Culture, Religion and Humanism in Zaynab Alkali’s Cobwebs And Other Stories

 

Title :           Cobwebs And Other Stories

Date:            1997

Author:         Zaynab Alkali

Publisher:     Malthouse Press Limited, Lagos

ISBN:            9780230297

The text is a collection of six stories, The Cobwebs, The House of Dust, Saltless Ash, The Vagabond, The Nightmare and Footloose, which unite to depict the condition of average northern Nigerian women and their struggles in a patriarchal society. In the same vein, it shows the death of tradition by the spirit of modernity, depravity of morals and disillusionment, betrayal and oppression and finally offers a panacea to such cancerous ills.

The first story Cobwebs, captures the predicament of a woman in a society that views girl child education as a rebellion against her culture; abandoning of husband and children on one hand, and tacitly condemning the misuse of opportunity by women on the other.

In The Cobwebs, the female character, Mama Dinar, is offered an opportunity to acquire university education by her husband, Aliyu, a patriarchal and polygamist, thus, making the situation extremely unusual. Instead of using the opportunity in a positive way, she went astray in the university and had an affair with a young man, Imam.

Mama Dinar is originally brilliant, and therefore her name Dinar, translates to mean something valuable from God. She is a beacon of hope to her village before her people destined her into an early and arranged marriage. She had then considered herself a person with mind able to think for herself and had a vision of reading medicine. But her culture does not allow that. “In Beta, her hometown women do not have to think. The men always did the thinking for them,” and her father did the best thing for her. She is denied happiness and married to a man old enough to be her father, with several children from several mothers. Nobody cares about her agony. “The fact that she dislikes him bothered nobody” at all.

Few years after the marriage, she had turned into a reproduction machine; the embodiment of a typical African woman represented in northern Nigerian person, who is shown in her usual situation: poor, powerless, and pregnant. Mama Dinar has later understood her place. She can’t continue in such misery where knowledge has to bow and give way to the almighty three things that everyman in the society desires: money, children and power.  Unlike the men and women in her society, Mama has assorted priority.

Through her journey to the world Mama Dinar investigates her value whether the society is assisting her in achieving, or hampering, her wishes. When she comes back from the university, her education allows her to see things as they really are. She and her peers are mere sex objects. She realizes that she should not have to accept misery to please someone’s ego. She begins to behave in a sophisticated way and rejects the patriarchal excess of the society. When her husband attempts to impose unnecessary authority on her. She feels a little awkward and uncomfortable.

This marks a new attitude of rebellion against her culture. But it is not actually a rebellion because Mama’s exposure to western education does not prevent her from consulting a traditional medicine man. It is only rebellion against imposition and social injustices heaped against a helpless woman that only education can empower.

Alkali further exposes men as opportunists and exploitative. When Aunt Hildi convinced Mama Dinar’s father to allow her pursue university education, the first thought that came to his mind was to bring another woman when Mama Dinar starts earning salary. Another betrayal by patriarchy surfaces when Mama Dinar left for school. Her husband immediately started preparing to bring another woman.

Mama is made to understand herself. She is originally determined to preserve her chastity, but the news of her husband’s taking additional wife came with devastating effects. Otherwise, Dinar would have remained faithful. In addition, the husband was imposed on her. Her life with Aliyu is an imprisoned life. Forcing her real self to conform to the demands of the society. And again, Mama Dinar would not have been in her circumstances had Imam assisted her.

Alkaili resents the attitude of subjecting women to misery and agony when she invites a reader to meet with Mama Dinar, and also laments the attitude of some women who misuse the rare opportunity given to them by a society that looks girl child’s education with horror. Alkali seeks a balanced view of women’ life where they will be given opportunity, and they should pay back in kind. Yet in between this, Alkali carefully inserts the consequence of oppression against women which is negatively influencing their behavior.  The hostile attitude towards women’s education is a hard evidence against such men surrounding Mama Dinar.

When mama goes to school, she comes back empowered, with matured mind and lofty thoughts. Her education gives her freedom and independence capable of rejecting any subjugation. In the end, her husband divorced her. She was unrepentant. For her, it is means new life.

While Mama Dinar’s crisis is her being educated, her cousin’s trouble is being uneducated. “Ladi was uneducated, easy-going and uncomplicated.” Yet, her husband considers her as bad business and parasite who brings in no profit except to eat and eat. The reason for the humiliation, she believes, is what her husband says: “these days men don’t marry bush women.”  Mama Dinar is left stunned. While her husband is condemning educated women as rebellious and bad in the art of housewifery and motherhood, others like Ahmadu are looking for the educated ones. Ladi determines that no man should consider her again as burden and useless mouth in the society and is preparing to enroll in the school. Ironically and to Mama’s surprise, it is Aliyu her own husband who is helping Ladi with her ambition.

So, Mama’s husband is working on two mindsets. This clearly stands to show that the rejection of women education is only a means of merely keeping them oppressed, for being educated means an ultimate end to injustices. In another view, his assisting Ladi shows the death of an aged tradition.  As Dinar’s village wants to send their daughters to study, the villagers only wait to see the first household that will set the example.

But there is one important question here as why Aliyu is busy trying to help another woman and back home is sabotaging his wife. Alkali is only seeking a balanced view or rather exhorting women to not feel above their reach in relation with their men. Perhaps Mama is too radical, and her assertiveness quickly provokes the authority of the patriarchy to punctuate her excess. In the end, Alkali tells her earnest advice through Ladi when she says “what is this university education?” Ladi muttered more to herself. “What is its use if it breeds rebellion?” Speaking in apparent surprise why Dinar is unwilling to go back to her husband while she, Ladi, is being kicked out from her home. To Ladi, the dignity of a woman lies in her marriage, even if unhappy one, although deep within her she is yearning for happiness achievable through education. To Dinar, life means freedom even outside matrimony though deep down her she seems to have worry for the future of her children.

The two women admire each other and wish to be in one’s shoes. Mama Dinar thinks her problem is being educated and wishes if she were her cousin, while on the other hand, Ladi also thinks her problem is lack of education and wishes to be Dinar. Unknown to them, each is experiencing some problems as a result of their individual experiences.

But actually to say unhappy marriage is dignity to a woman will not necessarily reflect the genuine feeling of the author. If Alkali is living in a truly free society, her feeling will angle toward Dinar who sees marriage as a matter of acquiring different world view. Humanism does not place restriction on individual aspirations. Mama Dinar has understood that she could not live to compete with narrow minds to fulfill someone’s pleasure. Her life as human being is not meant for that. Mama Dinar represents a new voice emerging from northern Nigerian society where girls are repressed and subjugated. Dinar is used here to set an example.

The second story, The House of Dust, is a metaphor for frustration and betrayal after thirty-five years in a marriage. The dutiful Maaya with her two sons is abandoned by her husband Abdu Zak. He secretly married another woman in another town, leaving the first wife. Maaya devotes her energy in rearing the extended family with sweets and delicacies. She is uneducated and does not bother to encourage her sons to pursue high education. Her husband abruptly died and did not leave much property as expected. His death exposes Maaya to the terrible reality, while Abdu Zak’s second wife, she and her children are educated, are doing well after their father’s demise.

Maaya regrets her past when she meets one of her co-wife’s daughters who has come to the village in search of her father’s family. She admires the other children and determines to become educated too.  She resolves that “she may be old but not dead and is never too late to be free from bondage.”

In this story, Alkali exposes the injustices committed against women. Maaya is cheated on in multitude ways. She conforms to the patriarchal expectation by forgoing schooling. Yet instead of rewarding her, her husband shifts his love and care to his new wife and her children to provide them with a future. This is simply because of her lack of education.

Alkali depicts Maaya as too much reliant who has never thought of being economically independent. We may crave to know, then, what was in Alkali’s mind when she presented this? Certainly one might think she is undermining men’s effort. Alkali is only trying to send a word to men, so as to encourage their women get educated as the means of self-reliance so that should the inevitable happen, the woman might not be exposed to hard condition. She places the two women side by side to show the vivid contrast between education and ignorance, dependence and independence, productiveness and parasitism. Alkali uses an environment close to home to draw a line between education and ignorance even in this “simple” setting as matrimonial home. This means that a woman requires education not only to serve in offices but also to get to earn the respect of her husband and be able to compete effectively with her co-wife without being cheated out.

In the  Saltless Ash, young Amsa was told that one day she would be married away to a man. At thirteen, she could not fit into such arrangement. In spite of her tender age, her father fulfilled his promise and gave her to the head of Turabe clan. She wished to have married a young husband, not Hassan, who is as old as her father. In her culture “a child who disobeys her parents is cursed.” She should learn to live with occasional whippings and abuses from her husband, after all, her grandmothers and many of her generation have lived with it. The grief, misery and the untold agony remain her own.

After the marriage, Amsa is either pregnant or nursing a baby. She has already given birth to eight children at the age of thirty, and with this, has achieved an “admirable status” where she squarely balanced her feet on the man’s neck. What this tries to show is that a woman who gave birth to as many children as Amsa’s, has already acquired a permanent seat in her matrimony. This exposes the habitual divorce women face, and as such the number of children can serve as a safeguard against their fears of being divorced. What is more painful in such situation is that other women yearn to be in Amsa’s shoes. To become a woman to a head of a clan is “an enviable position to many Turabe women.”

Yabutu, the first wife, old with protuberant hand from hard work, is no longer attractive thirty-years after the marriage. One day Hassan feels the need to have another taste. At first, Yabutu finds it unbelievable when Amsa tells her, noting that “how can he marry at a time like this, when money is scarce and the children are always hungry.” When it clearly appears that the husband is going to bring another wife, Yabutu has to concede that unless if he lost his head.

In this story, Zaynab Alkali presents her readers with characters that sharply contrast Mama Dinar. Amsa and Yabutu had been forced into marriage with   Hassan. They make home with the situation only to be disappointed by the phallic tendency of their husband. They sacrificed a lot to please their man. Their obedience is indicated in the treatment of his bowl, “reshaping and reshaping it so delicately until it looks attractive.” When it comes to the meat, the master of the house takes the bigger chunk.

Amsa and Yabutu are naïve at the beginning but later became “assertive.” He is unconcerned with the poverty that is already reeking in the household. His ultimate goal is to satisfy his libido. And true to type, Hassan as an embodiment of Northern Nigerian patriarchy does not hesitate to send his first wife away and tells the second to follow her and take away “everything she owns including (sic) her children,” as if she produced them singularly. This clearly affirms the indictment that men are only using certain verses from the scriptures  that only suit their interest to maintain the status quo, for according to the religion, the children’ responsibility is clearly spelt to be taken by men.  It has been a tradition to have men cutting every cuttable corner and quoting every quotable quote distorting and twisting what “Allah says” to justify their oppression.

The title Saltless Ash suggests something worthless and Hassan is that thing. Ash is substance rich in potassium carbonate. But this one lacks this element. Hassan, as a man in the society given the privilege of thinking for himself and on behalf of others under him, has proved clearly incapable. He is inconsiderate to his living condition and those crowd of children under him who hardly get a decent meal a day. His sexual desire comes first before anything else since he intends to marry another wife instead of using the little resources he has stumbled upon to improve the wretched condition of his family.

Yabutu and Amsa team up to frustrate his effort. They are not against the culture or the religious injunction that confers him the right to polygamy. What they are fighting is his inconsideration. If Hassan has the means, his wives would have no cause to worry about. But to bring poverty upon poverty is what they fear hence their only rivals and potential enemies are “poor health and poverty.” 

“Let him foolish, saltless ash. Let him if he is a man, bring that bride-child,” he calls his wife.

Usually in such marriage children of the house would drive the “wife” out by instigating troubles. Such marriage undermines the respect of the father in the eyes of his children where his own kids vie with a girl supposedly believed to be their mother. They stand up for their mothers when the new wife is given special treatment. This can greatly affect the stability in a family.

To punish a man effectively, a woman can instigate a bed strike. Amsa’s and Yabutu understand this strategy. Their success comes with their united effort when Amsa refuses to cooperate to infringe upon Yabutus’s marital right. It is not Amsá’s turn but Hassan goes against the religious prescription to call her to his bed when Yabutu turns her back against him after she bluntly approached him with the news of his new marriage and made it clear to him that they would not accept it. They get him into trouble and threaten his manliness. Hassan is forced to reaffirm his position. He asks “tell me who the master of the house is?” He expects his wife to simply obey him even when he goes wrong. When Amsa challenges him, he says “can’t a man tell his wife what to do without argument?”

Similar issues are raised in The Vagabond. At the front burner are patriarchal exploitation, illiteracy, poverty, and disease, stemming from the failure of men to rise to their responsibility. Aunt Hildi has hid her real condition and presents herself as an affluent woman, bedecked in jewelry. Panna, her cousin, has her jaw dropped when she finds out the filthy condition her Aunt is living in as urban poor and single parent. She struggles hard to keep the harsh reality at bay to raise her many children.

Aunt Hildi’s two children add more burden to her life. Baki is an irresponsible son, drug addict and thief. Instead of assisting his mother to feed his young siblings, he turns around and steals what she has for young one. Bibi is also another problem, ill and smoker. She violates the character of modesty and inhibition imbedded into the character of a Northern Nigerian woman. Alkali is sensitive in handling the theme of modernity when she depicts Bibi in this light.

Aunt Hildi’s difficulty is exacerbated by the condition of her children, especially her daughter Bibi. She is married at thirteen and the core seat of her feminity is damaged with Vesical-Vaginal Fistulae (VVF). The husband’s family refuses to offer medical attention. They accuse her of treason for being less strong instead. After all “she is not the first bride-child” in the family. This belief is naïve and simplistic.

Given the scientific discovery of the physical changes in body and brain, happening in the process of domestication, a report published by pelicbooks.com reveals that “the brain of roughly thirty animals that have been domesticated by humans have decreased in volume by about 10-15 in comparison with their progenitors – the same reduction happened over the last 1000 generation of humans.” To argue that a woman cannot be affected by VVF is inconsiderate and simplistic. The human body and brain have gradually decreased in size than our ancestors who lived 11-12 thousand years ago. An ancient girl might survive situations that a girl of our generation in her age bracket is not likely to withstand.   It is not the body or age that matters but one’s own time and universe. Accordingly, their brain size is somewhat irrelevant since their brain might have equal power, or even the contemporary girl, though smaller, can have more powerful processing capabilities. For instance, “compare original computer of the 1950s that occupied a whole big room with today’s miniature Smartphone that fits into jean’s pocket,” says the report. 

Another injustice is that Bibi’s mother is not properly taken care of by her husband. She is mired in dire penury and has to bear the brunt of astronomical financial challenges to secure her daughter’s health. Bibi has been operated three times unsuccessfully, leaving her “passing faeces and urine from the same passageway without control.” Critical readers can understand that Aunt Hildi’s husband is not around. Like his son-in-law who abandons his Bibi, he too has also run away, and the fact that Aunt Hildi is not a plant to photosynthesize confirms this speculation. This incident shown is an indictment against some men who only claim a credit when the children turn out good.

In The Nightmares, the issues of post-independent society are compared, and the struggle of mother raising her children. In the story, Zaynab Alkali shows the fantasy of a young woman in supermarket where she is struck by the demand to pay for goods she had not bargained. It exposes how modern shops sell products to their customers at outrageous price, legacy of colonialism.

The last story, Footloose, is a story of a woman at airport in Lagos swindled by a con artist by identifying with one’s culture. Alkali provides solution to the suffering and difficulties we have seen in the previous stories. Although we see the decline of morality, the decay of social infrastructure and ineffectiveness of the Nigerian establishment, nonetheless, we also have seen a dignified woman walking daintily and majestically, guided by the virtue of her education, to get into the flight while other people are shoving and elbowing their way.  Her knowledge offers her the privilege of bossing a man around despite the fact that she is not Lagos state indigene. We have seen a woman who, on the merit of her education, cuts across regional and ethnic boundaries of heterogeneously Nigeria’s complex society.

In this collection, Alkali finally re-writes history. She challenges the general perception and opens a new perspective, that women can excel in life. To Alkali, with education, a woman can get rid of the burden of patriarchy, social injustices, oppression and repression. Education is a means by which a helpless woman can help herself to dispense the dispensable aspects of the culture that may stand in her way. 

Alkali And Her Characters

Usually, there are two types of women in Zainab Alakali’s works. The first are women who are forced to opt out school for marriage. They are voiceless. There is the second category who willingly leave school to take up career in marriage as “Kitchen Martyr.” The patriarchal culture of the society has defeated them psychologically. And because the defeat has taken a huge toll on them, the dominant themes of their discussions are such trivial issues as love, marriage and procreation. Such serious discussions as science, technology, medicine, economy, philosophy, arts and culture, are not in their domain. They are too masculine and therefore have surrendered them to those with great minds. They feel contented to accept their mean role.

Alkali’s women are not radical feminists “who relegate marriage and accept lesbianism.” Neither do they hold their culture in contempt or the religion which allows polygamy. They are simply social activists against oppression and injustices. For being women as Zaynab Alkali shows us, is to come to terms with subjugation, occasional beating from husband, hunger and poverty and should expect her man to bring more women to the family without regard to the changing circumstances. Her male characters are egoistic, hedonists who gratify their immediate desire, and hold sex as supreme end of existence.

Realizing female predicament and the reality of the society, Alkali makes every woman to grapple with one problem or another. Mama Dinar has to ask her cousin in Kufam “is it well with you between you and Ahmadu?”  - because it is just too obvious to see the unhappiness in her face. And she replied “I no longer ask for laughter from a husband. For me, recently, sister, what is happiness but a roof over my head and food to eat?” One must be contended with what life offers. The ultimate joys are the roof above head, food to eat and to please her husband at night. The only difference with animal universe is just in the name when the philosophy of life is rooted on ignoble thoughts as sex, food and sleeping.

Zaynab Alakali sounds typical of someone who has the first-hand experience of the reality of her characters, and is actually feeling the pain they go through. The true character of the author is reflected in Mama Dinar. Alkali is from North-eastern Nigeria, married with children, and did her early schooling at a distant place, the first female writer in modern prose fiction from the North and the first educated woman among her local communities. The same experiences and traits in Mama Dinar’s character might have been the author’s experiences when she says that she has dedicated her work to “women like us.”

Most of the characters maintain a set pattern story after story in the collection. From Yabutu, Ya Amsa, the unlettered ones, to Mama Dinar, the lettered in making, which we can adduce to be mid-life of Zaynab Alkali’s career, up to towards the end of the book where we meet her as a schooled and sophisticated person.

After reading Zaynab Alkali, readers will be sympathetic with her characters and overlook their sins in the pursuit of their happiness. The attitude of denying a woman access to education under matrimony cover is a mere mischief. The excuses given by men to deny women education are merely phony. Alkali reiterates that for a woman to get out from the social shackles and webs, she requires education as opposed to patriarchal, belief which sets to deny her right.

PS

Kakai Journal, a literary publication of the Department of English and Literary Studies, Bayero University, Kano, was in vegetative state when I read it. This really hampered my ability to supply a decent bibliography.

Comparison Between a Medieval Play (Everyman) and Renaissance Play (Dr. Faustus)

Abubakar Sulaiman Muhd

In an attempt to look at the common and uncommon attributes of the two plays, we will find out that the two have some similarities and differences despite the fact that each one comes from different period.

Medieval drama is any play that comes during the classical civilization from Greece through Italy up to the collapse of the Roman Empire. Historians divided this period into three groups, the mid, the high and the late, beginning in Italy from the 900 C reaching England around 1500 C which results in the works of the playwrights such as Christopher Marlowe and his peers William Shakespeare, Ben Johnson, etcetera.   

Medieval drama pays much attention on morality, yet certain elements have been transported into English plays during the Renaissance in the course of adoption. In this sense, English dramatist Christopher Marlowe has incorporated certain elements of medieval theatre in his play, Dr Faustus, in which good and evil are laid side by side to teach moral lesson to humanity. But there are also certain differences that exist between Everyman as medieval play and Dr. Faustus as renaissance drama.

Medieval dramas are religious presented as mystery, miracle as well as morality plays in which the message is central to Christian beliefs in salvation. It is based on the idea that human being has the ability to choose the good or bad that will determine their life in the hereafter. Life is believed to be of two kinds, the eternal and the earthly. God, Satan and souls live in the eternal or the transcendental which unlike here on earth, there is no beginning or end. So, our life on earth is just an interlude in which everyman will use his little time to make this choice. 

In Everyman, like other medieval theatrical plays, allegorical characters are used in which attributes of good and evil are depicted for the protagonist to choose and determine his fate in the hereafter. Everyman focuses much of his attention on wealth living with little or no thought of death and God. Everyman has concentrated on amassing rich, and God is not happy with the ungrateful life he leads on earth. God sees that if he allows him to continue he will be worst than beast. He sends Death to summon Everyman to a pilgrimage to render the account of how he spent every minute and second of his life.  He asks other allegorical characters as Friend and Fellowship and the Goods that Everyman loves so much to accompany him. They all refuse to go making Everyman to realize that all such worldy fellowship, friends and wealth are unreliable and deceitful. Everyman quickly realizes his situation that he does not have sufficient good deeds to help him render his account. In the end, Good Deeds agrees to follow him to his pilgrimage although it is very weak and feeble. Everyman regrets choosing riches and worldly goods, and wishes if he has done much good deeds in his life.

Furthermore, medieval drama uses allegorical characters in which abstract concepts are personified between good and evil, wealth and humble life, which is evident in Everyman as medieval play, in which a protagonist representing humanity will succumb to the wordly materials, seductiveness and temptations. The emphasis is on morality in which the good and evil is portrayed in vivid and clear contrast. The purpose of this is to show the sinfulness and wickedness of the vices and evil and its consequences on humanity in the hereafter when everyman will be left to himself and his deeds.  The vice characters usually come out to declare their wickedness against the protagonist, thus a warning to humanity to shun away from evil. The good character is shown as a contrast to the evil, that will  come to help the protagonist when he realizes his wrong actions in succumbing to evil temptations, and then will repent when he sees the wrath and curse of God he is doomed to face.

Everyman as medieval drama has a clear message. The main idea of the play is in teaching Christian beliefs and salvation which is reinforced by presenting allegorical character in which every human being struggles to live between good and evil. This is for the reader to learn a lesson to utilize his interlude to determine a pleasant abode in the hereafter by upholding good values and following orthodox faith. 

However, if we turn to Christopher Marlowe’s Dr. Faustus as renaissance play, we can see some similarities but can also easily make differences from Everyman as medieval play. Medieval period starts later after the revival of interest in classical Greek and Rome, and has influences on the renaissance in which the end of the former is the begging of the latter, starting from Italy reaching English society around fifteen to sixteenth century. It is a period of reawakening of knowledge with rigorous studies and interest in science, cosmology, art, philosophy and thought, as well as divine things that were unquestionable during the medieval times, having  exclusive interpretation and explanation from secular views.  Christopher Marlowe came at this time where the world is opened and the attention shifted from the religious view of the universe and heavenly things to a secularized perspective. 

Dr Faustus is a play that tells a story of a religious man who is well-learned in theology but feels the curiosity to know more about the world from a view not strictly religious. He seeks to find a discipline where he could command the four elements: fire, water, earth and air, to make the cardinal points move and have emperors under his control.  He blasphemes and abjures the heavenly scriptures to acquire such powers. Dr. Faustus calls Mephistopheles who facilitates the process between Dr. Faustus and Lucifer, the Prince of Devils, in which Faustus will sell his soul to acquire power to perform magic and occultism for twenty-four years. Dr. Faustus struggles with inner feeling after receiving pieces of advice from Good Angel and Bad Angel respectively, but decides to go ahead and signs the deal with his own blood. Dr. Faustus wields magical power and wonders making him famous all over Europe. In the end of the twenty-four years, the Devils come to take his soul where is shown regretting his life and demanding forgiveness when it is too late. It is highly offensive to God to offer coward repentance after death.

In line with the story in Dr. Faustus, it can be said that the main concern is not specifically amassing wealth as we have seen in Everyman.  The thirst for power and curiosity could be regarded as the central themes in renaissance plays which center around the spirit of intellectualism, curiosity, and individualism of life in thought and religion. Many believed that Dr. Faustus is just a man of renaissance who has curiosity and interest in knowing more about other fields. As a result, he follows the trend of the Renaissance to satisfy his curiosity. It was a period where knowledge is a powerful tool in explaining the universe. Many discoveries were made during this period. America was discovered by Columbus, another theory of the earth rotation was introduced by Nicolas Copernicus that challenged the Ptolemaic planetary theory of the solar system which held the view that the Earth was at the center of the universe with the sun, moon, stars and other planets revolving around it. Then Galileo also came up with his theory about the globe pattern that contradicted the explanation expounded by the church.

In view of the features we have seen in the two plays, we can say that the plays have similarities in using allegorical characters. Everyman uses some characters such as Goods, Beauty, Good Deeds, Fellowship, Kindred, Death etcetera. Similarly, Dr. Faustus also uses allegorical characters: Envy, Wrath, Lechery, Sloth, Gluttony, Pride and Covetousness in the form of the Seven Deadly sins as well as Good Angel and Bad Angel. While Everyman explicitly preaches morality about wealth and ascetic life which serves as a constant reminder of the power of God through Death, Dr. Faustus also implicitly preaches this message hence we see Dr Faustus in the end regretting his rebellion against the religion.

From our reading of the two plays, we have understood that both the unbridled love for wealth in the Everyman, and disproportionate thirst for power in Dr. Faustus, can be seen as acts that will lead humanity to eternal damnation.

However, although Dr. Faustus has some features of medieval drama which is mainly moral lesson reinforcing Christian beliefs in salvation, the main concern in the play is not entirely central to the theme of amassing wealth or it wickedness which makes it different from Everyman.

While good and evil vie for human soul in the medieval drama, the thirst for knowledge is the dominant theme in renaissance plays. Dr. Faustus rebellion against religion is nothing but struggling to break the dominance of religion and philosophical teaching in explaining the universe. Therefore it is seen as the reactionary forces against the medieval drama where religious explanations remained unquestioned.

Finally, to reconcile the two plays, it is clear that Dr Faustus has some features with Everyman in dominant theme of the medieval drama in teaching moral lesson about religious belief and power. Yet, it also maintains its renaissance elements in elevating the power of knowledge in which human being discovered themselves and the universe around them after centuries of darkness aided by the religion which allows only church to offer explanation about the universe.  

(@abubakarsulai13)

Symbolism of Corruption in Ayi kwe Armah’s The Beautyful Ones Are Not yet Born

By Abubakar Sulaiman Muhd

Ayi Kwe Armah’s  The Beutyful Ones Are Note Yet Born  is a post-colonial African novel  trying to depict political and social condition following  the departure of the colonial masters. Kwame Nkrumah, Leopard Sendor Senghor, Mabuto Sese Seko,  Jomo Kenyattah, Azikwe and some others are regarded as pan-African nationalists who struggled for the emancipation of African states from the grip of colonialism.  Ironically, the political and economic condition is no better than during colonial days.

The excessive love for materialism is a commonplace among Africans mainly to satisfy the irresistible thirst for power and admiration. The elites have resorted to squandering public funds, and the poor are affected so badly with the quest to imitate the elite’s lifestyle, the effect so strong, making them always feeling guilty and seem to apologize for their poverty. The poor also become like the rulers in every little corner they occupy. As such, bribery and corruption become free-for-all in the struggle for power and relevance in the society.

Plot summary

The Beutyful Ones Are Note Yet Born  is a story of unnamed character considered foolish by the society because he refuses to jump into the bandwagon of corruption. He gets into a car in the morning for the office where certain events happen. The conductor is cheating on the passengers and the driver of the bus. He gets to the office and things, as usual, are not working properly. Public officers do not come to work in time and are using their positions to give and take bribery and corruption.

The unnamed character, the man, who rejects corruption, is badgered by his wife to do what everyone is doing in the society so that her bones can rest. She always refers him to Estella’s life who is a wife to Koomson, a Raliway Minister.  She insists on he should take corruption, or at least approve of it to be part of  a deal that will benefit them both, an arrangement to get some assistance from the Minster who will help her and her mother buy a commercial boat.  But the man refuses to give in and insists on the honest life.

His wife and mother-in-law cast hurtful remarks at him because they see him as a coward who cannot live up to the life everyone is leading. He could not help feeling guilty, and starts to think if his detest for bribe and corruption is also a crime.

In the end, his wife Oyo and his mother-in-law, appeal the Minister and his wife Estella to assist them in getting the boat. They make arrangement to meet the Minister in his mansion for signing to seal the deal. Soon after their visit, a coup occurs in the country that swept the regime the minister serves. A nationwide witch-hunting immediately begins to punish officials who looted public fund in the ousted regime.

The minister runs to the man’s house in extreme fears, sweating profusely and smelling strong odor. He  becomes extremely pitiable that the man’s wife,  Oyo, feels grateful that her husband did not engage in corruption. The Minster has to give up all his prestige and dignity to crawl into the latrine for escape when the soldiers come to arrest him.

The major pre-occupation is how effectively the author portrays corruption in the post-independence Ghanian society characterized by a variety of corrupt practices in every little corner of public life. Ayi Kwe Armah exposes this attitude via the ruling class and their misdemeanor that creates rottenness in the Ghanian society and by extension many African states. Everything foreign, where the rulers exhibit disproportionate crave for materials at the expanse of the masses. Many instances in the novel have demonstrated how people have completely succumbed to corruption through analogy of events and symbolisms that bind the 

society to a shared mindset.

The author uses literary devices such as analogies, symbolisms and allusion densely filed in the actions and behavior of the characters, from those Atlantic caprices in government who subvert services in public institutions to sustain their economic interests, to moral corruption among families and relatives, and to the general materialistic ostentation which becomes pervasive and rooted in the minds of the people. We understand this from the behavior of the conductor,  and from the Timber contractor who attempts to bribe the man and thinks that the man must be joking to reject such offer; as well as  the man’s wife’s repugnant reaction when he has recounted the story to her about what has transpired between him and the Timber contractor in the office.

Symbolism

The first incident in the novel is a symbol of corruption and excessive attitude for display of wealth where even the working class who could not afford their own car develop the desire to impress their fellow countrymen. The cost of articles that one can buy determines the cost of recognition, judgment and admiring glances he will have in the society.  And since a man should be judged and respected by what he is able to steal from public fund and turns it to his personal wealth in contrast to honesty and sincerity, those smart people who have done for themselves, and for their families by signing some papers and knowing what to do in commercial banks and public offices are highly hailed and admired.

Unable to reach to the government offices, the conductor seizes a little opportunity from his little corner to not give passengers change after they pay transport fare when he learns that the passengers only care to look into the conductor’s eyes to see if he acknowledges their importance. They do that to give the impression of being big man. “Yes man, you are Big Man,” the acknowledgement reflects in the eyes of the conductor who will fix an admiring stare in the eyes of a passenger to buy his attention, and would not lower his gaze down the coins in the giver’s hand so as to retain the magic and the profits that come with it. Those few who are lucky to collect their change would be given short of what they supposed to be given and gladly put it in the pocket without looking at it.

Then again, the conductor is cheating on his driver by counting the money and removing the extra profits. The man is watching him begin stuffing the money in his bag, and the man’s stare puts him on the edge and begins to feel guilty. But he later dismisses the inkling that the man is watching him cheat on the bus driver. The conductor acts according to the belief of the society and feels that everyman is also a man himself, because that is the nature of everyone in the society to have a “skin and fat with stomach and throat that needed be served.”

So, he calmly slips his hand into his pocket and produces a packet of Embassy cigarette to bribe the man. The man’s eyes continue to stare at the conductor. So the conductor, being a symbolic character standing for the entire society and its behavior, thinks the man is not really fighting corruption but will simply not accept small bribe. He goes ahead to offer a big offer. “You see we can share,” he said to the man. But the man is not really watching the conductor. He is sleeping and only his blank gaze is directed at him. Here, we can understand the role of the sleeping man as a symbol of dormancy of anti-corruption forces in the Ghanian society, and the behavior of the conductor alludes to the fact of how the society views corruption, and how people accept and condone it.

There is also symbolism of the rotting behavior of attaching more value to riches against human beings. We have seen this incident in the narrative when the conductor humiliates the man after he finds out his status as a mere ordinary citizen and asks the man to get out of the bus. The driver “collected his full force and aimed the blob far out in front of him”. The man felt the spray on his back and again sees the driver unremorsed,  “preparing his throat and mouth for one more effort.”  Similar incident of denigrating humanity occurs when Koomson, the State Minister, calls his houseboy and forgets all about him until he is reminded that he has left a fellow human being standing in reverential fear.

There is also another symbolic picture that alludes to the fact that corruption has come to stay in the Ghanian society. The old commercial buildings owned by the colonial masters, the UTC, the GNTC, the UAC, and the French CFAO. The shops have been there all the time as far back as the period the man could remember. Yet the GNTC which is regarded as the new is not new at all because it is nothing “but the name  that has only changed with the independence.”  The coming of the sons of the land into power is not really a change, it is only change of names because it’s only money changing hands. The system that the African criticized vehemently is the same they practiced when they come to power, “how completely the new thing took after old.”

Government will come up with impressive policies to get rid of the “uncleanliness” in the society but such policies are more or less the process of maintaining the uncleanliness in the society because in the end they are never implemented despite the money spent on them. The Africans that came to power only reflected the old system of the colonial masters . “All men live like the old.” “Our party men. After their reign is over, there will be no difference all over.” They live in a way that is more painful than the Whiteman has always lived.

It appears that all shouting against the whitemen is not a hate, it is love twisted. Everyone wants to be nearer to the whitemen. Those clamor for independence is at best merely a means of ruling the masses on behalf of the ex-colonial masters, deceiving the poor to have “faith in us, we know the whiteman and his ways.  Plan R, Plan X and Plan Z” will all end in vain.  Nobody desires evil, but when a man has a power he finds the evil useful.  

Corruption and bribery have become widespread and the people have become part of it in an alarming rate. For example, the man is left stunned by the behavior of the timber contractor who openly attempts to bribe him to secure favors in the railway office. The man refuses to cooperate and the contractor is so humorously surprised why the man will refuse to do what everyone is doing. “My friend, all joke aside. I’m not a child, my friend if you work in the same office you can eat from the bowl.”  When the man refuses to accept the bribe again, the contractor insists he should,  alluding him to the pratice trending in the society. “Alright, alright. But you also know that everybody prospers from the work he does.” This is what everybody believes to be right and what everyone is doing in the little corner of his office and one cannot be working in an office and can’t eat from its bowl. It is hypocrisy. Chichidodoooo!

Effort to break the circles of corruption always ends in futility as the society comes to identify with it not with a stigma. If you don’t openly join the corrupt circles who actually constitute the majority, you are a fool and the entire society will spit at you. That leaves one scratching head questioning if a person who rejects bribe is not actually a criminal for not partaking in the trendy of the society. Instead of the man lodging complaints about the business man’s attitude, now the timber contractor has lodged complaints of “why do you treat me this way?” and in another place “why are you making things so difficult for me?” - as if the man has committed a grave sin for not aiding the process of corruption. 

The common understanding is that if a man seems to be difficult in your way, it is because the bribe you offer is so mean, “I know ten is nothing. So my friend what do you drink?” The timber contractor and the conductor offered a big share to the man in two different incidents. Probably, this is what everyone will do if he comes to be in their shoes. One more example is that although the man does not make any effort to challenge the conductor, his staring on the conductor can be seen as a weak opposition against the overwhelming trend which further shows the ineffectiveness of the few anti-graft forces against  the enormous number of people with interest in the status quo.

The enormity of people’ belief in corruption is so threatening that people see honesty as a social vice. Or so, avoiding it is like a foolishness or suicide in which a thirsty man in a desert will avoid an offer of cool water. When the man refuses to accept the money to facilitate the process of Amankwa’s timber business, the business man asks in astonishment and surprise, “why not, why not” eyeing him a look that no sane man will behave the way the man is behaving. In fact when someone like the man rejects bribery, he changes position with society for one will be seen as a bad and those who offer it as upright because one’s refusal to do what everyone is doing, and taking what everyone is taking and giving is deviation to the societal norms.  So since everyone is taking and giving bribes, when people like the man refuses to give or take, behaving this way  will actually make them never to be thought alright.

One generic perception of the society towards corruption is perhaps those who refuse it are only pretending at the moment. We have seen this in the thought and attitude of the timber contractor. When the man rejects the bribe on several occasions, he says “don’t be annoyed. I was not tricking you.” The man should feel free to collect the offer; the giver is not a police in plainclothes coming to allure him into a crime. Now, corruption has taken to the elaborate position in the society.  

In addition, closer to home is the man’s wife’s frank view who gets frustrated by her husband’s behavior. She is disgusted and feels that maybe her husband likes this crawling he thinks is life while she is tired of it. She will like to have someone who will drive her somewhere in a car like other women of public officials. She insists her husband should not cut himself from the boat business that the Railway Minister will help because the benefit is for all of them. She simply calls the man “Chichidodoooo” when he sticks to his honesty; a metaphor to “a bird that hates excrement with all its souls but feeds on maggots that grow in the lavatory.”  

Her reason is that just moments ago her husband shakes Estella’s hand, the wife of Koomson the  Railway Minster, and admires her perfume. “So, when you shake hands with the rich, is their perfume not staying with you?”  But the man reasons with her that their source of income might be dubious. Yet the woman says this is not her concerns, “We don’t care. Why pretend?” the man’s wife, Oyo is lecturing him on the benefits of corruption. “Everybody is swimming toward what he wants. Who wants to remain on the beach asking the wind,” to push him. You help yourself or else one will remain economically dry.

And since everybody should prosper from his job, then nobody cares how people amass their wealth, the only question is to make sure you own the riches. “It is nice. It is clean. , the life Estella is leading.”  But the man believes that  kind of cleanliness has more rottenness in it because in the end Koomson has to escape through latrine to avoid the long arm of the law.

He refuses to do what everyone is doing and she calls him Chichidodoooo. The man could not help feeling guilty and reveals what his wife told him to the Teacher when he told her about the incident with the timber contractor. “I told her what happened at work today. A man came to me with a bribe.” And the Teacher also accuses him of not taking the gift of the office when he says, “a murderer that you are, you let it go.” And the Teacher also has no pity for him.  “Expect no forgiveness from your family,”   and goes on to offer him a piece of advice “there are ways and ways, you the husband will have to find these ways.”

Since there are many ways and ways, if one remains a poor it is his fault for at least the society offers an alternative stating that one can prospers from his job. One must resort to such ways, a short cut for quick and easy way for wealth.  If one chooses to remain poor he must have to struggle to offer apology to the society by killing themselves for a decent accommodation to people from high class such as Koomson, the State Minster, when he visits the man’s house.

The man begins to think if the problem is not really from him that he chooses to be honest. Yes, he cannot face his wife and say the luxurious cars are bad and then back to the children and tell them international school is also bad.  What makes the man guilty is not anything immoral but his honesty. And what the society is telling him is to be like them, the corrupt, the living dead, urging him to answer their call and throw away that thing in him that makes him looked horrible by the society.

Finally, from the foregoing description of events taking place in the novel, it can be aptly put that the action and behavior of the characters in their melee for amassing wealth and power, represent the rot and decay that consume the society. The bus incident, the heap of rubbish in the streets, the decaying infrastructure and the decayed wooden stairs in the ministry, the commonplace bribery and corruption are symbolic reasons for the collapse of infrastructure and public institutions, supported by the hands and fingers of the corrupt civil servants and their family and relatives.

(@abubakarsulai13)