Orality, Gender and
Sexuality in Elechi Amadi’s The Concubine
Dr. Elham Hossain
Associate
Professor of English
Dhaka
City College
Dhaka, Bangladesh
Abstract
Gender is not biological. It is a construction and a
society imposes it upon its members. Sexism is biological and in many
situations it is manipulated by the patriarchal power-structure which maintains
a staunch belief that women are innately inferior to men. A community’s orality
works in many ways as a repository of such patriarchal prejudice and takes up a
repressive role in objectifying women. Many myths in African orality serve as a
repository of this repressive force. Modern African literature conspicuously
emerges out of the crisis followed by colonialism and imperial enterprises of
Europe in Africa. Leaving aside the political issues related to colonial and
post-colonial situations, Elechi Amadi explores the heart of Africa and
presents an authentic rendition of traditional belief system, power-structure,
forces of nature, ethnic values, rituals, songs, myths and festivals in his The Concubine (1966). Africa represents
itself more through its orature than through its written form of literary
texts. Amadi’s first novel The Concubine
(1966) makes a powerful rendition of man’s struggle against the natural forces
inherent in orature which antithetically in the name of disciplining, exercises
hegemonic role upon man’s free will. Through the character of his female
protagonist, Amadi scrutinizes the power of the orature and exhibits how the
local myths, belief system and power-structure masculinize a society and set it
against the self-determination or free will of women. This paper seeks to delve
deeper into the antithetical power of orality both as a constructive and a
repressive force in deciding women’s role in the society.
Key words:
Orality, Resistance,
Margin, Hegemony, Power-structure, Patriarchy
The seed of modern African literature lies in its
millennium old oral literature or orature. Africa’s identity, its strength and
rendition run in parallel with its orality which provides the present day
African writers with their intellectual sustenance, background and context of
their creative task of representing Africa in literacy. An extensive and
pragmatic approach to the bulk of African literature today reveals that orality
presents Africa as “subject of intellectual and political commitment” for the
modern African writers” (Irele 16). Even African novels owe immensely to
Africa’s orality for their cultural nationalist orientation. A close
examination of the foundational and seminal writing of some African greats
reveals the interface where orality and literacy seem to be coeval
representation of African reality. Mofolo’s Chaka:
An Historical Romance (1931), Amos Tutuola’s Palm-Wine Drinkard (1952), Gabriel Okara’s The Voice (1964), Ngugi wa Thiong’o’s Matigari (1986) and Kourouma’s Les
Soleils des Independances (1968) demonstrate the juxtaposition of orality
and literacy corresponding African reality. Actually, due to its immensity of
subject-matter and impact on the natives, orality poses itself to be a grand
narrative, and a persuasive approach to it will help the readers reckon the
self of Africa because “Africa is predominantly transmitted through performance
rather than through written literature” (Lindgren 342). Ngugi wa Thiong’o has
also incorporated this belief in his book of essays Homecoming (1972). He
further believes that orality forms a collective structure that binds the periphery
with the center and creates a location of resistance to the western cultural
traditions that work as a hegemonic tool (Lindgren 340). Besides, orature can
aptly critique the socio-political power-structure. Even languages remain alive
in orature. From the perspective of African realities, orature forms the
narrative of pre-colonial African society by defining it with its ingenuity and
distinct self. In this way, orature serves as a tool to portray African reality
with the indefatigable spirit of resistance to the colonial hegemony. A huge
number of African writers derive materials from their orature to produce
counter discourse of colonialism. Chinua Achebe, Ngugi, Senghor, Okara,
Mphelele and many others have taken resort to indigenous proverbs, songs,
fables and narratology of African orature to expose the ‘self’ of Africa to the
rest of the world. Elechi Amadi also joins this rally and his The Concubine (1966), a canonical
African novel, explores the wealth of African epistemology in its orality. Its
exploration of oral elements, local myths and belief system, local people’s
knowledge of medicine and reliability on supernatural elements present an
anthropological scrutiny of indigenous African life. At the same time, its
paradoxical role as a suppressing apparatus is also dramatized through the
vicissitudes of the characters of this novel.
Though it is believed today that African literature
emerges out of its response to colonialism, only a few African writers “could
write novels in which the issue of colonialism was conspicuous by its absence”
(Gikandi 27). Elechi Amadi is one of these few writers who show that Africa can
predominantly be identified in the space of its orality. Orality obviously
works as a site of resistance as it creates the space of radical openness in
response to the oppressive boundaries. When local belief system, myths,
pantheon, rituals and performances encapsulated in orality take a repressive
role, it evokes resistance and thus, a conflict inevitably begins between the
existing power-structure and the individuals. A dialogue between these two
opposite forces can ensure juxtaposition but this process of co-existence turns
antithetical when free will drives the individuals to challenge the repressive
institutions of the society. This antithesis streams through the plot of Elechi
Amdi’s The Concubine (1966).
By choosing a female protagonist Amadi breaks the ‘cult
of male protagonist’ of African fictions. Amadi’s selection of a woman as the
protagonist of his novel coincides with the traditional role of women in
African society before the advent of the European colonialism. But this
selection suffers from a dichotomy. In the pre-colonial society women were the
integral part of power contour. Even in military and mercantile enterprises
women played instrumental roles. They contributed immensely to the security of
their territory being in the vanguard. Their rebellion against the colonial
policy of imposing tax upon the local people of Nigeria is also glaring in the
history. In this connection, James Tar Tsaaior asserts, “Women were also part
of the vanguard during the nationalist ferment in many African societies and so
formed the integral fabric of the politics of resistance against colonialism
and imperialism” (28). Throughout pre-colonial Africa women were involved in
nationalist movement. But their achievements were derogated sequestering them
by the advent of colonialism. According to Tsaaior, by introducing Victorian
cultural framework, the colonizers dislocated women out of the contours of
mainstream society and subalternised them to the periphery of the society. But
even in the pre-colonial society women’s way of life was not smooth for many
reasons. Patriarchy was one of repressive apparatuses that constituted myths
and stories about women and hindered them from their exercise of free will.
Those masculine narratives constructed in the myths and proverbs of orality
assumed repressive role upon women.
Ihuoma, a widow is the protagonist of The Concubine. She sways between the
pre-colonial and the colonial power-structures of African society. The
supernatural power associated with her prenatal integration with the Sea-King
befits her status in the pre-colonial Nigerian society which recognized a
woman’s role in the main stream of the society. But after losing her husband
Emenike whose death is also wrapped in mystery, Ihuoma’s, reducing into a
concubine in the eyes of the society, determines her status in the colonial
social framework. Amadi employs orature as a trope to interpret the
power-structure of the pre-colonial society in which myths, folktales and
orature were operated as a hegemonic force which was no less oppressive than
colonialism regarding their role of
branding, naming and above all, sequestering the individuals in the
margin of the society. This margin tends to become a subversive homeplace which
in the form of patriarchal domination makes an effort to degrade Ihuoma to the
derogatory status of a concubine. Tsaaior insightfully calls it ‘an
exclusionary textual practice’ (32). Women’s voice is silenced with the male
guttural and falsetto voice with a view to leading them to subordination and
loyalty to men. This politics against women may be termed as exclusionary
politics which tends to lead women to the fringe or periphery of
power-structure. Tsaaior, in this connection, asserts:
…the exclusionary politics against women in the male
canon is ideologically imperative because totalizing and transcendental forms
of episteme manufactured, packaged and deployed from the rich armoury of
dominant ideologies see the nation as a dutiful, hardworking and nurturing
mother. (33)
The male members of Ihuoma’s society practices this
exclusionary politics and deploy the myth of Sea-King as a tool for the
implementation of this design. In accordance with the myth, like a typical
dominating husband stereotyped in the framework of patriarchal society, the
Sea-King who was Ihuoma’s husband in the spirit-world was very angry with her
as she showed a disposition of enjoying liberty and free-will. He might have
destroyed her if he did not have enough love for her. However, he let her come
to the mundane world but nobody could escape his wrath. Due to his wrath,
Ihuoma now in the mundane world leads the life of a widow, a concubine. The
village dibia Anyika digs out and interprets the myth:
‘Listen’, the dibia began. ‘Ihuoma belongs to the sea,
when she was in the spirit world; she was wife of the Sea-King, the ruling
spirit of the sea. Again the advice of her husband she sought the company of human
beings and was incarnated. The Sea-King was very angry but because he loved her
best of all his wives he did not destroy her immediately she was born. He
decided to humour her and let her live out her normal earthly span and come
back to him. However, because of his great love for her he is terribly jealous
and tries to destroy any man who makes love to her. (195)
Anyika’s myth is remarkable for its role of stereotyping
in relation to sexism and this discourse or the narrative of the Sea-King and
the fantasy tales like this one usually comes from African oral art which “may
exhort people to demonstrate strength, prowess and courage and yet lull others
into humility and silence before dominant power” (Mlama 23). Oral art in any
community enjoys the power of exercising pervasive impact on both the rulers
and the ruled, though not equally. Similarly, the story of prenatal existence
of Ihuoma that the village dibia Anyika narrates rules over the villagers.
Ekume’s father Wigwe and mother Adaku’s conscience is controlled by the belief
system represented by the folk belief and tales. Accordingly, they arrange all
the rituals directed by another dibia Agaturumbe to evade the wrath of the
Sea-King and implement the marriage between Ihuoma and their son Ekume. True,
the strength and prowess of the indigenous myths and narratives shape and
define the power-structure of the society and it is next to impossible for
anybody to break through this system. Ihuoma, Ekume, Wigwe, Adaku and Madume
cannot stand against it because they are merely individuals and any system that
runs in parallel with the tradition and belief-system of the society assumes
the impetus of an institution, fortified and acknowledged by the community. As
such, they are bound to comply with the stories about Ihuoma’s prenatal
condition constructed by Anyika and Agaturumbe who represent hierarchical
organization of the society for his role of conveying the myths from one
generation to another generation and thus, recognizing their invincible
hegemony.
In this connection, it appears conspicuous that orality
which accommodates the hierarchal organizations also provides the pedagogical
framework to the African cultural identity and it is not just a phenomenon but
an instrument that contributes immensely to the aesthetics of African life.
Also, it is “a dynamic discourse about society and about the relationship
between individuals, groups and classes in society” (Furniss 1). Thus, orality
serves to the individuals as a tool with which he can explore the repository of
knowledge about the concerned society and its psychology. For example, the myth
of the Sea-King articulates the patriarchy of the African society and its
advocacy by Anyika and Agaturumbe advocates the power-structure based on
patriarchy which, not nature, determines gender roles. So, it is irrefutable
when Ato Quayson asserts, “Orality in Africa is not just a mode of speech
different from writing, but undergirds an entire way of life” (159). It works
as a form of interaction between people and their society and it is one of the
most powerful ingredients of culture which can be used to explain the habits
such as, “why people respect old age, have many children, take care of their
children, work hard, take polygamy and support male dominance” (Falola 50). It
defines even intergenerational links shaped in the framework of patriarchy
which never allows anybody to violate the traditional gender roles. Patriarchal
belief system promulgates that “…assertiveness in a woman is unattractive, even
unnatural…” (Tyson 142). Thus, African orality imbibed in the essence of gender
and sexism promulgates patriarchal dominance upon women and places men in the
locus of the society and leads women to the periphery with designations that
they are less rational, less intelligent, and less courageous and for their
protection they must depend on men. In this novel, Ihuoma’s fate is decided by
the Sea-King, a masculine god, lying in the centre of patriarchy. And
patriarchal discourse advocates that,
… women who adhere to traditional roles are considered
“good girls”. They are put on pedestals and idealized
as pure, angelic creatures whose sense of self consists mainly or entirely of
their usefulness to their husbands, fathers, or brothers. In contrast, women
who violate traditional gender roles are thought of as “bad girls,” especially
if they violate the rules of sexual conduct for patriarchal women… (Tyson 142).
This hegemonic patriarchy sustains its self-righteousness
from the local myths and legends which promote the cult of the peripheral roles
of women.
Besides, Amadi’s treatment of orality or folktales
directs the readers’ attention the Third World feminism. In a First World
country a woman usually fights for political rights and gender equality. On the
other hand, in a Third World country like Nigeria or Kenya or any other African
country, a local woman has to fight myths, legends, folktales and the
belief-system which promote patriarchy. When a woman in a Third World country
goes out of her home she discovers herself in a different world, a masculine world.
Her body in this world is treated as a site in which oppression is inflicted to
suppress her voice. Sexual violence and dowry related harassment are inflicted
upon this site, that is, body with a view to transforming her into a voiceless
Other. Current myths and narratives, even literature, such as epic poems also
depict women as a subjugated self, an object, not a subject. So, when a woman
develops her language and voice for gender equality in a Third World country,
she has to struggle ceaselessly to produce a counter narrative against the
existing masculine narratives and discourses. It is undoubtedly a mammoth task
for her to shift this masculine paradigm. Ihuoma’s futile attempt of overcoming
the stereotype of concubine can be treated as one of the sites in which she,
like Third World women, restlessly
wrestles to challenge these hegemonic narratives and discourses of the
patriarchal society.
The power of these narratives and discourses of
patriarchy emanates from the people’s subjugation to them. In the socio-ethical
backdrop of African rural life myths, legends and chronicles are usually looked
upon as true in relation with the social realities. Besides, the atmosphere of
magic realism that has been created by the juxtaposition of natural and supernatural
elements on the same backdrop impacts the life of the local people extensively
and intensively. For example, Ihuoma’s husband died of the fatal wound received
from Madume in a combat with him. But the dibia of the village interprets this
natural incident with an air of supernatural chronicles of the wrath of the
Sea-King who was Ihuoma’s husband in the prenatal spirit world. The myths, like
that of the Sea-King, are an inseparable part of African orality and it
underpins the socio-ethnic structure of African life. Besides, local proverbs
work as a powerful narrative that criticizes, guides and controls the
individuals’ life and their cultural values. For example, Madume’s rigorous
claim for the piece of land which belongs of Emenike, Ihuoma’s husband, is
condemned and Chima warns him with reference to a popular proverb that his
inconsiderate persistence may turn him into a man who is “Like the hunter who
was never satisfied with antelopes, he might be obliged to carry an elephant
home one day and collapse under the weight” (16). It is one of the examples
through which Amadi explores the dominant role of local orality upon the
individuals and their cultural values.
Drawing the
readers’ attention to the status of women in the indigenous African society and
providing a subject-matter orality contributes to the domestication of the
novel-form and Amadi has employed it in his novel with a view to covering the
space of local cultural realities. Regarding the contribution of orality to the
technical aspects, it is undeniable that domestication of African novel is done
through its exploration of oral forms of narratives and folkloric forms. In
this connection, it is worth mentioning that ‘novel’ is not originally an
African literary genre and it comes into Africa hand in hand with colonialism
which also brings orthography and organized form of literacy to Africa. A
contrapuntal study reveals that orality is both a strength and weakness of
Africa. It underpins the diverse culture of different indigenous groups
scattered all over Africa, and at the same time it provides European hegemony a
congenial space to flourish over years due to the lack of alphabet of local
languages. As such, colonialism names Africa as an ‘Oral other’ taking the
advantage of its lack of systematically written form of literature. The
colonial discourse of modernity manifests itself ‘in terms of racial
superiority’ which ultimately invigorates them to deploy different aspects of
colonial modernity, such as, education or literacy, colonial medicine, census,
judiciary and other aspects of life to translate the Africans into colonial
subjects or other (Alam 16). In response to this colonial enterprise of
transforming the natives into other, the Africans do not sit idle. Africa
advances in various sectors for the domestication of its identity. As a part of
this attempt, a huge number of African novels emerge out of the spectrum of the
elements or orality.
True, The Concubine
(1966) picks up a good number of elements from African orality and tends to
domesticate African novels not in form but in subject-matter. The same task is
accomplished by Chinua Achebe in his Things
Fall Apart (1958) and Arrow of God (1964)
and Ngugi’s The River Between (1965)
and A Grain of Wheat (1967) to
domesticate African novels against the backdrop of colonial modernity. In The Voice (1964)
Okara executes the same task of domesticating African novels. After examining
its syntax and other grammatical whereabouts, Elechi Amadi defines Okara’s
English as ‘Nigerian English’ (50). Amadi himself derives proverbs, myths,
idioms, characters and folktales from the oral aesthetics of Africa and
exhibits that African novels are “a fusion of two traditions, at once Western
in its appropriation of the formalized and written structure of the West and
African forms of orality” (Tsaaior 5-6). The form is Western but the content
provides the novel with its originality that goes with the identity of Africa
and its indigenous cultural values.
Amadi brings about an excellent fusion in his novel
between form and content, European form and African content. For African
content, he explores oral aesthetics which usually conducts the life of the
rural people. The local people interpret every happening in terms of folkloric
discourse. The village folk interpret cultivation, harvest, marriage, birth of
children and rain in terms of folkloric aesthetics. They believe in the god of
thunder who causes rainfall. Amadi incorporates it very effectively into The Concubine (1966) to explain the
people’s belief-system constructed by supernatural machinery. In his words:
The god of thunder was connected with rain, so Nwokekoro
was also the chief rain maker. Everyone in the village knew that he kept a
mysterious white smooth stone which when immersed in water, caused rain to fall
even in the dry season. Nwokekoro could also dispel heavy rain bearing clouds
by merely waving a short mystic broom black with age and soot. (8)
It is undeniable that African orature is more of
performance than of narration. Storytelling is a popular form of orality and
the griots usually make its practice. The most striking thing about the role of
griots in storytelling is that every time the griots bring about innovation in
the way of delivery and the content of the stories. It adds new dimensions to
the art of storytelling. Besides, dance in association with songs, drums,
ogene, igele is very common in African orality. It is a medium which expose
both joy and sorrow. One of the examples of such a performance may be drawn
from the incident related to the tragic death of Emenike. The sadness that
Emenike’s death evokes is expressed in the ritual of dance and death. The tune
of the music is enthralling but the words are sorrowful`:
Do you know that Eke is dead?
Eh-Eh-Eh,
We fear the big wide world;
Eh-Eh-Eh,
Do not plan for the morrow,
Eh-Eh-Eh. (28)
With a good number
of specimens like this, one Amadi presents the aesthetic mores and
belief-system controlling the indigenous people widely and creates a vive of
Africanness and subjective identity of the African novels.
Even the setting of the novel takes the readers to an
idyllic Igbo village free from the manipulation of colonial and post-colonial
interference. This text was produced in 1966, in the post-colonial era of
Nigeria. Post-colonial Nigeria is remarkable for cultural manipulation,
Westernization of local culture, education and neo-colonial conceptualization
of life. But the village Omakachi that is imagined in this novel as setting
makes the readers call it a ‘village novel’ because the people, geography,
ethnicity, indigenous culture, rituals, festivals and metaphysical interference
in the people’s life have come from the repertoire of oral aesthetics of
Africa. Even the interpretation of life and death of the villagers, their diseases,
sanity, insanity and fate are made by the deterministic force of pantheon of
the local people. Mutual relationship between husband and wife is not marred by
the mechanical vive of the Westernized city life. Motherliness, fatherly
affection, children’s loyalty to their superiors and parents are measured and
decided by the aesthetic mores of rural life and ethnic values here.
Again, orality serves as a masculine discourse in African
society. It is almost universal that orality projects an ephemeral image of
women. In this subcontinent The Bag of
Grandmother (Thakurmar Jhuli)
serves as a glaring example of the masculine role of orality. In most of its
stories women are portrayed in negative images. They are either too good or too
bad, not fit to be flesh and blood. They are demons, goblins, witches or very
docile wives fighting restlessly with the hard realities of life and making
every possible sort of sacrifice for the comfort and contentment of their
husbands. In The Concubine the myths
and narratives chosen from the local oral elements depict women subjected to
the authoritarian role of men. Ihuoma has no choice except dedicating absolute
subjugation to the Sea-King, representing patriarchy. She is fated to undergo
the humiliating state of life as a concubine. She inevitably falls victim to
the politics imposing gender-identity of the patriarchal society.
Thus, The Concubine
(1966) emerges out of Africa’s orality and Amadi’s ingenuity in putting the
elements of orality in the Western genre makes it a unique and representative
African novel. By exploring orality, Amadi also explores the masculine
discourse working as an oppressive apparatus to marginalize women in the
society and place men in the pivot of the power-structure. Most of the African
novelists, especially of the first generation, concentrate on the
subject-matter of colonialism and explicate how irresistibly it shapes,
controls and exploits African life in the capitalistic backdrop. Colonialism, a
patriarchal discourse also tends to uphold the masculine ideology and
capitalistic hegemony to promote the vulnerability of women and brand them as
inferior to men. On the other hand, orality discovers both the weakness and
strength of women and this dichotomy finds a significant space enclosure in
Elechi Amadi’s The Concubine (1966).
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