its restriction to neither a didactic nor a reducing speech.
And although it is necessary to admit that more and more, criticisms recognize the interest which the
African writers show for questions transcending the condition of women, few of them realize
extensive studies on their other field of interest. It is high time that they put themselves in it.
Beyala is well known on the literary scene; her works, like so many African women authors’
works, thematically analysed, are usually viewed as a counter-discourse to the male discourse, a
vehicle to unveil their oppression/frustration, or an articulation of their rebellion against phallocentric
societal practices. She used a feminist discourse which is sometimes associated with Western
feminism and that is because she sees herself as a French-African and sometimes associated to that of
the Third-world because she has never excluded herself from that African constellation and most
importantly because she believes in a unifying discourse which embraces all the women regardless
their geographical belonging.
The points I have discussed, in my thesis which remains, however, a step towards other future
researches, allowed me to highlight the main lines of my argumentation. They were, actually, an
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opportunity to think about a possible reorientation in literary criticism to understand both
francophone and Anglophone Sub-Saharan African feminine literature because critics, however,
show little or no distinction between texts produced by African women whether Anglophone or
Francophone.
I attempted, simply, to make obvious the multidimensional character of the Cameroonian
novel such as it is read through Beyala. I made every effort to take up that Beyala, from the part of
her diverse interests, advanced a writing which transcends widely the restricted frame of the
exploration of women’s condition. Her writing gravitates around social, psychological and even
cultural questions. In my opinion, this author, by avoiding beaten tracks, offers an image of the
postcolonial African woman who is so close to the reality than the one who would tend to represent
herself as a warrior, a fighter or an individual who is always led by the desire to question essentially
her situation as a female. Beyala shows that the real story of woman is made by compromise, refusal,
and by complicity with "the other ". The underlying message, in her texts, vehicles the idea that
every victory is most often blurred and assimilated to the fact of moving a step forward and of
making this step being followed by two others steps backward . The most interesting is that this
approach results from the one from whom one expects an effort: “woman”. All these points revealed
that Calixthe Beyala is really worried about the situation of woman, regardless her cultural origin,
race, ideology, geographical belonging, etc. the reason, perhaps, why I have seen it necessary, in a
given moment of time in the thesis, to deal with the different races, sexes, cultures and confessional
ideologies, and suggest some alternatives which I saw prerequisite to wipe out differences which
might be sources of inevitable conflicts among the woman constellation. What was important for
me, basing my reflection on Beyala’s philosophy, was to prove those women are the same creatures
and that are subject to the same fate.
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To make my argument very sound I backed my argumentative reading through questioning
woman in the real world; woman belonging to different societies: western and non-western; having
different skin pigmentation: blacks and whites; having different ideological confessions, Christians,
Muslims and Jews; because of some considerations I prefer not identifying the Jews among the
women I have questioned. The languages in which they have stated their points of view is also
important for they do not speak the same language, as it is shown in Annex 3. The very remarkable
point is that these women have never met; sure the great majority of them have never heard about
Calixthe Beyala, yet their opinion which is likely to be same (shared opinion about the situation of
woman), converge towards Calixthe Beyala’s. I mean that they see themselves as fully-fledged
individual who are an integral part of their society. As such they are as concerned as their male
counterparts about the post-colonial African society’s (for those who are in Africa), political,
economical or linguistic future.
This point seems to be shared by almost all women, if not all of them; the statements provided
by the questioned females join to a great extent the above mentioned point. Being an American,
Turkish or Algerian, the ladies have agreed upon the thought that: Women are still expected in most
cases to be the ones to care for the family and children, although there have been great advances for
women in the past few decades, and that they are, unfortunately, still struggling for equal
opportunities and rights.”
-
Women are still considered the primary caregivers within society and do 80% of the
housework, while maintaining a career
-
Women fell always threatened by the pressure exerted by religious teachings even though they
are educated in modern schools and enrolled great universities.
-
Women are victims of decision making, for there are still many issues with regard to the legal
system and how issues of rape and harassment are handled. In this case it is difficult to keep
298
issues out of the public eye, in a time so many women are, unfortunately, either afraid or
simply refuse to go through the long legal process to prosecute.
I believe, Beyala has succeeded in dealing with women issue; simply what could be noticed is
that Beyala’s endeavour, in developing a universal vision of woman as well as her intention of
representing woman in general and dealing with her grievances, was up to the point. She has
underlined the question of social injustice and of religious interpretations. She does not consider
religion as anti woman, but she blames those who interpret it in their likeness. This point is referred
to by the Turkish Deniz YILDIRIM (see annex 3) who said:
D’autre part, ce sont majoritairement des hommes qui interprètent le texte Sacré à
leur guise; cependant, nous ignorons s’il y a des femmes qui l’interprètent
également tout en donnant leurs points de vue.
The question of gender equality and woman liberty is what echoes down the social corridors;
this entire thesis is essentially about it. Yet the question we all want to answer is the one which
essentially tackles the point of equality. Yes, as intellectuals, we try to discuss the issue, but the thing
I am sure of is that we cannot provide ideal solutions, because sometimes, we find ourselves in
certain situations in which I, personally, feel unable to provide answers. If I take as instance the
question concerning religion whether it discriminates woman or not; I feel really unable to give
rational answer because of the short knowledge I have about religions, but this does not reflect my
opinion.
Referring always to my cultural back ground, I try always to find answers. I thing that the
religion, I suppose, I understand much better is Islam. So I try to give answer to the raised questions
and to comment on what my friend Denis Yildirim from Turkey said. God said:
O mankind! We created you from a single pair of a male and a female, and made
you into nations and tribes that you might get to know one another. Surely the
299
noblest of you in the sight of Allah is he who is the most righteous. Allah is AllKnowledgeable, All-Aware. (Al-Hujurat- The Apartments: 13) 10
It is not a matter of being a male or a female, black or white, rich or poor, etc, because for
God human beings are all the same. The criterion of selection for God is not based on gender, race, or
what so ever, but it is based on the deeds of every one. This is very important because, as I have
shown in my thesis, Beyala prefers not talking about religion in order not to stream her thoughts and
orientates them towards one direction: ‘anti-religious interpretation’; the point which the majority of
the ladies (from either the Arab or the Muslim world) have, unfortunately, given much importance.
I believe the situation of women is almost all the same; we need to understand that all what a
woman is in need of is to be recognized as a human being who has the right to express her thoughts
the way she pleases. In a word women are looking for freedom. So what sort of freedom women are
looking for?
Since freedom does mean the right to do as one pleases—to think, believe, speak,
worship (or not worship), move about, gather, and generally act as one chooses—but only until
his/her choices start to infringe on another person’s freedom (Mike Treder, The Meaning of Freedom,
2009).
It is, in this case, easy to know or to say what liberty for women is?
It would be better to go back to Albert Jacquard’s point of view that freedom is not the
possibility of realizing all one’s dreams or achieving one’s objectives; but it rather the possibility of
participating in the definition of the constraints which are inevitably met by any one. In this case,
women have to understand the motives beyond their being discriminated, marginalized or alienated
instead of asking for recognition and thereafter integration?
It is capital to understand the causes because Liberty for Women, as Wendy McElroy in her
book entitled Liberty for Women: Freedom and Feminism in the Twenty-First Century (2002) has
shown, boldly explores a wide range of issues that confront the modern woman, including self300
defense, economic well-being and employment, sex and abortion, the family, technology, and much
more. This new feminism asserts the rights of consenting adults to their own sexuality, opposes
censorship, and defends every woman’s right to self-defence. It champions competitive markets as
the vehicle for women’s economic rights and prosperity. Acknowledging the dangers of technology,
the book celebrates its possibilities and defends reproductive rights. And yet, it also defends the
validity of choosing traditional values (e.g., to be a “stay-at-home mom”) for those who find
satisfaction in doing so (the summary of the book).
Actually, Beyala’s objective is to reach the belief in “human existence”, and “value
transcendence”; because, one does neither expect humanity without existence nor even existence
without praised values. May be the choice of the novels in the present work (thesis) is not dictated in
terms of chronological order, because, human existence or value are not determined in terms of time
or space. Through out the work, I have tried to deal with the novels which portray woman troubled
by conflicting values in a society where she is supposed to be subservient to the requirement of the
other. Therefore, woman finds herself torn between docility and resistance. The writer, as an African
feminist writer, attempts to challenge social and cultural practices that legitimate the idea of a passive
body, but she cannot, in any case, destroy traditions and ways of thinking that have been prevailing
for centuries; she, invites, particularly, the African reader, and the reader who is captive of certain
ideologies, to free themselves and to see woman as, first a human being and to accept reading , if
they are willing to, the woman’s body as a social context and to be able to translate certain actualities
in postcolonial context burdened by authoritarianism, neocolonialism, gender issues and the
emergence of sexual behaviours which were once forbidden, and taboo.
In fact the objective beyond this study is beyond the mere presentation of woman in Africa
and in the world in general. The illustration was that while the portrayal of women in Beyala’s novels
or in any female writer’s novel suggests liberty, equality and individuality; at the same time it does
301
not imply rejecting culture, traditions or taking negative position against male’s presence in the life
of woman. That is why my focus was on the position of women within a society weighed down by
prejudice and negativity. Be it the African society or the Victorian society, facts have revealed that
patriarchy thrived throughout the mid-nineteenth century, twentieth and twenty-first centuries. That is
to say that the question of stereotype is not something new in the mind of human being in general. If
during the Victorian era, women were subject to societal pressures at every turn causing them to
suffer disadvantages in government, law, marriage, money, education and employment, also in the
twentieth century and twenty-first century, the situation of woman remains the same; regardless the
geographical space, no single change is noticed, at least, as far as the position of woman in society is
concerned.
Problems with the patriarchal system did not only surface through public and political
debates but also served as the backdrop for several novels in modern and post modern periods, some
of which opted a radical approach that involved challenging the constricted lives of women and
arguing for greater opportunities, such as the works of Thomas Hardy and George Eliot ; and some of
which chose a conservative approach of allowing time and fate to improve one’s situation, for
example the novels of Jane Austen, Charles Dickens, Calixthe Beyala, Nadine Gordimer, Mariama
Bâ, to mention just a few . What is, however, noticed is that in spite of the differences in creative
vision, female authors are more committed than male authors to the problem of patriarchal
oppression as it is the female who is subject to this suffering.
Beyala’s primary concern, in her novels, is the liberation of women from all traditions that
privilege communal interests based on patriarchal norms over women’s individual freedom. By
showcasing Beyala as a strong, outspoken and precocious woman who strives to attain selfrealization through the pursuit of educational goals and professional careers and through refusing to
remain silent, she denounces archaic patriarchal culture inspired of ignorance and subjectivity. All
302
the same, Assèze’s emotional commitment to a foreigner , in Assèze l'Africaine (1994), and in
L'homme qui m'offrait le ciel (2007) where the Cameroonian writer would have drawn inspiration
from her love story with the famous French animator Michel Druker to give body to her literary
achievement; it is the story of a black young woman Andela who is almost the spitting portrait of
Beyala, and who maintains a passionate relation with François Ackermann, a French audiovisual
landscape Celebrity. Andela’s and François Ackermann’s mad love illustrates the verity that Beyala
advocated women in their search for identity but did not ultimately divorce herself from her cultural
restrictions and constraints. She hopes that this will be enough to annihilate egocentrism and
cowardice that an individual might be haunted by, because Beyala herself said in her novel:
Je décris tout simplement la magnificence de l’amour. Bien qu’elle signale ses
défaillances, ce pourboire d’un euro qu’il laisse au restaurant, cet égocentrisme,
tous ces préjugés qui habitent François Ackerman qui peuvent être aussi ceux
d’une certaine bourgeoisie... elle ne s’y attarde pas. Andela ne s’appesantit pas sur
ce qu’elle considère être à la périphérie du personnage. Toutes les relations
amoureuses se ressemblent, on retrouve ici les mêmes formes de trahison que dans
n’importe quel couple. Il y a des hommes lâches partout. Seulement, parce que
c’est un couple mixte, la dimension raciale se rajoute à la complexité de la relation.
(LQMC)
The findings of this study show that Beyala chose a radical approach of which involved the
taking of firm action to change one’s lot in life. Nevertheless, her female protagonist achieves
transformation not by reforming the patriarchal system she is living in, but by being creative and reappropriating her own identity within this often antagonistic system.
A suggested area for future academic research would be a broad-based comparison of literature
by Africans (between Black and Whites, from Sub-Sahara and Nord Africa), ideally two or three
303
which investigate not only the creative transformation of women in African culture, but also the
difference between female perspectives of equality in post modern era.
Well, all what I say remains personal, very personal and, in the eyes, of some ladies remains
subjective simply because I am a male and I can never think the way a female does; simply I cannot
put myself in her place, not because I refuse doing so, but because, women refuse allowing a man to
see for them their own situations. My statements might have been a bit aggressive, but that what I
was personally told: “we cannot allow you “men” to decide for our future, and we are not mentally
retarded or unconscious to let you talk on our behalf.”123
123
This was the answer of one of my friends (C, SARA) I asked her whether I could help her conveying a message
through my thesis, and that was just to state her point of view which might have been a good addition, yet her answer (the
above mentioned answer) is itself a very good and concrete addition.
304
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Annex 1
1) -
But Satan seduced him saying: "O Adam! Should I show you the Tree of Immortality and an
everlasting kingdom? (Taha- Moses &Pharoah: 120)1
2) -
They both ended up eating the fruit of the forbidden tree. As a result their private parts
became apparent to them and they both began to cover themselves with the leaves from the Garden.
Thus did Adam disobey His Lord and go astray. (Ibid: 121) 2
3) -
Later on Adam repented and his Lord chose him, accepted his repentance and gave him
guidance,(Ibid: 122) 3
4) -
But Satan tempted them with the tree to disobey Allah’s commandment and caused them to be
expelled from Paradise, and We said: "Get out from here, some of you being enemies to others, and
there is for you in the earth an abode and provisions for a specified period (Albaquara -Cow: 36)4
5) -
And their Lord hath accepted of them, and answered them: 'Never will I suffer to be lost the
work of any of you, be he male or female. Ye are members one of another. Those who have left
theirhomes, and were driven out there from and suffered harm in My Cause. And fought and were
slain-Verily, I will blot out from them their iniquities, and admit then into Gardens with rivers
flowing
beneath; a reward from Allah is the best of rewards" (A'Lay Imran – The Family of
Imran: 195)5
6) -
But the one who does righteous deeds, whether a male or a female - provided he or she is a
believer - shall enter paradise and will not be harmed a speck.( An-nisa' –Women:124)6
324
7) -
Rest assured that Believers (Muslims), Jews, Christians and Sabians – whoever believes in
Allah and the Last Day and performs good deeds - will be rewarded by their Lord; they will have
nothing to fear or to regret.
8)-
(Bakara- The Cow: 62) 7
And when you divorce women and they reach their prescribed time, then either retain them in
good fellowship or set them free with liberality, and do not retain them for injury, so that you exceed
the limits, and whoever does this, he indeed is unjust to his own soul; and do not take Allah's
communications for a mockery, and remember the favor of Allah upon you, and that which He has
revealed to you of the Book and the Wisdom, admonishing you thereby; and be careful (of your duty
to) Allah, and know that Allah is the Knower of all things. (Bakara- The Cow: 232)8
9) -
And when you have divorced women and they have ended-- their term (of waiting), then do
not prevent them from marrying their husbands when they agree among themselves in a lawful
manner; with this is admonished he among you who believes in Allah and the last day, this is more
profitable and purer for you; and Allah knows while you do not know. (Ibid: 233)9
10) - O mankind! We created you from a single pair of a male and a female, and made you into
nations and tribes that you might get to know one another. Surely the noblest of you in the sight of
Allah is he who is the most righteous. Allah is All-Knowledgeable, All-Aware. (Al-Hujurat- The
Apartments: 13) 10
325
‫بسم هللا الرحمن الرحيم‬
121 ‫ طه‬              .1
               .2
121 ‫ طه‬ 
122 ‫ طه‬       .3
                .4
63 ‫ البقرة‬     
                   .5
            
591 ‫ آل عمران‬              
               .6
521 ‫ النساء‬ 
             .7
62 ‫ البقرة‬           
326
               .8
                  
232 ‫ البقرة‬  
                 .9
                 
    
‫صدق هللا العظيم‬
327
Annex 2
I)
- Theories of Feminism
Because people who believe in the theory of feminism have so many different views, some
have sectioned off and created labels that represent them best in their beliefs surrounding feminism.
Is Feminism a theory that men and women should be equal politically and socially? This theory does
not subscribe to differences between men women or similarities between men and women.
Who is a feminist?
A feminist is a person who believes in the theory of feminism.
Different Theories:
1. Amazon Feminism - is dedicated to the image of the female hero in fiction
and fact, as it is expressed in art and literature, in the physiques and feats female
athletes, and in sexual values and practices. This theory of feminism focuses on physical
equality and is opposed to gender role and discrimination against women based on
assumptions that women supposed to be, look or behave as if they are passive, weak and
helpless.
Amazon feminism
rejects
the idea that certain
or
interests
are inherently
masculine (or feminine), upholds and explores a vision of heroic womanhood..
2. Cultural Feminism - a theory that there are fundamental personality differences
between men and women, and that women's differences are special and should be. This theory
of feminism supports the notion that there are differences between men and women,
for example, "women are and more gentle then men", leading to the mentality that if
ruled the world there would be no wars. Cultural feminism is the theory wants to
328
overcome sexism by celebrating women's special qualities, women's way, and women's
experiences. Often believing that the "woman's way" is the better way.
3.
Ecofeminism
-a
theory
that
rests
on
the
basic
principal
that
patriarchial
are
harmful to women, children, and other living things. Often drawn between society's
treatment of the environment, or resources and its treatment of women. In resisting
culture, eco-feminists believe they are also resisting plundering destroying the Earth.
They feel that the patriarchal philosophy the need to dominate and control unruly
females and the unruly (nature and the earth). Ecofeminism states patriarchal society
is relatively new, something developed over the last, 2000 years or so and that the
matriarchal society was the first society. This matriarchal society, women were the
center of society and people Goddesses. This is known as the "Feminist Eden", time in
history where women were the center of society. Eisler's book, The Chalice and the
Blade,
is
often
considered
the
"bible"
of
ecofeminism.
Other
books
reflecting the
theories of ecofeminism are: God was a Woman, by Marija Gimbuta and The Creation of
Patriarchy Gerda Lerner.
4. Femme Feminism - a term for the type of feminism the National Organization of
Women represents. This theory is based on the notion that in order for men and women to
be equal, women should be granted special privileges and should not participate in
feminism..
5. Feminazi- the term was "invented" by the radio/tv host Rush Limbaugh. Defines a
feminazi as a feminist who is trying to produce as many abortions possible. Hence the
term "nazi" - he sees them as to rid the world of a particular group of people (fetuses).
329
6. Individualist, or Libertarian Feminism - this theory of feminism is based upon
individualist
or
libertarian
(minimum
government
or
anarcho-capitalist)
philosophies.
The primary focus is autonomy, rights, liberty, independence and diversity.
7. Moderate Feminism- a branch of feminism tends to be populated mostly by younger women.
Women who have not directly experienced discrimination. They tend to question the
need for further effort, and do not think that feminism is any longer viable and in
fact rather embarrassing (it's thought that this is the group most likely to espouse
feminist and thoughts while denying being "feminist").
8. Radical Feminism - this theory of feminism is the breeding ground for many of the
ideas arising from a system. Radical as universally accepted as it was then and no
longer serves solely define the term, "feminism". This group views the oppression of
as the most fundamental form of oppression, one that cuts across of race, culture, and
economic classes. This is a movement on social change, change of rather revolutionary
proportions. In fact, Radical feminism questions why women must adopt certain roles
based on their biology, just as it questions why men adopt certain other roles on theirs. Radical
feminism
attempts
to
draw
lines
between
determined
behavior
and
culturally-determined behavior in order to free both men and women as much as possible
from their previous gender roles.
9. Separatists - are often wrongly depicted as lesbians, are the feminists who advocate
separation from men; sometimes total or partial. Women who organize women-only events.
The core idea is that "separating" (by various means) from men enables to see themselves
in a different context. Many feminists, whether or not separatist, think this is a
necessary "first step", by which mean a temporary separation for personal growth ,
330
not a permanent. It is equally inaccurate to consider all lesbians as separatist. It is
true that they do not interact with men for sexual fulfillment, is not true that they
therefore automatically cut all interaction with men.
331
II)- Definitions
The confusion of differing interpretations of certain concepts basic to feminist thought
reflects, with considerable accuracy, the state of feminist thought. The rebellion against women’s
intellectual marginality is occurring with the force of spring floods, breaking out of rock and ground
in different places and in a great variety of courses. It is too soon to expect unanimity or even a
common vocabulary and, I suspect, we may never attain it, any more than ail men have learned to
speak in a language comprehensible to one another. Still, ever so often a concept, a definition, a
particular term attains acceptance and wider currency. Such new language becomes a token, an
indicator of changed consciousness and new thinking. So we must use the language of the patriarchs,
even as we think our way out of patriarchy. But that language is also our language, women’s
language, as the civilization, although patriarchal, is also ours. We must reclaim h, transform it,
recreate it and in the doing transform thought and practice so as to create a new, a common, and
gender-free language.
For the time being, paying attention to the words we use and how we use them is a way of
taking our thought seriously. Which means, it is an essential beginning.
For Gerder Lerne’s purposes three concepts have been particularly difficult to define and
properly name:
(1) that concept describing the historical situation of women
(2) that describing various forms of women’s autonomous strivings
(3) that describing the goal of women’s strivings.
What word describes women’s historical position in society?
332
 Oppression of women is the term commonly used by women writers and thinkers and by feminists.
The term “oppression,” meaning forceful subordination, has been used to describe the subject
condition of individuals and of groups, as in “class oppression” or “racial oppression.” The term
inadequately describes paternalistic dominance, which, while it has oppressive aspects, also involves
a set of mutual obligations and is frequently not perceived as oppressive. The term “oppression of
women” inevitably conjures up comparison with the other oppressed groups and leads one to think in
terms of comparing the various degrees of oppression as though one were dealing with similar
groups. Are Blacks, female and male, more oppressed than white women? Is the oppression of
colonials in any way comparable to that experienced by middle-class suburban housewives? Such
questions are misleading and irrelevant. The differences in the status of women and that of members
of oppressed minority groups, or even majority groups such as “the colonized,” are so essential that it
is inappropriate to use the same term to describe sex/gender relations of men and women over five
millennia cannot be ascribed to a simple single cause—the greed for power of men. It is therefore
better to use fairly value-free terms in order to enable us to describe the various and varied
sex/gender relations, which were constructed by both men and women in different times and different
places.
The use of the word deprivation has the advantage over both of the other terms of being
objective, but it has the disadvantage of masking and hiding the existence of power relations.
Deprivation is the observed absence of prerogatives and privileges. It focuses attention on that which
is denied, not on those who do the denying. Deprivation can be caused by a single individual, groups
of people, institutions, natural conditions and disasters, ill health, and many other causes.
When one conceptualizes women as being central, not marginal, to the history of humankind,
it becomes obvious that ah three words describe women at some period of history and in some places
333
or groups. It is also obvious that each word is appropriate to specific aspects of women’s status at a
given time or place. Thus, men and women on the American western frontier were deprived of
adequate health care and educational opportunities owing to frontier conditions. American women in
the urban Northeast before the Civil War can be described as being oppressed, in that they were
denied legal rights such as the ballot, and sexual freedom, such as the right to control their
reproduction. Discriminatory practices in employment and in education constitute oppression, since
such restrictions, at the time, were enforced in order to benefit specific groups of men, such as their
employers and male professionals. Women were deprived economically, by being channelled into
sex-segregated employment. Married women can be said to have been subordinate to men in their
legal rights and their property rights. Women in general were subordinate to men in voluntary
associations and in institutions, such as in the churches. On the other hand, middle-class women of
that period were increasingly dominant within the family, owing to the separation of male and female
“spheres.” The key to understanding the complexity of their situation is that increased domestic
autonomy took place within a societal structure which restricted and deprived women in various
ways.
The effort to affix one descriptive label to all the different aspects of women’s situation has
confused the interpretation of Women’s History. It is impossible, and no one has attempted, to
describe the status of “men” during any given period of history in one appropriate word. It is no more
possible to do so for women. The status of women as opposed to that of men at any given time and
place must be closely differentiated as to its specific aspects and its relation to different social
structures. Therefore, a variety of appropriate terms must be used in order to highlight these
differences, which is the practice I have followed throughout.
What is the appropriate word to describe the strivings or the discontent of women?
334
Feminism is the term commonly and quite indiscriminately used. Some of the currently used
definitions are: (a) a doctrine advocating social and political rights for women equal to those of men;
(b) an organized movement for the attainment of these rights; (c) the assertion of the claims of
women as a group and the body of theory women have created; (d) belief in the necessity of largescale social change in order to increase the power of women. Most persons using the term incorporate
ail the definitions from (a) to (c), but the necessity for basic social change in the system to which
women demand equal access is not necessarily accepted by feminists.
She has long argued the need for a more disciplined definition of the term. She then called
attention to the useful distinction between “woman’s rights” and the concept “woman’s
emancipation.”
 Woman’s rights movement means a movement concerned with winning for women equality with
men in all aspects of society and giving them access to ail rights and opportunities enjoyed by men in
the institutions of that society. Thus, the women’s rights movement is akin to the civil rights
movement in wanting equal participation for women in the status quo, essentially a reformist goal.
The nineteenth-century woman’s rights and suffrage movement is an example of this kind.
Freedom from oppressive restrictions imposed by sex means freedom from biological and
societal restrictions. Self-determination means being free to decide one’s own destiny; being free to
define one’s social role; having the freedom to make decisions concerning one’s body. Autonomy
means earning one’s own status, not being born into it or marrying it; it means financial
independence; freedom to choose one’s lifestyle and sexual preference-all of which implies a radical
transformation of existing institutions, values, and theories.
335
 Feminism can include both positions, and twentieth century feminism generally has done so, but I
believe for greater accuracy we would do well to distinguish between woman’s rights
feminism and women’s emancipation feminism. The striving for women’s emancipation predates the
woman’s rights movement. It is not always a movement for it can be a level of consciousness a
stance, an attitude, as well as the basis for organized effort. Women’s emancipation has, of course,
nowhere been reached as yet, while women in various places have won many rights. By using the
two definitions instead of the one, we can in historical studies distinguish more sharply the level of
consciousness and the goals of the women we are studying.
 Emancipation has a specific historical derivation from Roman civil law—e + manus + capere—
to come out from under the hand of, to free from paternalistic dominance—which fits the situation of
women with far greater precision than does “liberation.” She, therefore, prefers the word
“emancipation.”
She tries to follow the practice of using woman’s rights or women’s emancipation whenever
appropriate and confine my use of the word feminism to those occasions when both levels of
consciousness and activity are evident.
What word describes the goal of women’s strivings?
 Woman’s liberation is the commonly used term. My objections to the use of this term are the same
as to the use of “oppression”.
The term conjures up political liberation movements of other groups, such as colonials and racial
minorities. It implies victimization and a subjective consciousness in a group striving to correct a
wrong. While the latter concept certainly needs to be included in any adequate definition, the former
should be avoided.
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It is obvious from this discussion that the terms one uses depend largely on how he/she
defines women-as-a group. What are women, over and above being half of every human population?
Women are a Sex. Women are a separate group owing to their biological distinctiveness. The
merit of using the term is that it clearly defines women, not as a subgroup or a minority group, but as
half of the whole. Men are the only other sex. Obviously, we are here not referring to sexual activity,
but to a biological given. Persons belonging to either sex are capable and can be grouped according
to a broader variety of sexual preferences and activities.
Gender is the cultural definition of behavior defined as appropriate to the sexes in a given
society at a given time. Gender is a set of cultural roles. It is a costume, a mask, a straitjacket in
which men and women dance their unequal dance. Unfortunately, the term is used both in academic
discourse and in the media as interchangeable with “sex.” In fact, its widespread public use probably
is owing to it sounding a bit more “refined” than the plain word “sex” with its “nasty” connotations.
Such usage is unfortunate, because it hides and mystifies the difference between the biological
given—sex—and the culturally created—gender. Feminists above ail others should want to point up
that difference and should therefore be careful to use the appropriate words.
 Sex-gender system is a very useful term, introduced by the anthropologist Gayle Rubin, which has
found wide currency among feminists. It refers to the institutionalized system which allots resources,
property, and privileges to persons according to culturally defined gender roles. Thus, it is sex which
determines that women should be child-bearers, it is the sex-gender system which assures that they
should be child-bearers.
What word describes the system under which women have lived since the dawn of
civilization and are living now?
337
The problem with the word patriarchy, which most feminists use, is that it has a narrow,
traditional meaning—not necessarily the one feminists give it. In its narrow meaning, patriarchy
refers to the system, historically derived from Greek and Roman law, in which the male head of the
household had absolute legal and economic power over his dependent female and male family
members. People using the term that way often imply a limited historicity for it: patriarchy began in
classical antiquity and ended in the nineteenth century with the granting of civil nights to women and
married women in particular.
This usage is troublesome because it distorts historical reality. The patriarchal dominance of
male family heads over their kin is much older than classical antiquity; it begins in the third
millennium B.C. and is well established at the time of the writing of the Hebrew Bible. Further, it can
be argued that in the nineteenth century male dominance in the family simply takes new forms and is
not ended. Thus, the narrow definition of the term “patriarchy” tends to foreclose accurate definition
arid analysis of its continued presence in today’s world.
 Patriarchy in its wider definition means the manifestation and institutionalization of male dominance
over women and children in the family and the extension of male dominance over women in society
in general. h implies that men hold power in all the important institutions of society and that women
are deprived of access to such power. It does not imply that women are either totally powerless or
totally deprived of rights, influence, and resources. One of the most challenging tasks of Women’s
History is to trace with precision the various forms and modes in which patriarchy appears
historically, the shifts and changes in its structure and function, and the adaptations it makes to
female pressure and demands.
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If patriarchy describes the institutionalized system of male dominance, paternalism describes
a particular mode, a subset of patriarchal relations.
 Paternalism, or more accurately Paternalistic Dominance, describes the relationship of a dominant
group, considered superior, to a subordinate group, considered inferior, in which the dominance is
mitigated by mutual obligations and reciprocal rights. The dominated exchange submission for
protection, unpaid labor for maintenance. In its historical origins, the concept comes from family
relations as they developed under patriarchy, in which the father held absolute power over all the
members of his household. In exchange, he owed them the obligation of economic support and
protection. The same relationship occurs in some systems of slavery; it can occur in economic
relations, such as the padrone system of southern Italy or the system used in some contemporary
Japanese industries. As applied to familial relations, it should be noted that responsibilities and
obligations are not equally distributed among those to be protected: the male children’s subordination
to the father’s dominance is temporary; it lasts until they themselves become heads of households.
The subordination of female children and of wives is lifelong. Daughters can escape h only if they
place themselves as wives under the dominance/protection of another man. The basis of
“paternalism” is an unwritten contract for exchange: economic support and protection given by the
male for subordination in all matters, sexual service and unpaid domestic service given by the female.
 Sexism defines the ideology of male supremacy, of male superiority and of beliefs that support and
sustain it. Sexism and patriarchy mutually reinforce one another. Clearly, sexism can exist in
societies where institutionalized patriarchy has been abolished. An example would be socialist
countries with constitutions guaranteeing women absolute equality in public life but in which social
and familial relations are nevertheless sexist. The question whether patriarchy can exist, even when
private property is abolished, is one currently debated by and dividing Marxists and feminists. I tend
to think that wherever the patriarchal family exists, there is patriarchy constantly being reborn, even
339
when in other parts of society patriarchal relations have been abolished. However one may think
about this, the fact is that, as long as sexism as an ideology exists, patriarchal relations can easily be
re-established, even when legal changes have occurred to outlaw them. We know that civil rights
legislation has been ineffective, as long as racist beliefs have flourished. So with sexism.
Sexism stands in the same relation to paternalism as racism does to slavery. Both ideologies
enabled the dominant to convince themselves that they were extending paternalistic benevolence to
creatures inferior and weaker than themselves. But here the parallel ends, for slaves were driven w
group solidarity by racism, while women were separated from one another by sexism.
The slave saw, in his world, other kinds of hierarchy and inequality: that of white men inferior
in rank and class to his master; that of white women inferior to white men. The slave experienced his
oppression as one kind within a system of hierarchy. Slaves could see clearly that their condition was
owing to the exploitation of their race. Thus race, the factor on which oppression was based, became
also the force unifying the oppressed.
For the maintenance of paternalism (and slavery) it is essential to convince subordinates that
their protector is the only authority capable of fulfilling their needs. It is therefore in the interest of
the master to keep the slave in ignorance of his past and of future alternatives. But slaves kept alive
an oral tradition—a body of myth, folklore, and history—which spoke of a time prior to their
enslavement and defined a previous time of freedom. This offered an alternative to their present state.
Slaves knew that their people had not always been slaves and that others like them were free. This
knowledge of the past, their separate cultural tradition, the power of their religion and their group
solidarity enabled slaves to resist oppression and secure the reciprocity of rights implicit in their
status.
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Eugene Genovese, in his superb study of slave culture, shows how paternalism, while it
softened the harshest features of the system, also tended to weaken the individual’s ability to see the
system in political terms. He says: “It was not that the slaves did not act like men. Rather, it was that
they could not grasp their collective strength as people and act like political men.’’ That they could
not become conscious of their collective strength was owing to paternalism.
This description has great significance for an analysis of the position of women, since their
subordination has been primarily expressed in the form of paternalistic dominance within the
structure of the family. This structural condition made any development of female solidarity and
group cohesiveness extremely difficult. In general we can observe that women deprived of group
support and of an accurate knowledge of the past history of women experienced the full and
devastating impact of cultural modelling through sexist ideology, as expressed in religion, law, and
myth.
On the other hand it was easier for women to maintain a sense of self-worth, because they
observably shared the world and its tasks with men. Certainly this was so in pre-industrial society,
when the complementarily of men and women’s economic efforts was clearly visible. It was more
difficult to maintain a sense of self-worth in industrial society, because of the complexity of the
technological world in which men operated and because of the commodity nature of ail market
transactions, from which women as housewives were largely excluded. It is no accident that,
worldwide, feminist movements begin only after industrialization.
The ground out of which such movements develop is woman’s culture, yet another concept
that deserves definition.
 Woman’s Culture is the ground upon which women stand in their resistance to patriarchal
domination and their assertion of their own creativity in shaping society. The term implies an
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assertion of equality and an awareness of sisterhood. Woman’s culture frequently takes the form of
redefinition of the goals and strategies of mass movements in terms women deem appropriate. In the
nineteenth century United States woman’s culture led to a self -conscious definition of the moral
superiority of women as a rationale for their enfranchisement.
The term has also been used in its anthropological sense to encompass the familial and
friendship networks of women, their affective ties, their rituals. It is important to understand that
woman’s culture is never a subculture. It would hardly be appropriate to de- fine the culture of half of
humanity as a subculture. Women live their social existence within the general culture. Whenever
they are confined by patriarchal restraint or segregation into separateness (which always has
subordination as its purpose), they transform this restraint into complementarily and redefine it. Thus,
women live a duality—as members of the general culture and as partakers of woman’s culture.
When historical conditions are right and women have both the social space and the social
experience in which to ground their new understanding, feminist consciousness develops.
Historically, this takes place in distinct stages: (1) the awareness of a wrong; (2) the development of a
sense of sisterhood; (3) the autonomous definition by women of their goals and strategies for
changing their condition; and (4) the development of an alternate vision of the future.
The recognition of a wrong becomes political when women realize that it is shared with other
women. In order to remedy this collective wrong, women organize in political, economic, and social
life. The movements they organize inevitably run into resistance, which forces the women to draw on
their own resources and strength. In the process, they develop a sense of sisterhood. This process also
leads to new forms of woman’s culture, forced upon women by the resistance they encounter, such as
sex-segregated or separatist institutions or modes of living. Based on such experiences, women begin
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to define their own demands and to develop theory. At a certain level, women make the shift from
androcentricity, in which they have been schooled, to “woman-centeredness.” In the field of
scholarship, Women’s Studies seek to find a new framework of interpretation from within women’s
historical culture, leading to their emancipation.
It is only through the discovery and acknowledgment of their roots, their past, their history,
that women, like other groups, become enabled to project an alternate future. The new vision of
women demands that women be placed at the center, not only of events, where we have always been,
but of the thinking work of the world. Women are demanding, as men did during the Renaissance,
the right to define, the right to decide.
Taken from:
Gerda Lerner’s The Creation of Patriarchy (1986: 231-243)
III) - She: A History of Adventure
She, subtitled A History of Adventure, is a novel by Henry Rider Haggard, first serialized in
The Graphic magazine from October 1886 to January 1887. She is one of the classics of imaginative
literature, and with over 83 million copies sold in 44 different languages one of the best-selling books
of all time. She was extraordinarily popular upon its release and has never been out of print since it
was first published. According to literary historian Andrew M. Stauffer, "She has always been Rider
Haggard's most popular and influential novel, challenged only by King Solomon's Mines in this
regard".
The story is a first person narrative that follows the journey of Horace Holly and his ward Leo
Vincey to a lost kingdom in the African interior. There, they encounter a primitive race of natives and
a mysterious white queen, Ayesha, who reigns in terror as "She" or "She-who-must-be-obeyed". In
this work, Rider Haggard developed the conventions of the Lost World sub-genre, which many later
authors emulated.[1]
343
She is placed firmly in the imperialist literature of nineteenth-century England, and bound up
with Rider Haggard's own experiences in South Africa and British colonialism. The story also
expounds a number of racial and evolutionary preconceptions of the late-Victorians, especially
notions of degeneration and racial decline prominent during the end of the century. In the figure of
She, the narrative came to famously explore themes of female authority and feminine behaviour and
has received praise and criticism alike for its gendered representation of womanhood.
A Cambridge professor, Horace Holly, and his ward, Leo Vincey, together with their servant,
Job, travel to Africa, following instructions on the "Sherd of Amenartas" left to Leo by his father.
They hire an Arabic packman, Mahomed, before journeying into an unexplored part of the African
interior, where they discover the lost kingdom of Kôr, inhabited by the primitive Amahagger people.
The adventurers learn that the natives are ruled by a fearsome white queen, who is worshiped as
"Hiya" or "She-who-must-be-obeyed". The white-skinned interlopers are a source of great interest to
the Amahagger, who have been forewarned by She of their coming. The chief elder of one of the
Amahagger tribes, Billali, takes charge of the three men, introducing them to the ways of his people.
One of the Amahagger maidens, Ustane, takes a liking to Leo and during a tribal feast sings lovingly
to him. However, Billali informs Holly that he has to depart and report the arrival of the White men
to She. In his absence, some of the Amahagger become restless and determine to eat the white-men
as part of a ritual "hotpot". There is a scuffle; Mahomed is killed in the fray and Leo gravely
wounded, but the three Englishmen are saved when Billali returns and declares that they are under
the protection of She. However, Leo's injuries worsen and though he is tended by Ustane, he
approaches death.
They are taken to the home of She, which lies under a dormant volcano among a series of
cavernous tombs. There, Holly is presented to the mysterious queen, a white sorceress named
Ayesha, whose beauty is so great that it enchants any man who beholds it. She, who is veiled and lies
344
behind a partition, warns Holly that the power of her splendour arouses both desire and fear, but he is
dubious. When she shows herself, however, Holly is enraptured and prostrates himself before her. He
learns that She has lived in the realm of Kôr for over two millennia, awaiting the reincarnated return
of her lover, Kallikrates (whom she had accidently slain in a fit of jealous rage). After she veils
herself again, Holly remembers Leo and begs Ayesha to visit his ward. She agrees, but is startled
upon seeing Leo, believing him to be the reincarnation of Kallikrates that she has so long awaited.
She heals Leo, but becomes angry at the attentions paid him by the girl, Ustane. The latter is
ordered to leave the home of She-who-must-be-obeyed but refuses, and is eventually struck down by
She.
the murder of their friend, Holly and Leo cannot free themselves from the power of She's beauty.
They remain among the tombs as Leo recovers his strength, and She lectures Holly on the ancient
history of Kôr. In the climax of the novel, Ayesha takes the two men to see the pillar of fire, passing
through the ruined city of Kôr. She is determined that Leo should bathe in the fire so he may become
immortal and remain with her forever. Navigating through a perilous cave, they come to a great
cavern, but at the last Leo doubts the safety of entering the flame, and to allay his fears She steps into
the Spirit of Life. However, with this second immersion she begins reverting to her true age,
withering away in the fire. The sight is so shocking that Job dies in fright. However, before dying she
tells Leo, "I die not. I shall come again."
Taken from: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/She_(novel)#Footnotes
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Annex 3
1) - Thursday, July 19, 2012 8:32 PM
From: "Cynthia davis" <[email protected]>
To: [email protected]
In the culture I live in the US discrimination against women is looked upon negatively. Over the past
4 decades women's rights have been in the forefront of many issues including, job opportunities,
equality in the workplace and in the home. More women are now seen running for political office
although the US has yet to elect a female president we have females who have held important roles
like Secretary of State, Speaker of the House State senators and Governors. Sexual assault and even
discrimination in the work place is a crime. Sexual harassment and rape may go unreported in many
cases when women fear that they will be exposed and lose their job or reputation. There are still
many issues with regard to the legal system and how issues of rape and harassment are handled. It is
difficult to keep issues out of the public eye and many women may not want to go through the long
legal process to prosecute and may not have the money to do so. The systems are in place, however
to prosecute against abuse of women. Women are becoming more and more respected as CEO's of
large companies and entrepreneurs. Most of these women are coming from a higher socio economic
segment of society where they have been able to afford to go to University, get prestigious
internships and job offers. Lower socio economic women are not given the same opportunities so you
may not see as many minorities in these higher level positions owing to inability to finance attending
a 4 year University. Companies that offer women these positions are looked upon as progressive.
Women who want to reach a higher level in business or professional career still struggle with the 2career challenge of work and family. Women are still expected in most cases to be the ones to care
for the family and children. Many companies set up day cares and flex hours to allow for women to
work and have a family but I find most women have to give up "climbing the corporate ladder"
346
unless they can afford to have daycare and make their career a priority over child rearing. Although
there have been great advances for women in the past few decades, women still struggle for equal
pay and opportunity in many cases. Women do have the freedom to vote, voice their opinion,
practice any religion and speak up for their rights in the US. Women in abused relationships still
struggle with getting out of these because of lack of financial ability to hire lawyers and prosecute.
They also may fear retaliation from the abusive spouse. There are many organizations emerging in
the US to protect women from abuse and offer support.
Cynthia Davis , Usa
www.Cynthiadesigns.com
www.Wallovers.com
www.outofmystudio.wordpress.com
www.HopeForAriang.org
2)- Elizabeth Betts
Wilmington USA
Being a Woman
While there are multiple factors involved in women’s role within American society, I feel the
societal view of gender roles is one of most important.
It is difficult being a woman in today’s American society. While our social status and rights have
expanded, we still struggle to be seen as equal. While America prides itself on equality, women did
not receive the vote until the 1920’s and we weren’t completely welcomed into the workplace until
the 1970s and 80s. We are expected to work the same hours but get paid less for doing the same job.
On average, women in America are paid .77 to every $1 a man earns. One excuse used for pay
discrepancies is women take more time off to have children or for family obligations.
incorrectly assumes that EVERY woman in America intends to marry and have children.
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This
Many slogans such as “having it all” and “working mom” illustrate the imbalance women
endure in today’s society. We are “allowed” to work and earn income but only if household duties
are not affected. Many women struggle today to achieve a balance between work and home that men
do not. Women are still considered the primary caregivers within our society and do 80% of the
housework, while maintaining a career. Some have referred to this as the “second shift” where
women are expected to work outside the home and then come home and take of the children. A
societal shift in the view of gender roles is the only way to alleviate the anxiety and pressure many
woman feel about their roles and accomplishments within the public and private spheres.
Elizabeth Betts
Wilmington USA
3)- Şafak Duraçe
26 ans, Turque, vivant en Espagne
(the 06th of July, 2012)
1) I think the situation of women in Turkey is going worse everyday. The pressure on women
is increasing everyday. The last speculations about the abortion are a very clear sign that there will be
a regression about their situation in public in these years. But there was also a noticeable reaction
towards governmental steps towards women.
Moreover when you look at the general scene'the women are always the target and the group who is
manipulated by men. The last arrangements in law in education about kuran courses, etc is a sign also
that they want generations more Conservative who internalize “the place of women is lower than
men”. Islam is always using as a tool to make pressure on women. When we compare my generation
to the older one, we see exactly that there is a regression.
348
2) for me, feminism in words not saying too much. Because i donẗ see a strong movement of
feminism in turkey. Actually i am a feminist myself but the thing is being feminist and try to live it in
turkey makes you more alone. In my opinion, feminism is being equal and express yourself in equal
conditions also. But in turkey it is not possible even if you are in a modern group (women and men
mixed).
3) Totally not, women living in Islamic countries (traditionally or officially) are not free. I am
not saying as free as men, they are not free in anyway. The regime of the country doesn't change the
situation. Women always feel the pressure coming with the religion even if you are educated in
modern schools in modern families. Many women (as far as I know) have struggles about the religion
and its pressure when they are living more free.
4) This is a very good question. I think there are some rare cases that it is different. But I think
yes, we can generalize that men see woman as a object at the end which is pathetic and very sad.
Moreover, it´s more sad that the modern men who are claiming that we are equal are doing the same
at the end of the day. They think that women should cook, take care of house, clean. And it's very
surprising that it´s not just about musulmans (Muslims). I have a male friend that who made me jokes
about honor referred to sexual relationships. Ok may be he is not acting or reacting as a typical
Turkish Guy, but I think it's disturbing to hear something about this from a men.
Şafak Duraçe
26 ans, Turque, vivant en Espagne
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4)- Deniz YILDIRIM
26 ans/ Turque, vivant en France,
(the 05th of July , 2012
1) Qu'est ce que tu penses de la situation de la femme en Turquie, du moment que tu es turque
vivant en France?
Tout d’abord, je ne pense pas qu’il y a un Etat qui a assuré l’égalité totale entre hommes et
femmes dans le monde. La situation de la femme est toujours un peu plus dure que celle de l’homme.
Quant à la situation de la femme en Turquie, c’est des moments très difficiles. Chaque jour, entre 3 et
5 femmes sont mortes à cause de la violence venant des hommes au sein de leur famille. (Soit le père,
le frère ou le mari etc.) D’autre part, le gouvernement durcit la situation des femmes en Turquie avec
des nouvelles propositions des lois au parlement. Par exemple, depuis deux mois, les députés du parti
d’AK Parti discutent la durée officielle de l’avortement. Et ils veulent diminuer cette durée. Mais au
final, ils n’ont pas touché à cette durée puisqu’il y avait des grandes manifestations en Turquie.
Voilà, il faut que la Turquie se développe sur ce sujet-là.
2) Que dit le féminisme pour toi? c'est quoi le féminisme pour toi?
A mon avis, le féminisme est le mouvement qui essaye d’assurer l’égalité entre homme et femme. Ce
terme a un sens un peu péjoratif en Turquie. En général, les hommes pensent que les femmes
essayent de prouver leur supériorité contre les hommes. Par contre, ce n’est pas cela. C’est juste le
mouvement qui essaye de renforcer la situation des femmes en face des hommes et de leur faire
accepter l’égalité entre hommes et femmes.
3) D'un point de vue religieux, penses-tu que la femme est libre et a tous ses droits?
D’un point de vue religieux, malheureusement, je ne pense pas la femme est libre, a tous ses droits.
En fait, le problème, c’est que les interprétations des livres religieux changent d’un pays à l’autre.
Même dans un pays, des hommes religieux n’ont pas une interprétation unique. Dans ce cas-là, nous
ne savons jamais si les interprètes sont bons ou non. D’autre part, ce sont majoritairement des
350
hommes qui interprètent le texte Sacré à leur guise; cependant, nous ignorons s’il y a des femmes qui
l’interprètent également tout en donnant leurs points de vue.
4) Est-ce que la femme universelle reste toujours une femme ordinaire aux yeux de l'homme?
Pour cette question, je n’ai pas une idée, en fait. Je pense que l’image de la femme change d’une
personne à l’autre. Nous ne pouvons pas faire de généralisations.
Deniz YILDIRIM
25 ans, Turque, vivant en France
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352
353
354
355
356
Annex 4
Aujourd’hui: le 02Mars 2013/ The 2nd of March, 2013
https://www.facebook.com/pages/Calixthe-Beyala-Francophonie/128416207208936?ref=ts&fref=ts

22:33
James Illison
Bonsoir Madame,
Certes j'ai une identité occidentale sur facebook, mais en réalité je suis un algérien qui s'appelle
Mohammed Seghir HALIMI, et je suis un Doctorant qui travaille en réalité sur votre œuvre – pas
toute l’œuvre.
Madame, je ne sais pas si je peux tout vous expliquer dans ce message, mais je pense que le plus
important c'est de vous dire que je défends votre thèse qui prône l'essence de la femme universelle.
On m'avait demandé si j'avais eu la chance de vous contacter ou de vous rencontrer dans un cadre
académique du moment que je suis un doctorant en France, je disais, simplement NO! Bien que j'aie
contacté votre amie la chanteuse Camerounaise Beko Saddy.
Madame, je ne sais vraiment pas si je peux éventuellement vous demander de bien vouloir me
clarifier quelques points qui me sont importants et qui font l'essence de ma réflexion.
Madame, je suis un maître assistant à l'université de « OUARGLA », en Algérie, et j'enseigne au
département d'Anglais parce que je suis un Angliciste qui a choisi de faire sa thèse de doctorat en
littérature d'expression française.
Mes coordonnées:
[email protected] (ou) [email protected]
Ma directrice de thèse en France, Grenoble est Prof CHANTAL MASSOL
Mon directeur de thèse en Algérie, Université de Batna est Prof GHOUAR OMAR
Très respectueusement

22:50
Calixthe Beyala Francophonie
Cher ami, vous pouvez me poser vos questions et je vous répondrai. A tantôt !

22:53
James Illison
je vous remercie Chère Madame, j'en suis très reconnaissant

23:19
James Illison
357
Madame,
1)- la notion de womanism émerge dans un milieu anglophone. Vous, vous êtes un écrivain
francophone, et donc comment pourriez vous m'expliquer ce que Herzberger-Fofana dans son livre:
Littérature féminine francophone d'Afrique noire: suivi d'un dictionnaire des romancières, a souligné
tout en s'appuyant sur ce que vous avez écrit dans Lettre d'une africaine à ses sœurs occidentale,
page 08)?
2)-Madame, j'ai lu presque toute l’œuvre que vous avez écrite, et j'ai remarqué votre philosophie qui
transcende la FEMME et sa valeur universelle. Donc là, il s'agit d'un féminisme universel que
Béatrice Gallimore montre dans: L'œuvre romanesque de Calixthe Beyala (p125). Pourriez-vous m'en
parler d'avantage? Parce que là je me trouve en confusion: d'un côté je remarque que vous avez une
tendance séparatiste, et d'un autre coté il y a l’aspect universaliste. Dois-je considérer qu'il y a une
evolution, chez vous, vers une forme d'universalisme?
Madame, j'espère que je ne suis pas de trop dans ce message. Je m'arrête pour cette fois. Madame, je
respire tellement vos idées, que je vous ai cherchée sur internet, et je vous ai contactée.
J’ai madame, d'autres questions que je garderai pour la prochaine fois.
Très respectueusement

23:24
James Illison
Mes coordonnées: Pour vérification et confirmation
[email protected] (ou) [email protected], (ou) [email protected]
Ma directrice de thèse en France, Grenoble est Prof CHANTAL MASSOL:
[email protected]
Mon directeur de thèse en Algérie, Université de Batna est Prof GHOUAR OMAR
[email protected]

23:45
James Illison
Madame, est ce que je peux vous poser des questions en langue Anglaise?

23:46
James Illison
• What is your position, as a feminist African writer, in postcolonial/ postmodern context, since your
creation
oscillates
between
two
aesthetic
poles:
imagination
and
reality?
• Do social order and patriarchy have an intrinsic nexus with gender in lives of women?
• Can woman’s identity be seen as a process of global social, cultural, political struggle for hegemony
among individuals?

00:01
James Illison
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Madame, je vous demande pardon, car j'ai d'autres questions.

00:02
James Illison
Comme dans la philosophie et la littérature du courant existentialiste, vous pensez que l’être humain
forme l’essence de sa vie par ses propres actions (des actions dont il est libre, et qui ne sont
prédéterminées par aucune détermination théologique, morale, ou philosophique)? Que, comme les
existentialistes, vous considérez chaque personne comme un être unique, maître de ses actes et de son
destin, ainsi que des valeurs qu’il fait le choix d’adopter?
 Calixthe Beyala Francophonie
L'universalisme prend ses racines dans le particularisme. C'est l'ensemble de ce qui peut vous
apparaître comme "séparatisme" qui constitue l'universel, chez la femme. La définition de
l'universalisme telle que proposée par l'Occident est gênante car excluant sans vraiment le dire; car il
se veut un modèle pour le reste de l'humanité. De mon point de vue il ne s'agit là qu'un d'un
particularisme qui participe de l'universel.

02:44
Calixthe Beyala Francophonie
L'être humain a le choix de rompre ou pas ce qui apparaît comme déterminisme social, théologique,
moral ou philosophique dès lors qu'il possède des outils nécessaires qui lui permettent de procéder à
cette rupture. Celle-ci pourra se caractériser par une forme d'indignation, un choix de vie différent, de
religion opposée à celle des géniteurs par exemple. Mais ne serait capable de le faire que l'être ayant
choisi la liberté à tout les prix, quitte à en payer le prix fort, à savoir le rejet, les humiliations qui en
découlent et dans certaines sociétés, la mort... Oui, chaque humain est unique, a le libre choix de sa
destinée... Mais encore faudrait-il qu'il en ait conscience!

02:59
Calixthe Beyala Francophonie
Considérez ma perception de l'universel comme un cercle et non comme des lignes droites qui
peuvent se superposer, s'entrecroiser et vous comprendrez. Imaginez que chaque point du cercle est
une femme: donc elle forme une totalité. Mais cela n'inclut pas que tous les arcs du cercle (les
femmes) ont la même distance qui les sépare entre elles, mais ont la même distance par rapport au
centre. Imaginez aussi si un point du cercle se rompait, le cercle n'existerait plus.
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