INTRODUCTION
1. Interest and Choice of
the Topic
In any literary work, the writer wants to share his experience
and his point of view with his contemporaries. We need also to share the point
of view of the Eastern Ugandan poet Okot p'Bitek in his poems Song of
Lawino and Song of Ocol. We are interested in reading him with care so
that we can interpret his thinking. So then, we can share or reject his
opinion. In our field of work, we want to analyse Okot p'Bitek's poems and find
the developed themes to discover the image of the woman.
2. Purpose and Methods
a. Purpose
The purpose of this work is to analyse some literary
techniques used in Okot p'Bitek's poems to enrich the meaning of Song of
Lawino and Song of Ocol. This analysis will help us to enter p'Bitek's
mind and discover the deep hidden image of the woman portrayed in those
poems.
Our analysis will also help us find how and why the main
characters act as they do.
b. Methods
Every domain of research has its own methodology. It can
require a questionnaire, an interview, an explication...
As quoted by Vwakya (2006:3) there are three major ways to
write about work of literature and art. One can write to
- Understand a work of Literature,
- Interpret a work of Literature,
- To evaluate a work of Literature.
One our part, however, we are going to deal with analyzing the
poems in order to interpret them and find out the image portrayed in those
poems. In our analysis, some factors such as social, religious, educational,
contribute in supporting our themes as well.
In short, we are going to apply the new Criticism in our
analysis so that we can study each social problem from the first page to the
last. Thus, we shall follow poem from its opening line up to its end so that we
can draw an occurrent conclusion.
3. Hypothesis
In the present work, we are going to focus our attention on
the attributed image to the woman in Okot p'Bitek's Song of Lawino and Song of
Ocol. We shall observe p'Bitek's attitude towards Eastern woman's behaviour.
We can state the following hypotheses:
- P'Bitek can be discouraged by the way Eastern women are
treated by their husbands;
- He does find any Eastern Africa woman who is not influenced
by European culture;
- He does not find Eastern Africa woman who can defend the
customs of her ancestors.
4. Limitation of the
Work
We have limited ourselves to the literary analysis of Okot
p'Bitek's poem in order to find the real image of the woman in those poems.
Thus, the work is much devoted to summary of the poems, characters and
characterization, point of view, context, imagery, form and interpretation,
mood and tone, themes, philosophy of the author, finally the image of the
woman.
5. Review of the
Literature
After reading Okot p' Bitek's poems, we have found it better
to produce a work on them. In some Kisangani libraries there are less work on
literature, and mainly on African literature. Also, recent documents rare in
Kisangani libraries. Ofcours there are some comments on websites on p'Bitek and
his famous Song of Lawino and Song of Ocol.
But the topic as approached was not available yet, that is why
we have dicided to full the gap by writing a work on the image of a woman as
analysed in those poems, to allow Kisangani researchers and others have an
important tool in African literature and fix their ideas on Okot p'Bitek and
his masterpiece.
6. Division of the work
The present work is divided into three chapters. Chapter one
deals with «The Poet's Life and Work». In this chapter we give a shot
survey on the author's life, his background and works.
Chapter Two is concerned with «A literary Analysis of
Okot p'Bitek's Song of Lawino and Song of Ocol». In this chapter, we
present the summary of the poems, we analyse the literary techniques used by
Okot p' Bitek in his poems. They are point of view, characters and
characterization, context, theme, tone, mood, imagery, form and interpretation,
philosophy of life. We select them according to their use in the poem.
The last chapter treats the image of the woman in Okot p'
Bitek's Song of Lawino and Song of Ocol. In this chapter we want to
show the image of the woman that Ocol describes in his poems in every aspect of
life such as social, educational religious...
A general conclusion which we draw to show Okot's philosophy
towards Eastern African problems will put an end to the work.
CHAPTER ONE:
OKOT p' BITEK'S LIFE AND WORK
Introduction
This chapter deals with life and work of Okot p'Bitek, a
Ugandan poet. This chapter provides an over view to the reader about this poet.
It allows us to get more information about Okot's background.
1. Life
Okot p'Bitek was born on July 20, 1931 in Gulu, and died in
1982, in North Uganda grasslands into a family of Luo people.
His father was a school teacher and an expressive storyteller,
his mother Lacwaa Cerina was a traditional gifted singer, composer, and leader
of her clan. From his mother's name, the title Song of Lawino is derived and
she taught him many songs that he enjoyed throughout his life. At that time
Uganda was a protectorate of British Empire. Under the influence of his mother,
p'Bitek grows up learning the tales, proverbs and songs of Acholi folklore
sometimes referred to as lwo or luo.
He was educated at Gulu High School, then King's College in
Budo, and later at Universities in the United Kingdom.
An outstanding student, p'Bitek was noted as a great singer of
Acholi songs, a dancer, a drummer and athlete. He composed and produced a
full-length opera while still in high school. He travelled abroad first as a
player with the Ugandan national football team, in 1958. At this point, he gave
up with football as a possible career; staying on in Britain he studied
education at Bristol University, and then Law at the University College Wales
at Aberystwyth. He then took a B. litt. degree in Social anthropology at the
University of Oxford with a 1963 Dissertation on Acholi and Lango Traditional
Cultures.
He lost his commitment to Christian belief during these years.
This had major consequence for his attitude as a scholar of African tradition,
which was by no means accepting of the general run of earlier work. He wrote an
earlier novel in Luo, Lak Tar Miyo Kinyero Wilobo (1953) later
translated into English as `' If your Teeth Are White, Laugh!''
It concerns the experiences of a young Acholi man moving away
from home, to find work and so a wife. P'Bitek organised an Art festival at
Gulu, and then at Kisumu (Kenya).He taught at Makerere University and then was
director of Uganda's national Theatre in 1956.
In the summer of same year, he participated in the Olympic
Games in London and remained in England to study at several institutions
including the institute of social Anthropology in Oxford and University
College, Wales.
In this capacity, he founded the highly successful Gulu Arts
Festival, which celebrates the traditional oral history, dance; and other arts
of Acholi people.
He became unpopular with the Ugandan government; and took
teaching parts outside the country. He took part in the International writing
program at the University of Iowa in 1969. He was at the institute of African
Studies of University of College in Nairobi from 1971 as a session research
fellow and lectures, with visiting position at University of Texas at Austin
and University of Ife in Nigeria in 1978-179. He remained in exile during the
regime of Ugandan Dictator Idi Amin, returning in 1982 to Makerere University
to teach creative writing. He died of a liver infection on July 19, 1982. His
daughter, Jane Okot p'Bitek, is also a writer, whose Song of Farewell
(1994), a poetry volume was dedicated to the memory of her father.
2. Work
He was first recognized as a major voice in African literature
in 1966 when he published Song of Lawino, with which achieved a wide
international recognition Song of Lawino, a long poem of around 5000 lines
dealing with the tribulations of a rural African wife whose husband wishes
every thing to be westernised. It was originally written in Acholi language,
and offer translated into English.
It was a breakthrough work, creating an audience among
Anglophone Africans for direct topical poetry in English, and in corporating
traditional attitudes and thinking in accessible literary vehicle. It was
followed by Song of Ocol (1970), husband's reply. In this song of Ocol
Lawino's husband responses to her worries, expressing his disgust for African
ways and the destructive force of his self-hatred. Okot p'Bitek's next major
work two Songs (1971), won the Kenya Publishers Association's Jomo Kenyatta
prize in 1972. Widely praised for its political significance, Song of
Prisoner describes the anguish of a convicted criminal as he suffers from
depression, delusions, and claustrophobia. The specific nature of the
prisoner's crime remains unclear; he first claims that he was arrested for
lottering in the park but later asserts that he has assassinated a political
leader whom he describes as a «murderer, a racist , a tribalist , a
clanist , a brotherist''. Song of Malaya, on the other hand, is
narrated by a prostitute («Malaya» translates loosely to
«whore») whose strength and stable personality prevail as she exposes
the hypocrisy of tolerance for human diversity. In his later years P'Bitek
focused on translating literature and in 1974 he published The Horn of My
love, a collection of Acholi folk songs about death, ancient Acholi
chiefs, love, and courtship. Hare and Hornbill (1978) is a collection
of folk tales presenting both humans and animals as characters. In 1989
p'Bitek's first published work, a novel entitled Lak Tar Miyo Kinyoro wi
Lobo?(Are Your Teeth White? Then Laugh!), was published in English for the
first time as White Teeth.
Conclusion
Some elements in Okot p' Bitek's life and work will light us
deepen his mind and face, his attitudes towards African leaders, particularly
Acholi people. For instance Okot's mother was a traditional singer, a composer
and leader of her clan. Okot also become a great singer of Acholi songs under
the influence of his mother. Then he wrote those songs, songs of Lawino which
is a plea for protection of Acoli cultural tradition from encroachment of
Western influence. After he added Song of Ocol which is Lawino's
husband responses to her worries, expressing his disgust for African ways and
the distractive force of his self- hatred.
This Chapter is a key to the next chapters which will be
developed.
CHAPTER TWO:
A LITERARY ANALYSIS OF OKOT P'BITEK'S SONG OF LAWINO
AND SONG OF OCOL
Introduction
In analyzing each of the techniques and devices Okot p'Bitek
uses in Song of Lawino and Song of Ocol in this Chapter, we fulfil one
of the requirements of our analysis.
In this Chapter One, we deal with the Summary of the poems,
the characters and characterization, the point of view, the context of the
poems, the imagery, form and interpretation, the mood, the theme, and finally
the philosophy of life of the author
1. Summary of the Poems
Together Song of Lawino and Song Ocol contributes a
heated debate over the future of Africa. In graphic metaphor and with
grammatical intensity, the author presents the conflict between modern
civilization and old traditions.
As far as our concern is the image of woman in Okot p' Bitek's
Song of Lawino and Song Ocol, our much attention will focus on Song of
Lawino.
0.
Song of Lawino is an epic poem written by Ugandan
poet Okot p' Bitek. First published in 1966in Luo then after translated into
other languages, including English. Song of Lawino has become one of the most
widely read literary works originating from sub-Saharan Africa that addresses
the issues facing a liberated Africa. The poem poses a question: what kind of
liberation should Africa take on? Should it honor its traditions, or should it
adapt the European values that were already set in place during colonialism?
Okot p'Bitek addresses this question by telling the story of Lawino, a woman
whose husband, Ocol, throws her out of their home and brings home a more
Europeanized woman as a wife. The story is told as a dialogue between Lawino
and Ocol. The poem itself is separated in different sections or Chapters, each
one detailing the social problems facing Lawino and Ocol in their marriage,
their differences and value systems.
The first Chapter sets up the differences between Lawino and
Ocol. Ocol despises Black people and their traditional ways and has adopted
Europeans values. Because he works in the government, he wants to modernize
Africa in those values. Lawino disagrees and implores her husband to stop
hating his own people:
«He says Black people are primitive
And their ways are utterly harmful
Their dances are mortal sins
They are ignorant, poor and diseased! ...»( SOL, P.
36).
In this Chapter, Lawino asserts that Ocol is rude and abusive
both to her and other people:
«My husband abuses me together with my parents
He says terrible things about my mother
And I am so ashamed! ...» (SOL, P.35).
The Second Chapter addresses the issue of Ocol's new wife.
Ocol's new wife, unlike Lawino, is thoroughly Europeanized. Here we note that
the attack starts as a fairly straight forward factual account of Lawino's
husband's preference for a modern girl. Then to enable Lawino to advance her
argument forcefully, Okot gives her the gift of wit and employs Acoli poetic
forms to produce a pungent work of satire. She first displays her wit
forcefully at the beginning of Chapter two, where (she) Lawino makes a mockery
of modern notions of beauty, including the use of make-up and cosmetics, by
comparing her rival, Clementine, the girl of modern ways, to what in
traditional Acoli Society must be regarded as the ugliest and most weird of all
creatures. That which is considered most beautiful by admires of European
culture is made to appear absurd and grotesque. We quote a long passage to show
how she builds up her argument:
«Ocol is no longer in love with;
The old type;
He is in love with a modern girl;
The name of the beautiful one;
Is Clementine;
Brother, when you see Clementine!
The beautiful one
aspires;
To look like a white woman;
Her lips are red-hot;
Like glowing charcoal;
She resembles the wild cat;
That has dipped its mouth in blood;
Her mouth is like raw yaws;
Tina dusts powder on her face;
And it looks so pale ;...»( SOL, P.37).
In the Second Stanza the tone changes dramatically to a
contemptuous one: «Brother, when you see Clementine!» Then the
criticism gathers momentum and builds up to a crescendo as we get horrible
image after horrible image in the process of which Clementine is disfigured and
transformed from «the beautiful one into a veritable»guinea
fowl». But that is not the end .Before Lawino is done, she must
demonstrate to us how she, Lawino, is possessed by strange ghosts which make if
necessary for a whole ritual to be performed before she can recover:
«The smell of carbolic soap;
Makes me sick;
And the smell of powder;
Provokes the ghosts in my head;
It is then necessary to fetch a goat;
From my mother's brother;
The sacrifice over;
The ghost -dance drum must sound;
The ghost be laid;
And my peace restored.»(SOL, P.37).
In this Chapter Two, Lawino is not unfair to Europeans. She is
not trying to impose her set of beliefs on them. She is using her prejudices in
an argument with other Africans within Africa. But she is unreasonable in some
of her criticism of Clementine and Ocol. Some of her comments are little more
than scandal-mongering for example when she first attacks Clementine, the
climax of her abuse is:
«Perhaps she has aborted many!
Perhaps she has thrown her twins
In the pit latrine!» (SOL, P.39).
In this same chapter we notice that Lawino is not only witty,
she also versatile, conjuring up all kinds of images to bring her going home.
This talent is coupled with a sense
of humour and an ability to admit her weaknesses in a clever way, as in the
following passage in which she cunning confesses that she is jealous of the
woman she ostensibly despises:
«Forgive me, broth
Do not think I am insulting
The woman with whom I share
My husband!
Do not think my tongue
Is being sharpened by jealousy.
It is the sight of Tina
That provokes sympathy from
my heart.» (SOL, P.39)
Then the truth comes out:
«I do not deny
I am a little jealous
It is no good lying,
We all suffer from a little jealousy.
It catches you unawares
Like the ghosts that bring fevers;
It surprises people
Like earth tremors:
But when you see the beautiful woman
With whom I share my husband
You feel a little pity for her.» (SOL, P.39).
By the end of this section, Lawino turns on her attacks and
exposes their own immorality and hypocrisy.
These attacks on Western ways are one of the reasons for the
popular success of the poem. Okot is making a number of very serious points
through Lawino's mockery of Westernized ways. Here, Lawino shows ways in which
Western things can be dirty, stupid or hypocritical. At the same time she shows
how traditional ways of life allow her to express herself fully and freely as a
woman. Both ways of life are open to criticism, both ways are valid. If Lawino
has learnt one way of life, why should she change? Why should the Massai wear
trousers? The words like «Witch», «Kaffirs» and
«sorcerers» that Ocol throws at her don't answer that question.
But Lawino does not believe that the two ways of life are
equally valid for Africans, and neither does Okotp'Bitek. She thinks the
customs of white probably suit white people. She does not mind them following
their own ways.
«I do not understand
The ways of foreigners
But I do not despise their customs» (SOL, P. 41).
The poet has used the proverb in closing this second chapter
which is an Acoli proverb:
«The pumpkin in the old homestead
Must not be uprooted» (SOL, P.41).
According to Okot (1972:6) pumpkins are a luxury food. They
grow wild throughout Acoli land. To uproot pumpkins, even when you are moving
to a new homestead, is simple wanton destruction. In this proverb, then, Lawino
is not asking Ocol to cling to everything in his past, but rather not to
destroy things for the sake of destroying them. In other words, what Lawino has
to say would have been better expressed by another Acoli proverb Doko abila ni
eye meni (Your first Wife is your Mother) (SOL,P.13).To mean that you cannot
abandon your first pot, for your first pot is always the best one.
In Chapter Three, Lawino praises the cultural dances of her
people:
«I cannot dance the rumba,
My mother taught me
The beautiful dances of Acoli.
I do not know the dances of white people.
I will no deceive you,
I cannot dance the samba,
You once saw me at the Orak dance
The dance for youths
The dance of our people» (SOL, P.42).
Accoding to p'Bitek, the «dirty gossip» of
colonialists condemned African dances because of the immorality of nakedness.
Lawino does not waste her time on a reasoned and balanced defence of dancing
naked. She presents the openness, liveliness and healthiness of Acoli dance
positively, without apology:
«When the drums are throbbing
And the black youths
Have raised much dust
You dance with vigour and health
You dance naughtily with pride
You dance with Spirit,
You compete, you insult, you provoke
You challenge all», (SOL, P.42).
Notice that the dramatic reversal of values is not limited to
cosmetic and make-up. It is only a prelude to a more generalized attack on
European social and cultural values which go against traditional codes of
behaviour. Imported forms of dancing, for example, result in immoral behaviour
when each man dances with a woman who is not his wife .Then, Lawino goes to
attack:
«Each man has a woman
Although she is not his wife,
They dance inside a house
And there is no light
Shamelessly, they hold each other
Tightly, tightly,
They cannot breathe» (SOL, P.44).
Western dances are immoral because people embrace in public
and dance with anyone, even close relatives said p'Bitek. Apart from being
immoral, their kissing and dancing are seen as grotesquely ugly:
«You kiss her on the cheek
As white people do,
You kiss her open-sore lips
As white people do
You suck slimy saliva
From each other's mouths
As white people do.»(SOL, P.44).
The Fourth Chapter details when Lawino was a young woman and
how Ocol once wooed and won her .While she remembers Ocol `s wooing of her and
the beauty of her home, Lawino's voice takes on a note of nostalgia:
«When Ocol was wooing me
My breasts were erect
And they shook
As I walked briskly, And as I walked
I threw my long neck
This way and that way
Like the flower of the lyonno lily
Waving in a gentle breeze.» (SOL, P.47).
Then after, Lawino laments because her husband does not love
her any more:
«My husband says
He no longer wants a woman
With a gap in her teeth,
He is in love
With a woman
Whose teeth fill her mouth completely
Like the teeth of war- captives and slaves» (SOL,
P.49).
Chapter Five looks at question of what is considered
beautiful. Ocol thinks the way Lawino does her hair is ugly; then she
laments:
«He says that I make his bed-sheets dirty
And his bed smelly
Ocol says
I look extremely ugly
When I am fully adorned
For the dance!» (SOL, P.53).
On the other hand Lawino praises her beauty and the beauty of
her people:
I am proud of the hair
With which I was born
And as no white woman
Wishes to do her hair
Like mine,
Because she is proud
Of the hair with which she was born.» (SOL, P.56)
Then after Lawino criticizes Ocol's wife's hair and that of
his people:
«When the beautiful one
With whom I share my husband
Returns from cooking her hair
She resembles
A chicken
That has fallen into a pond;
Her hair looks
Like the python's discarded Skin.» (SOL, P.54).
In the previous paragraphs, it is said that Lawino is proud;
she is proud; not only of her beauty, but of every aspect of her way of life.
From this position of pride she attacks:
«I have no wish
To look like a white woman.» (SOL, P.56).
Now Lawino makes the argument here that Ocol should not try to
be something he is not:
«No leopard
Would change into a hyena,
And the crested crane
Would hate to be changed
Into the bold-headed,
Dung-eating vulture,
The long-necked and graceful giraffe
Cannot become a monkey.
Let no one
Uproot the pumkin.» (SOL, P.56).
The message conveys by Lawino in this section is that African
women are invited to run away from artificial and European ways of cooking hair
for their beauty. They must remain natural. They could not abandon their
traditions. The poem becomes an argument honoring the traditional African
values.
Along this Chapter, we also see Lawino's wit at work when she
gives an account of the differences between European and African traditions and
values. Ostensibly, her argument is that European culture is good for Europeans
and African culture good for Africans, but in an apparently objective
comparison she uses subtle animal imagery to portray a negative picture of
things for European and a positive picture of African values. This is
particularly striking in this Chapter Five, where the dominant motif is the
comparison of the «graceful giraffe», which symbolizes the beauty of
the African Woman, and the «monkey» which stands for the Ugliness of
white women and those who ape whites by wearing white people's wigs: See the
example given above from song of Lawino page 56.
Chapter Six deals with food and Ocol criticizes his wife for
not cooking white people's meals:
«Ocol says
Black people's foods are primitive,
But what is backward about them?
He says
Black people's foods are dirty:
He means,
Some clumsy and dirty black women
Prepare food clumsily
And put them
In dirty containers.» (SOL, P.62).
Lawino again argues that the food that is native to her people
is best for them:
«Look,
Straight before you
Is the central pole
That shiny stool...
At the foot of the pole
Is my father's revered stool.
Further on
The rows of pots
Placed one on top of other
Are stores
And cupboards.
Millet flour, dried carcasses
Of various animals,
Beans, peas
Fish, dried cucumber...» (SOL, P.59).
Ocol criticizes the improved stove and Lawino praises it; Ocol
gives his point of view of that improved stove:
«I really hate
The charcoal stove!
Your hand is always
Charcoal-dirty
And anything you touch
Is blackened;
And your finger nails
Resemble those of poison woman.» (SOL, P.57).
Now Lawino reacts:
«I am terribly afraid
Of the electric stove,
I do not like using it
Because you stand up
When you cook.» (SOL, P.58).
She points out another disadvantage of electric stove and she
apologizes that she has no notion about cooking white food.
«The electric fire kills people:
They say
It is lightning...» (SOL, P.57)
In this passage she accepts that she does not know such a
cooking:
«I do not know
How to cook
Like white women;
I do not enjoy
White men's foods;
And how they eat
How could I know?
And why should I know it?» (SOL, P.62).
In the closing lines of the poem of this section, the poet
gives his point of view throughout Lawino that:
«I do not complain
That you eat
White men's foods
If you enjoy them
Go head
Shall we just agree
To have freedom
To eat what one likes?»(SOL, P.63).
He also shows the importance of the traditional cooking stove
in many societies which is improved for domestic cooking. So the poet shows
Lawino's weakness for not being to school to learn how to use white men's
cooking stoves. Lawino confesses:
«I confess,
I do not deny!
I do not know
How to cook like a white woman.» (SOL, P.57)
The Seventh Chapter deals with the issues of time. In this
section, Ocol puts accent on the respect of time. His wife Lawino reacts that
Ocol abuses of the way of using time because of his arrogance for he loses his
dignity. He is always in a hurry. He is always ruled by time. Everything he
does must take place at a fixed time:
«If my husband insists
What exact time
He should have morning tea
And break fast,
When exactly to have coffee.»(SOL, P. 64).
Lawino doesn't understand the need for these set times. She
does things when she wants to. Children are fed or washed when it is necessary
and:
«When sleep comes
Into their head
They sleep,
When sleep leaves their head
They wake up.»(SOL, P. 69)
If visitors come when you are doing something, you stop and
enjoy their visit. But Ocol has no time to enjoy anything:
«He never jokes
With anybody
He says
He has no time
To sit around the evening fire.» (SOL, P. 67)
All Ocol`s life is haunted by his fear of wasting time. For
him, time is a commodity which can be bought and sold. It must not be wasted
because:
«Time is money» (SOL, P. 67);
While for Acoli time is not a commodity that can be consumed
until it is finished:
«In the wisdom of the Acoli
Time is not stupidly split up
Into seconds and minutes
It does not flow
Like beer in a pot
That is sucked
Until it is finished.» (SOL, P. 69).
Ocol in his arrogance does not know how to welcome visitors.
When they appear at his door he tries to get rid of them quickly with the
question:
«What can I do for you?» (SOL, P. 68)
And even the crying of children makes him wild with rage
because it interrupts his work:
«He says
He does not want
To hear noise,
Those children's cries
And coughs disturb him!» (SOL, P. 67).
Despite his high opinion of himself, he is no more than a
servant of time:
«Time has become
My husband`s master» (SOL, P. 68).
No one likely to respect him because of his unkindness, and
because he:
«...Runs from place to place
Like a small boy,
He rushes without dignity» (SOL, P. 68).
In addition to investing Lawino with a witty mind, a sense of
humour capacity for dramatization, Okot p`Bitek has the ability to make use of
traditional troupes and modes of expression in a manner which enriches his
poetry and lends it a peculiar freshness. Comparing the modern technological
concepts of time with Acoli concepts, Lawino describes the Acoli idea of late
morning in the following terms:
«When the sun has grown up
And the poisoned tips
Of its arrows painfully bite
The backs of the women weeding or harvesting
This is when
You take drinking water
To the workers »(SOL, PP 64- 66).
To end this section, it is seen that Ocol is governed by time,
often stating the hour whenever the sun rises. Lawino does not understand the
importance of being led by such strict definitions and thinks everything
happens in its own time without forcing it. This idea is followed into Chapter
Eight when Lawino also argues that breast feeding isn't something you can hold
strictly to time. When children are hungry, then they will be breastfed. To do
it by Ocol's way, children should be fed even if they are not hungry. Religion,
healthcare, politics are also dealt with.
In Chapter Eight and Twelve, we have Lawino's explanation of
what has gone wrong. Ocol's teachers were like Lawino's teacher in the evening
speaker's class. If Ocol had run from them to the dance as Lawino did he would
have learnt things that meant something to him:
«We joined the line of friends
And danced among our age- mates
And Sang songs we understood.
Relevant and meaningful songs,
Songs about ourselves» (SOL, P.79).
Ocol wants Lawino to be christened, but she says that her
elder sister was a protestant and she suffered bitterly in order to buy the
name Lawino joined the catholic evening Speaker' class, but she did not stay
long in, she ran away:
«I ran away from shouting
Meaninglessly in the evenings
Like parrots
Like the crow birds
The things they shout
I do not understand»(SOL, P.75).
They do not understand what they shout and the teacher of the
evening class controls them only by anger. It seems as if Ocol is still like a
parrot, boasting in the market place and condemning everything that the white
priests told him to condemn, instead of picking out the good from both African
and European ways.
Now Lawino is obliged to leave evening speaker's class:
«Anger welled up inside me
Burning my chest like bile,
I stood up
And two other girls stood up
We walked out
Out of that cold hall» (SOL, P.79).
To end this section, Lawino argues that their spiritual
beliefs are just as valid as Catholicism, but also points out the ignorance and
arrogance of priest and nuns who run the missionaries in their villages.
In Chapter Nine we see another aspect of Ocol's arrogance.
Here Lawino asks questions in a genuine mood of enquiry. She does not ask silly
questions:
«Where is the pot?
Where it was dug,
On the mouth of which River?» (SOL, P.87).
Somewhere in Chapter Three, Lawino has spoken about immorality
in the dances of white men. The same question of sexual morality is involved in
her late comments on catholic priest and nuns. The tradition of priestly
celibacy has a long history in Europe. There is also a long tradition of
priestly hypocrisy, and of literary mockery of this hypocrisy. To Lawino the
whole idea is completely incomprehensible. So when the Padré and the Nun
shout at her, it must be their sexual frustration expressing itself:
«They are angry with me
As if it was I
Who prevented them marrying» (SOL, P.85).
Again no priest can possibly discipline his sexual desires.
They teacher from the evening speaker's class follows her to the dance. And
every teacher must be like this:
«And all the teachers
Are alike
They have sharp eyes
For girls' full breast
Even the padres
Who are not allowed
To marry
Are troubled by health» (SOL, P.81).
To conclude this section, let us write that the problems of
who created the creator and the mystery of the virgin birth are problems which
better educated people have found to be barriers to Christian belief. An
educated Christian like Ocol ought to have considered them. If he were really
interested in knowledge, he would be willing to discuss these things. But
Lawino does not thing he is really interested in knowledge. She wishes she had
someone else to ask:
«Someone who has genuinely
Read deeply and widely
And not someone like my husband
Whose preoccupation
Is to boast in the market place...» (SOL, P.90).
Brief Lawino really makes us wonder whether this progressive
and civilised man deserves any respect with all his status. He surely ought to
have a little more dignity. Above all he ought to treat his wife, his parents
and his home community with a little more respect.
Chapter Ten deals with Lawino's culture and its values. In
this Chapter we are given further examples of Ocol's intolerance. Ocol will let
neither Lawino's relatives, nor his own relatives into his house because they
might make it dirty or give diseases to his children.
«My husband complains
That I encourage visitors
Who should not
Come into his house,
Because they bring dirt and house-flies!» (SOL,
P.91).
Ocol condemns all traditional medicines:
«He says
The medicine gourds are filthy,
And the herbs
Are drunk from unhygienic cups
My husband agrees
That sometimes by accident...»(SOL, P.93)
Again he condemns all traditional religious beliefs, because
he is an educated man and a Christian. In the years since Uganda's
independence, there has been a great deal of reassessment of missionaries views
of African traditional beliefs by African Christians .Ocol's attitudes have not
changed at all. For him traditional beliefs are no more than foolish
superstitions:
«He says
No such things exist
It is my eyes
That are sick
And only foolish superstitions.»(SOL, P.92).
Ocol not only rejects these superstitions himself, he wants to
wipe them out. He prevents Lawino from visiting the diviner priest or making
sacrifices when she is in trouble:
«My husband has threatened
To beat me
If I visit the diviner- priest again.» (SOL, P.93)
When his father was alive, he:
«Once smashed up the rattle gourd
Cut open the drum
And chased away the diviner priest
From his late father's homestead.» (SOL, P.95).
He later tried to destroy the tree on father's shrine. Ocol is
a religious man yet. Lawino must not wear charms, yet he wears a crucifix:
«My husband wears
A small crucifix
On his neck»(SOL,P.93).
For him prayer can be effective:
«It is stupid superstition superstition
To pray to our ancestors
To avert the smallpox,
But we should pray
To the messengers of the hunch back
To intercede for us.»(SOL, P.93).
Ocol sees no similarity between the two sorts of charms or the
two sorts of prayer. Ocol continues to praise White man's medicines. Since the
time of patient has not yet come to death every medicine cures him says
Lawino:
«It is true
White man's medicines are strong,
But Acoli medicine
Are also strong.
The sick gets cured
Because his time has not yet come.»(SOL, P.101).
Once the time comes, the death knocks at your door, there is
no stop. Whatever medicine cannot cure the sick. Even crucifixes, rosaries,
toes of edible rates,...none of them can block the path of no return (SOL,
P.102
«When death comes
To fetch you
She comes unannounced
She comes suddenly
Like the vomit of days...»(SOL, P.102).
Lawino says that Ocol should be tolerent for, once mother
death comes, there is no excuse, neither black nor white it calls them and they
have no power on it:
«White diviner priest,
Acoli herbalists,
All medicine men and medicine
Are good, are brilliant
When the day has not yet dawned
For the great journey
The last safari
To pagak.» (SOL, P.103).
Brief you may be the man of whatever rank, you cannot resist
when death comes to fetch you. Chapter Eleven of Song of Lawino is a
very rich poem, Addressing important issues affecting post-independence Africa.
The poem is a satirical comment on the neo-colonial mentality of the African
petty bourgeoisie-the intellectuals and political leaders of Africa. The target
of Lawino's criticism, Ocol, is the representative of this class. He is both an
intellectual and politician an embodiment of the disease Lawino diagnoses in
her song, satirizing the ills of Africa leaders described elsewhere by Okot in
an essay entitled «Indigenous social Ills», in which he refers to
them as culturally barren ladies and gentlemen. Ocol's behavior does not lift
up him before the leaders of his party. He behaves like: ... a newly-eloped
girl (SOL,P.108) he says in his speeches that he is lighting for national
unity:
«He says
They want to unite the Acoli and
Lango
And the Madi and Lugbara
Should live together in peace!
The Alur and Iteso and Baganda
And the Banyankole and Banyoro
Should be united together»
(SOL, PP.103-104).
However, his political energies do not really seem strong for
bringing about unity, national or local. Most of his time as a politician is
taken up with condemning other people.
Ocol says that the Congress Party is against all Catholics,
and that they will steal all their property
«The Congress Party
Will remove all Catholics
From their jobs
And they will take away
All the land and schools
And will take people's wives
And goats, and chickens and bicycles,
All will be came the property
Of the congress people.» (SOL, PP.105-6).
And it is not only the other party that he condemns. When he
talks to the party leaders, he accuses other party
«Everybody else is us
He alone
Is the hard working...?» (SOL, P.108).
The most destructive result of his political activity is its
effect on his own family. Ocol's brother is in the congress party. His thinks
his brother wants to murder him. Now is this the unity of Uhuru? Is this the
peace that Independence brings? (SOL, P.105). He forbids Lawino to talk to the
man who may one day become her husband.
Okot does not ignore economic problems in his poems. In this
section of song, Lawino criticizes Ocol and the African political elite for
political ineptitude and economic mismanagement. She lashes out at corruption,
points out that many politicians joined the campaign for material gain:
«Someone said
Independence falls like a bull buffalo
And the hunters
Rush to it with draw knives,
Sharp shining knives
For carving the carcass.» (SOL, P.107).
Using political power for personal wealth is a common feature
of petty bourgeoisie in developing countries, for in these countries there is
no true national bourgeoisie, as in the USA or EUROPE, which derives its
economic power from is the only means by which the political elite can acquire
substantial wealth. Lawino speaks in ironic terms when she says:
«The stomach seems to be
A powerful force
For joining political parties,
Especially when the purse
In the trouser pocket
Carries only the coins
With holes in their middle.» (SOL, PP.108).
Lawino is not blind to the fact that, while politicians are
fighting to enrich their own pockets and inter-party strife rages, the common
people suffer, for they bear the hardest part of the economic problems due to
the ineptitude of the political elite:
«And while the
pythons of sickness
Swallow the children
And the buffaloes of
poverty knock the people down,
And ignorance stands
there like an elephant,...»(SOL,P.111).
Politics has destroyed the unity of home and brought misery
member of it:
«The women there
Wear mourning clothes
The homestead is surely
dead.» (SOL, P.111).
Now, where is peace of Uhuru when there is no harmony and
confidence at home?
«Where is the
peace of Uhuru?
Where the unity of
independence?
Must it not begin at
home?
And the Alico and
Lango
And the Madi and
Lugbara,
How can they
unite?
And all the tribes
of Uganda
How can they become
one?»(SOL, P.107).
This view of African petty bourgeoisie in control of
political power is corroborated in song of Ocol by Ocol. First, he is so
thoroughly colonized that he hates himself for being black:
«Africa
This rich
granary,
Of taboos,
customs,
Traditions...
Mother,
Mother,
Why,
Why was I
born?
Black?»
(SOO, P.126).
Accordingly, he and his fellow members of the elite want to
destroy all things African, anything that reminds them their African past.
Instead, they will erect monuments to the architects of African
colonialism-Bismarck-David Livingstone, Leopold of Belgium and others:
«To the
gallows
With all the
Professors
Of
anthropology
And teachers
of African History,
A bonfire
We'll destroy
all the anthologies
Of African
literature
And close
down
All the
schools
Of African
studies.» (SOO, P.129).
Secondly, Ocol lends weight to Lawino's view that the
misdemeanours of Africans politicians lead to the impoverishment of workers.
The power of the song of Lawiro is due in large measure to the
author's successful portrayal of an authentic spokesperson, an uneducated woman
who has become highly aware of the necessity for her race to preserve its own
culture and identity. She is a vivid and memorable character. At first she may
appear lighthearted and flippant, but in fact she advances a sound serious
argument. Unlike the negritude poets, she does not overtly claim that African
culture is superior to European culture.
Her central argument is summed up at the end of chapter
Two:
«Listen
Ocol, my old friend,
The ways of
your ancestors
Are good,
Their customs
are solid
And not
hollow
They are not
thin, not easily breakable
They cannot
be blown away
By the
winds
Because their
roots reach deep into the soil.
I do not
understand
The ways of
foreigners
But I do not
despise their customs.
Why should
you despise yours?» (SOL, P.41).
The politicians, Okot mentions in this section are too busy
fighting one another. Certainly Ocol sees no reason to do anything in Chapter
Six of Song of Ocol, he asks the voters to agree that because he has worked
harder for Uhuru he deserves:
Some Token Reward (SOL, P.139).
He is not responsible for the sufferings of the waters,
although he was rewarded of a large house in the town and a big form in
country:
«Is it my fault?
That you sleep
In a hut
With a leaking thatch?»(SOO, P.139).
Song of Ocol again confirms Lawino's opinions. In Chapter Two
Ocol trots out for us the attitudes to Africa that he as a politician has
swallowed whole from the missionaries:
«What is
Africa?
To me
Blackness,
Deep, deep
fathomless
Darkness...»
(SOL, P.125).
There are two critical quotations we feel should be quoted for
this special launch of Ocol's attitudes towards Africa. First is by Professor
Eskia Mphahlele from his book with the title: The African
Image (1962), whatever single image may emerge of Africa
must continue to shift. This is not a continent lying in state. Our heroes also
rise and fall. We also have our political clowns, political executioners,
political spits, grafters in high places, as every other continent has. We are
a vibrant people too. Second is the quotation taken from Okot p'Bitek's book
Song of Lawino and song of Ocol (1972):
«I do
not understand
The way of
foreigners
But I do not
despise their customs.
Why should
you despise yours?
Listen, my
husband,
You are the
son of a Chief.
The Pumpkin
in the Old homestead
Must not be
uprooted!»(SOL, P. 41).
Both quotes impress on Afrocentricism. Particularly, the
p'Bitek's written discourse introduces an interesting dialogue between husband
and wife. The wife in this case reminds her husband about his Africaness. Our
feeling is that we cannot avoid dealing with these bipolar realities that is
being African in the current situation that is moved by continuous on a daily
basis. This change manifests in many ways; political, social, and economic,
spiritually, biotechnologically to name only these. In this regard, the African
image and mind wrestle to find place and space. Since Afrocentricism is
concerned, we can raise the questions below: Who is an African? Do we need
African centers in Africa? Are Africans in a foreign continent? How can they
sing being in a foreign land? How foreign is Africa to Africans? Africa needs
to assert itself within the context of its diversity.
In Chapter Three of Song of Ocol, Ocol condemns all
efforts to find reasons for pride in Africa's past. He would prefer to forget
his past:
«Smash
all these mirrors
That I may
not see
The blackness
of the past
From which I came
Reflected in
them.» (SOO, P.129).
In other words, Ocol wants to deny his Africanness. These
feelings wring from him the cry of anguish which ends Chapter Two of Song of
Ocol.
«Mother, mother
Why
Why was I
born?
Black?» (SOO, P. 126).
In Chapter Twelve, Lawino summarises what has happened to
Ocol. «Ocol has read many books among white men and he is clever like
white men» (S.O.O.p113). This section, from which the above quotation is
taken, constitutes the climax of Lawino's argument and demonstrates Okot
p'Bitek's use of Apostrophe. The section falls into three major subjections if
we go by Lawino's subject matter and her audience. In the first subjection
Lawino addresses her clan men. The subject matter is her husband's dark forest
of books. Although Ocol has read many books among white men those books has not
helped him. Instead he has lost his head:
«Listen, my clansmen,
I cry over
my husband
Whose head
is lost
Ocol has
lost his head
In the
forest of books.» (SOL, P.113).
This as we shall see, is at the heart of her argument. In the
second subsection she addresses Ocol in the words quoted above and does not
mention books at all. Then she ends the section by going back to address the
clansmen and returning to the subject of books. And in the end the books have
destroyed him:
«...
the reading
Has killed
my man,
In the
ways of his people
He has
become
A
stump» (SOL, P. 113).
Ocol still has the roles of husband and head of household, but
he is no longer able to perform them. Instead he has become:
«A
dog of the Whiteman!» (SOL, P. 115).
The Whiteman is his ultimate master, acting on him through his
continuing cultural and economic influences. Ocol obeys his master's call and
is pleased only by those things that belong to his master. Ocol no longer owns
anything. Every thing he uses belongs to his master:
Aaa! A certain man
Has no millet field
He lives on borrowed foods
He borrows the clothes he wear
And the ideas in his head
And his actions and behaviour
Are to please somebody else
Like a woman trying to please her husband!
My husband has become a woman! (SOL, P.116).
And many young men are the same. Lawino calls on her clansmen
to weep for them because:
«Their manhood was
finished
In the classrooms
Their testicles
Were smashed
With large books!»
(SOL, P.117).
Here Lawino is mocking all those Olcols who are carrying the
habit of slavish imitation of white men they leant in the mission school into
every sphere of their lives in the new nations of Africa. For her, this is not
the last word. She thinks there is still hope for Ocol. Ocol only needs
treatment to rid him of his disease.
In Section Thirteen, the last section, Lawino's whole
approach, manner and tone of voice change: She tones down the bitterness in her
voice and instead of lampooning her husband she cajoles him, coaxes him like a
loving wife, even advising him to buy clothes, beads and perfumes «for the
woman with whom I share you» (SOL, P.120). She assumes the role of both a
teacher and a loving wife.
In Section Thirteen, she does not address her clansmen at all.
First she recommends physical remedies to Ocol. Ocol's throat is blocked by the
shame that has been choking him for so long:
«The shyness you ate in the church...» (SOL,
P.118).
It must be cleaned out by traditional foods and herbs. His
ears are blocked by the things he has heard from priest and teachers. They must
be cleaned. His eyes, behind his dark glasses, are blind to the things of his
people. They must be opened. His tongue is dirty with the continuous flow of
insults he has been pouring on his people. It must be cleaned.
When the physical remedies have been completed, Ocol will be
ready for the real cure. He will be ready to regain his roots among his own
people. Lawino explains how he nearly lost those roots:
«When you took the axe
And threatened to cut the Okango
That grows on the ancestral shrine
You were threatening
To cut your self loose,
To be tossed by the winds
This way and that way...» (SOL, PP. 119-120).
For this real cure, Ocol must beg forgiveness of all those
he insulted. But he must also seek the blessing of the elders and beg
forgiveness from the ancestors, because:
«... when you insulted me
Saying
I was a mere village girl,
You were insulting your grandfathers,
And grandmothers, your father
and mother!»(SOL, P. 119).
If he does all these things he will become a man again, the
ancestors will help him recover:
«Ask for a spear that you will trust
One that does not bend easily
Like the earth-worm
Ask them to restore your manhood!» (SOL, P. 119).
Lawino's final appeal concerns her domestic situation. She
wants things to be normal in the household again. She wants Ocol to behave like
her husband. And when he is recovered, if he only gives her:
«... One chance» (SOL, P. 120).
She is certain that things will become normal. When his ears
are un- blocked he will hear the beauty of her singing. When his blindness is
cured, he will see and appreciate her dancing:
«Let me dance before
My love,
Let me show you
The wealth in your house...» (SOL, P.120).
In Chapter Three of Song of Ocol, Ocol briefly, but
effectively, comments on traditional medicine. However foolish he might be in
condemning all traditional remedies it is difficult not to share some of his
horror at the scene he describes:
«That child lying... A gift
of death»(SOO, P. 127).
Traditional remedies should have some place here in Africa,
but they cannot solve all her medical problems.
In Chapter Four of Song of Ocol, Ocol considers the position
of women in traditional societies. It is interesting to compare his description
of the walk to the well. Lowino is happy with her traditional role, but she
does have to work rather hard:
«Woman of Africa
Sweeper
Smearing floors and
walls
With cow dung and black
soil
Cook, ayah, the baby tied
on your back
Vomiting
Washer of dishes,
Planting, weeding,
harvesting,
Store-keeper, builder,
Runner of errands,
Cart, lorry
Donkey...» (SOO,
P.133).
And in some ways here status is rather low:
«In Buganda
They buy you
With two pots
Of beer,
The Luo trade you
For seven
cows...» (SOO, P.134).
Really, if we read carefully Section Thirteen, Lawino does not
address her clansmen. In Section Twelve, however, her clansmen occupy the
center of subject matter which becomes even more apparent when it is compared
with Song of prisoner, whose density of texture is sustained throughout and
whose language is packed with emotion and feeling.
Some of the traditional modes of expression Okot employs in
Song of Lawino do not come off-at least for those readers who do not
understand Acoli. In this connection, the proverb which says the «Pumpkin
in the old homestead should not be uprooted» occurs frequently, and is
clearly meant to play a key role in conveying Lawino's message. But to the
author of this thesis, to whom Acoli is a strange language, the proverb conveys
little or no meaning. This is also true of some of Okot's imagery. Consider,
for instance, the fallowing lines from Section Two where Lawino introduces the
conceit of Clementine as the woman with whom she shares her husband:
«Her body
resembles
The ugly coat of the
hyena;
Her neck and arms
Have real human skins!
She looks as if she has
been struck
By lightning;
Or burnt like the
Kongoni
In a fire hunt».
(SOL, P.37).
This is far from being as effective as the description of
Clementine which occurs at the beginning of the same section and which was
quoted earlier in the chapter.
There are also some inconsistencies and contradictions in song
of Lawino. As a character, Lawino sometimes gets out of hand and Okot is not
able to control her and shape her plausibly. What Lawino says in Section Eleven
is out of character. Her analysis of behaviour of politicians in Uganda is so
sophisticated that one wonders whether she is the same woman who is at one time
amazed at the ticking of Ocol's clock (section7).
In Section Eleven Lawino does not strike the reader as a
simple woman commenting in a simple way about political rivalry. Naturally, we
are not suggesting that peasants cannot be political analysts. They can in fact
be more revolutionary than the intelligentsia; but the problem here is that
Okot presents us with a seemingly simple peasant woman and then turns her into
a political scientist without creating the circumstances that give rise to such
a transformation.
To conclude this Song of Lawino and Song of Ocol, in the last
chapter of the book, the core of Ocol's speech is his expression of faith in
the urban future of Africa, and in the foundations of that future laid by
Europeans. Naively and improbable he promises to:
«... Erect monuments
To the founders
Of modern Africa:
Leopold II of Belgium,
Bismarck...» (SOL, P .151).
However, most of the speech is in the form of challenges to
various people in positions of influence in Africa to explain the African
foundation of their activities. Okot is mocking the borrowed plumes of all
these dignitaries and challenging them to justify their borrowings.
Why should lawyers and bishops wear long robes as the English
do? Why the African legal system should be based on English Law Reports? Why
should all officials in local government take their names from English
equivalents (Mayors, councillors, Town clerks). Okot's most serious challenge
is to the scholar:
«Can you explain
The African
philosophy
On which we are
reconstructing
Our new
societies...» (SOO, P.150)
Okot has made the foundation on which he wishes to build
African nations abundantly clear throughout his poems, Song of Lowino
andSsong of Ocol. He wants to challenge all concerned with nation building
to make their own activities in light of his ideas. If they do not accept the
challenge, then like Nyerere and Sengor who are looking for an African mould
for nation-building will be utterly defeated by the continuing cultural
influence of Europe on Africa.
In order to provide an easy understanding to our readers, we
give some definitions of some techniques according to the dictionary of the
English Language.
2. Characters and
characterization
a. Character
For some good understanding, let us first define the terms
characterization.
A character can be defined as a person or an animal acting in
a play, a poem or in a novel.
b. Characterization
It can be defined as the creation of characters in novels,
plays and short stories. From this definition applied to these terms, we have
good tools to understand the way Okot p'Bitek uses this technique in his poems
Song of Lawino and Song of Ocol.
In Literature, characterization conveys the theme and
characters move the plot or the context. So characterization in Song of
Lawino and Song of Ocol is central to understand the themes developed by
Okot p'Bitek.
In studding characterization, we determine whether the
character is the protagonist or the antagonist, the minor, supporting the
character. For instance, the protagonist Lawino: the hero of Song of Lawino and
Song of Ocol endures insults from Ocol who behaves like a White man. Ocol is
consideres as the antagonist to whom p'Bitek centers the debate. The following
chart can help us for better understanding.
Ocol
Clementine
Lawino
The main characters are Lawino and Ocol who are always central
to the conflict as we discover in the poems during our analysis. Lawino stands
for African culture and Ocol stands for Western culture. The characters such as
Clementine, Clansmen, brother, Lawino's mother are minor characters for they do
not support the debate from the beginning to the end.
If we read carefully the text we realize that sometimes,
Clementine disappears on the stage and other characters never appear such as
Ocol, Lawino's mother, Clansmen, brother; to say that most of the characters
are hidden behind the poem. So Okot p'Bitek uses personas as characters acting
in the poems. Only Lawino monologues on the stage. This is the way p'Bitek
presents his characters in his poems. The narrator expresses his feelings as a
single speaker on the stage that is the point of view.
Okot p'Bitek uses a technique of presenting his
characterization in a form of a long speech uttered by the speaker. What we
call a dramatic monologue.
In the poem, there is a series of conflicts which begin with
Lawino who lives in a home with harmony together with her husband. Now she
undertakes a journey. She has to leave her home to so journey where she can
find peace. The journey motif is that Ocol puts her out. He is no longer in
love with Lawino his traditional wife. He is in love with Clementine, the
modern wife. Lawino also does not want to see her rival, the woman with whom
she shares her husband.
After a long time of debating, Lawino asks forgiveness. Here
we meet a partial resolution to the conflict:
«Forgive me, brother
Do not think I am insulting
The woman with whom I share my
Husband!»(SOL, P.39).
Chart.1 illustrates this first conflict and the
partial resolution.
Ocol
Pastial
resolution
R
C
Lawino apoligies and asks forgivenes
Clementiné sight
Lawino
Ocol
Ocol
So the series of conflicts continue and we illustrate them on
the following triangular relationships which follow the movement at its any
point according to the character motivation. Here we notice that if there is a
challenge, the conflict has been found or the character reintegrated home where
he finds resolution: The second conflict is between Ocol and Lawino for the
latter praises the traditional dancing which is despised by Ocol. Afterwards,
comes another conflict between Lawino and Ocol because of Clementine's
artificial beauty. Ocol prefers artificial beauty and Lawino the natural
one.
Chart .2
R
C
Clementinés artificial beauty
Lawino
Traditional dance
Lawino
The fourth conflict is between Ocol and Lawino because of not
cooking on electric stove and not cooking white men'food. Ocol does not like
anymore traditional food. Another conflict is between Ocol and his wife Lawino
for the latter does not respect the time. Lawino says that Ocol is a slave of
the watch. Time has become Ocol's master.
Ocol
Ocol
Chart .3
R
C
Timen
Traditional
Food and stove
Lawino
Lawino
Ocol
Ocol
The sixth conflict is between Lawino and Ocol because Lawino
does not have a Christian name. He rejects her because she is not baptized and
she has no Christian name. Ocol as a progressive man does not pronounce Acoli
names which do not sound good he says.(SOL,P.81). Another conflict between
Lawino and Ocol is that Ocol does not like Lawino anymore for she is an
illiterate. He says that Lawino is not educated. (SOL, P.88).
Chart .4
R
C
Not being educated
Chritian name
Lawino
Lawino
Ocol
Ocol
The eight conflicts between Ocol and Lawino is due to the fact
that Lawino wants to pray her ancestors. Accoding to Ocol we should cry to
Mariya if we suffer misfortune and we should pray to Joseph, Petero and Luka,
and other ancestors of white men (SOL, P.93). Lawino does accept this and then
there is confrontation. Another conflict is between Ocol and Lawino for the
latter does not take care of rules of health.
Chart .5
R
C
Not praying ancesters of white men
Lawino
Not taking care of rule of health
Lawino
The tenth conflict between Ocol and Lawino is due to the fact
that Lawino mixes up matters of health and superstitions while Ocol trusts in
modern medecines, the white man's ones. Lawino says that white man's medicines
are irrelevant when someone's mother lifts her breast and asks him: Did you
suck this? If some one's father lifts his penis towards him, know that he is in
deep trouble and to overcome this, he has to look for traditional medicine.
Another case is that of someone's uncle's curse says Lawino (SOL,
PP.99-100).
The eleventh conflict between Ocol and Lawino is due to Ocol's
politics. Ocol's politics destroys the unity of his home and brings misery to
every member of it. Lawino has joined her home, but her husband`s political
activity has created new conflicts. Ocol and his brother want Uhuru and peace,
but they do no join hands however, they split up the army into two hostile
groups (SOL, P.111).
Ocol
Ocol
Resolution
Chart .6
R
C
Reconciliation restoration
Politicssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssss
Lawino
Traditional medecin,
Superstition
Lawino
According to the above chart the conflicts ends with
reconciliation of two characters.
According to the above chart, the conflict ends with
reconciliation of the two characters.That is to say reconciliation of the two
cultures: African and European. There is a restoration of harmony in Ocol's
home with Lawino. Ocol insulted Lawino, he said that black men `s food is
primitive, Lawino also said that she cannot cook on electric stove and eat
white man's food, even use white man's medicine, even Ocols who declared not to
use anymore traditional medicine. Ocol insulted Lawino because of not
respecting time. When a visitor wants to visit him, his face darkens and
instead of greeting him, he asks him what can he do for you! Lawino also does
not care about the watch while everything has its time.
Another faced problem is that of using modern notions for
their beauty on the two hands.
After a series of conflict the two characters stay in
harmonious life. However, politics would like to destroy again that harmony.
After a very long debate it is seen that there is no bad culture, but we should
consider the best aspects of each culture. So let no one be uprooted. We should
preserve our culture from whatever influence. There is no bad culture and
civilization.
II. 3. Point of view
In any literary field, this technique is very important. Let
us draw some definitions of point of view.
CAMBRIDGE INTERNATIONAL DICTONARY OF ENGLISSH defines point of
view as «Someone's particular way of looking at or considering some thing,
or his opinion about something.»
OXFORD ADVANCED LEARNER'S DICTIONARY defines it as «an
attitude, an opinion.»
INTERMEDIATE DICTIONARY defines it as «a position from
which one looks at something; an attitude of mind».
These different definitions help us analyse the poem with
complete confidence according to the way the poem is written.
But in a technical sense, and in any literary work point of
view refers to the identity of the person who records the events of any story
in a novel, a poem, that is the person who speaks, tells the story says
professor Louis GBAIBA LONU in his course of Explanation of texts of English
authors 2nd licence.
The points of view used in Song of Lawino and Song of Ocol are
«Lawino and Ocol».The poem is told from the point of view of Lawino
herself in first person. In Song of Lawino, Lawino the narrator is into action.
In Song of Ocol, Ocol also is into action. To mean that Lawino is the spokesman
and Ocol is the spokesman in the poems too.
Lawino records her laments, she describes her native
civilization, and she condemns her husbund's disdain for Afeican ways.
In Song of Lawino, the point of view gives us its objective
look; attitude towords her comptemporary whitemen's civilization. In the 1st
person of view «I», «me», Lawino presents her laments:
«Husband, now you despise me
Now you treat me with spite
And say I have inherited the
Stupidity of my aunt;
Son of the chief,
Now you compare me
With the rubbish in the rubbish pit» (SOL, P.34).
Lawino condemns her husband's disdain for African ways,
describing her native civilization as beautiful, meaningful, and deeply
satisflying:
«Listen Ocol my old friend,
The ways of your ancestors
Are good,
Their customs are solid
And not hollow...» (SOL, P. 41).
The narrator laments her husband's disrespect for his own
culture and questions the logic of many western customs:
«At the height of season
The progressive and civilized ones
Put on blanket suits
And woolen socks from Europe...» (SOL, P. 45).
Lawino continues to lament that Ocol has rejected her and his
own Acholi heritage in favor of a more modern lifestyle perceiving progress;
Ocol devotes his attention to Clementine (Tina), his westernized mistress:
«Ocol rejects the old type
He is in love with a modern woman
Ocol is no longer in love with
The old type;
He is in love with a modern girl
The name of the beautiful one
Is Clementine» (SOL, PP.36-37).
Ocol is no longer in love with the old type:
He is in love with a modern girl. The name of the beautiful
one is Clementine (PP.36-37).
Lowino claims that Ocol, her husband, hotes her and loves her
rival, his darling wife. Ocol has turned against the old and follen for the
new, he is in hot pursuit of some girl who has been at school, the said beauty
goes by the name of Clementine:
Brother, when you see
Clementine
The beautiful one aspires
To look like a white woman; (SOL,
P.37).
Lawino continues to claim that Clementine douches powder all
over her face, looking deadly pale like a night dancer on the verge of the
nightly tyrips to dance naked, obscene, and bewitching. She becomes sickly lach
time; she smells Joyce soap provider which does not agree with her. Powder is a
thing that suits Europeans; they are already dirty white. But when a black girl
heaps dust on her face, she looks sickly pale. Powder chemicals have corroded
Clementine's face; her fore head is bleached, there are brown patches
here and the as if affected by rainbow, or struck by lightning flash. The skin
of her face looks like a baby's. To her, that's the thing her face is freckled,
she looks like Hyena. Her neck and arms still look nice like ours. Clementine
looks like a person burnt by fire, like the bushbuck burnt in a ranging grass
fire. Her mouth swollen red likes yaws; and her overgrown hair, with hair
standing out like owl's, her eyes pale and wan:
«He lips are red-hot
Like glowing charcoal
She resembles the
wildcat
Her mouth is like raw
yours...» (SOL, P.37).
Finally the point of view apologies by asking forgiveness to
the reader:
I beg you don't think I am a busing my rival, no, or that my
tongue waxes grand because of anger, no: I mourn with pity my lost friend
Clementine. I won't deny I am prey to being jealous I won't deceive you: we all
get jealous once in a while jealous strikes you all of a sudden like a fit;
but, jealous aside Tina is a pity to be hold.
II.4. CONTEXT OF THE
POEM
On the one hand song of Lawino, which is a narrative
poem, describes how Lqwino's husband, Ocol, who is the son of the tribal leader
of their specific Acoli tribe, has taken a new wife. Although Ocol's polygamy
is accepted by society, and by Lawino herself, it is apparent from his actions
(as described by Lawino) that he is shunning her in favour of his new wife.
Ocol is also said to have a fascination with the culture of the white
colonialists, as does Clementine as an example of this, Lawino says Ocol no
longer engages, or has any interest in, the ritualistic dance but prefers the
ballroom style dances introduced by colonizing Europeans. This loss of culture
on the part of Ocol is what disturbs Lawino to Ocol to stay true to his own
customs, and to abandon his desire to be white.
Song of Lawino is text that illustrates the very
notice-able effects that can be achieved when developing stands of argument are
skillfully integrated within the total form of polemic poem. The work, a long
narrative lament that runs through thirteen separate episodes, from the slyly
funny «woman with whom I share my husband» to «from the mouth of
which river?», represents an extended dramatic monologue with the
lamenting argument coming from the wife of Ocol, a chief's son.
It is important to note, however, that while Lawino's lament
is aimed primarily at her husband (in the first instance), the poem, as a
whole, works as a comprehensive satiric assault. The assault, as Ngugi has
pointed out, quoted by BEELER KARIN (1993:34), is «on the African
middle-class elite that has so unabashedly embraced western bourgeois values
and modes of life»; thus song of Lawino operates within both an
individual and a collective frame of reference, with Lawino's biting comments
constantly extending the arena of polemical debate away from her husband and
towards a general critic of the traditional-modern confrontation in Africa.
The generalizing process can be seen through out the poem in
section where Lawino lashes out at her husband's sexual neglect of her, seeing
his neglect as evidence of a wider problem:
«For all our young men
Were finished in the forest,
Their manhood was finished
In the class-rooms,
Their testicles
Were smashed
With large books» (SOL, P.
117).
Here the personal experience is widened into a critic of a
whole generation. Larger questions regarding the concept of manhood, the
significance of «book-leaning» are brought into play as part of the
poem's polemic values (compared with modern) as being meaningfully coherent
values, values that should retain their place in contemporary Africa. All that
Lawino asks is that her husband should stop his insults, should stop being
half-crazy that he should consider her view, the ways of your ancestors/ are
good/ their customs are solid/ and not hollow/ they are not thin, not easily
breakable/ they cannot be blown away/ by the winds; (SOL, P. 41), because their
roots reach deep into the soil.
Okot P'Bitek allows Lawino to ask some pointed political
questions: what is the meaning of Uhuru? Why do the political parties of the
post- Uhuru period which both claim to fight for peace and against poverty,
split of the nation (U ganda) into hostile group? Why do they not join hands?
The poet leads Lawino to a strikingly effective metaphoric summation of
situation (SOL, P.111).
Lawino as a socio-political observer is allowed to conclude
that if only the parties would like fight poverty with the fury with which they
fight each other, that if only disease and ignorance were assaulted with the
deadly vengeance with which «Ocol assaults his mother' son then «the
enemies would have been greatly reduced by now». By careful control of the
twin polemical strands, Okot successfully broadness the traditional-modern
debate into an area where a possible reconciliation of competinglife-styles can
be considered:
I do not block my husband/ from his new life/ if he likes, let
him build for her/ an iron roofed house on the hill! / I do not complain, / my
grass thatched house is enough for me. (SOL, P.41).
On the other hand, song of Ocol, which was written
after song of Lawino is Lawino's husband responds to her lament,
expressing his disgust for African ways and the destructive force of his
self-hatred: smash all these mirrors/ that I may not see/ the blackness of the
past/ from which I came/ reflected in them»Rather than reflecting the
superiority of western civilization, Ocol's voice has been characterized as an
enraged, violent outpouring against Africa and African culture.
To close these lines, Okot asks us to prevent our culture from
western influence and do not despise cultures of other people: «don't you
look down upon your own; occasional treats you can never depend upon don't
uproot the cultures of your land». (SOL, P.41).
II.5. Imagery, form and
interpretation
Before pointing out the different divices used by Okot P'Bitek
in his poems let us define the terms imagery, form and interpretation.
· Imagery is defined as a language that
produces pictures in the minds of people reading or listening (Hornby 2000:
596)
Imagery can be drefinided as comparisons,
descriptions and figures of speech that help the mind to form forceful or
beautiful pictures.
· Form is definided as the arrangement of parts
in a whole, especially in a work of art or a piece of writing
· Interpretation is a bringing out of the
meaning (a dramatic work, a character...)
While reading Okot P'Bitek, we find him using some devices:
1. Simile is a figure of speech that compares two
dissimilar things by using a key word such as like or as. For instance:
«It looks like an open ulcer/like the mouth of a field!»(SOL,P.37)
2. Hyperbole: is a deliberate exaggeration or
overstatement
«Clementine`s body resembles/ The ugly coat of the
hyena;/ She resembles the wild cat/ that has dipped its mouth in blood»
(SOL, P.37)
3. Metaphor: is a figure of speech in which one thing
is spoken in an imaginative way to describe something else. In section five,
Okot uses metaphor and simile, where dominant motif is the comparison of the
«graceful giraffe» symbolizes the beauty of the African woman and the
«monkey» stands for the ugliness of the white woman and those who ape
whites by wearing white people's wigs (SOL,PP.50-56)
4. Irony: is a figure of speech in which what is
meant is contrary to what the words appear to say. There is a dichotomy between
what is and what appears to be. For instance in section five of Song of Lawino,
the woman is not beautiful at all. After putting curly in her head, she becomes
like a chicken that has fallen in a pond. It is an irony to say that she is a
beautiful woman.
The devices that are most frequently and most effectively used
are apostrophe and lampoon.
5. Apostrophe: is a figure of speech in which a
person, a speaker directly addresses an absent person or personified quality,
object, or idea.
In this context, apostrophe is a device by which the
protagonist or persona directely addresses the interlocutor or imagined
audience. For instance, Lawino frently addresses her husband using such
expressions as «Listem, my husband», «my husband, Ocol»,
«Ocol, my friend» (SOL, P.41). Apostrophe is also simultaneously with
the satirical mode of the lampoon.
6. Lampoon: is a piece of writing that attacks and
makes fun of a person. For instance: «The name of the beautiful one/is
Clementine/ her lips are red-hot/ Like glowing chancool» (SOL, P.37).
7. Repetition: Is the fact of doing or saying the
same thing many times. For instance:
«You kiss her on the cheek
As whithe people do,
You kiss her open- Sore lips
As white people do
You suck the slimy saliva
From each other's mouths
As white people do.» (SOL, P.44).
8. Parallelisme : Is a speech which recquires some
variable features of the patterns (components) some contrasting elements chich
are parallel in resped to their position in pattern.
In Song of Lawino, one can cite section (11), were
repetition and parallelism help to quicken the pace of the verse as in the
following passage:
«The women Yodel
And make ululation!
They yodel and make ululation
Not because they understand,
They yodel so that their voices may be heard
So that their secret loverdman hear them,
They shout and make ululations
Because they are tired
Tired of the useless talk
Tired of the insults
And the lies of
The speakers» (SOL, P.109).
Form
In Song of Lawino Okot P' Bitek replaces the regular rhythm
and rhyme of the Acoli version with irregular free verse in English version.
His lines in Song of Lawino usually end with strong emphasis. He buils his line
around the words he wants to emphasise, crowding weaker words into the
beginning of the line:
«They mould the tips of the cotton nests
So that they are shard
And with these they prick
The chest oftheir men!» (SOL, P.39).
This gives a staccato effect to his verse.
Sometimes Okot succefully softens these lines to
conveyLawino's wistiful moods. The section from the beginning of chapter four
illustrates. The lines flow smoothly to express Lawino's gentler mood.
In Song of Ocol, the emphatic stresses at the end of
Okot's lines are replaced by much more varied patterns of stress. The lines are
shorter and Okot often misses out structural words which sometimes crowd out
the lines in Song of Lawino. Okot also makes very effective use of one
or two syllable lines to provide shock changes of pace. This changes the
staccato effect into a lively boucing rhythm:
«You sister
From pokot
Who grew in the open air?
You are fresh...
Ah!
Come,
Walk with me...» (SOO, P.138).
They language and imagery of Song of Ocol lack the references
to oral tradition which give Song of Lawino some of its richness, but Okot
shouws himself well able to create his own image.
From the point of view of the flow of the verse, Song of
Lawino is not particularly well constructed. The poetry is much too rugged and
devoid of Ly rical qualities. Brief Song of Lawino was originally
written in rhyming couplets and had a regular meter. The poem is told from the
poem of view of Lawino herself in the1st person.
Interpretation
The poet speaks about the graceful Giraffe which stands for
African culture, and of the monkey which sympolizes the Western culture in
section five. Along the poem Lawino in her monologue, addresses to her husband
Ocol. Lawino stands for African culture and Ocol for Western culture. While
analising the poems one can realize that there is a series of conflicts between
African culture and European culture. So Okot P'Bitek deals with a clash of two
cultures in his master piece.
II.6. Mood and Tone
In P'Bitek's poems, the narrator presents and reveals intense
feelings and anxiety. The Songs and dances are full of emotions:
You dance naughtily with pride/ You dance with spirit, / You
compete, you insult, you provoke (SOL, P.42). They evoke sexual emotions
without touching: Her breasts are ripe like the full moon...The eyes of her
love fall one her breasts/Do you think the young man sleeps? (SOL, P.44). The
poet through Lawino expresses anger and pity towards African woman:
«Anger welled up inside me
Burning my chest like bile» (SOL, P.79).
«In Buganda
They buy you
With two pots.
They purchase you/On hire purchase oven like bicycles,/ You
are furniture,/Mathress for man/ Apillon/For his head Woman of African»
(SOO, 134).
From the beginning of the poen, the tone is sharpened. Lawino
addresses her husband directly in the second person and at the same time speaks
in manner which reduces him to the level of a fool. In chapter 12, Lawono
lampoons Ocol by telling him directky how stupid he is to ape and be
subservient to white people. Lawino plaeds with her husband, but in a manner
that ridicules hipm:
«Listen, my husband... Before your own wife and
children?» ( SOL, PP.115-116). In the last section, section 13, her whole
approach, manner and tone of voice change, she tones down the bitterness in her
voice and instead of lampooning Ocol she coaxes him like a loving wife. The
poet generally uses satirical monologues in his poems.
II.7. Themes
Before pointing out the developed themes in P' Bitek's poems,
we find it better to define the concept «theme».
According to Intermediate Dictionary, «theme» is a
short written composition .From our point of view, theme can be defined as a
piece composition that shows what an author says about his subject. In
technical, terms, theme is a positive declaration about life.
As far as the theme is concerned, Okot has developed many
themes in his poems. His favorite themes are:
Ø Western scholarship:
The negative effects of neo-colonial education:
For all our young men
Were finished in the forest
«Their man hood was finished
In the class-rooms,
Their testicles
Were smashed
With large books» (SOL, P.117).
Here Ocol is mentally colonized onely western values are the
best. In the class room, Ocol has read extensively and deeply. And in the
reading, the white man says only thing Ocol can find worth is that wich finds
its origin in Europe. Lawino is mocking all those Ocols who are carring the
habit of slavish imitation of white men. They learnt in the Mission School in
to evry sphere of there lives in the new nations of Africa.His master teachs
him that modern values are more worthy than the traditional values. So,
Lawino's biting comments constantly extending the arena of polemical debate
away from her husband and towards a general critic of traditional-modern
confrontationin African. Furthermore the personal experience is widened into a
critic of a whole generation. Larger questions regarding the concept of mahood,
the significance of book-learning, are brought into play as part of the poem's
polemical trust.
Lwino Criticism proceeds from an after matry stance that
traditional values (compared with the modern) as being meaning fully coherent
values should retain their place in contemporary Africa.
Ø African Religion: The negative attitudes of African
chritians:
«I ran out of the church,
I was very sick!
O! Protestants eat people!
They are all wizards,
They exhume corpses
For dinner!
I once joined
The Catholic evening speaker's class
But I did not stay long
I ran away,
I ran away from shouting
Meaning lessly in the evenings
Like parrots
Like the crow birds» (SOL, P.75).
Here the sermons are preached by padres in Latin which
Christians can hardly understand. The Bible is considered by the priest only.
His utterance is considered as a shaut by the members of the church. They are
singing things wich they do not understand. They repeat after the priest things
that they do not understand. The Christians diviner-priests and the white nuns
think the girls understand while no body understands. Christians are annoyed by
saying Maria the clean woman. Mather of the hunch bach pray for us, who spoil
things ful of graciya. From my point of view, they are speaking a strange
langage. They do not understand whot they shout and the teacher controls them
onely by his anger. Ocol is like a parrot, boasting in the masket place and
conemning everything that the white priests told him to condem, instead of
picking out the good from both African and European ways.
Okot P'Bitek's poetry concerns with social and political
themes as freedom:
The fighting for freedom:
«He says
They are fighting for Uhuru
He says
They want Independence and peace
And when they meet
They shout «Uhuru! Uhuru!»
But what is the meaning of Uhuru?
He says
They want to write the Acoli and Lango
And the radi and Lugbara shoud
Live together in peace!» (SOL, P.103).
Ocol says in his speeches that he is fighting for national
unity, but his political energies do not really be a means for bringing about
unity, national or local.
While fighting for peace and against poverty, the political
parties of his post uhuru period should not split the nation (Uganda) into
hostile groups. However, they should join hands.
As justice: The mistreatment of the lower class by the
political elite.
Political power is the only means by which political elite can
aquire wealth:
«The stomach seems to be
A powerful force
For joining Polical parties, especially when the purse
In the trouser pocket
Carries only the coinst
With holes in their middle» (SOL, P.108).
Comments
As morality: The negative effect of sexual morality:
Her breasts are ripe like the full moon... The eyes of her
love fall on her breasts, do you thing the young man sleeps? (SOL, P.44)
«Women throw their arms
Around the necks of their partners
...Ren hold the waists of the women
Tightly, tightly
And as they dance
Knees touch knees (SOL,P.44).
Comments
List of abbreviations
C: Conflict, Confrontation
P: Page
SOL: Song of Lawino
SOO: Song of Ocol.
Conclusion
All said and done, however, we can justifiably say that Okot
p'Bitek's achiwement in Song of Lawino is unparalleled in African
poetry to date using traditial modes of expression and tropes he created a
powerful and memorable poem in the medium of English. His archievement becomes
more significant if we take into account the fact that he communicates even
more effectively in the Acoli language, the language of the peasant community
that gave him the inspiration to champion the cause of African culture. In this
poem, Okot successfully resolved the problem of the contradiction between the
writer's medium and his audience. He cannot be accused of elitism because he
speaks directly to the Acoli masses in their own language and is at the same
time atle to communicate with all those who understand English the world
over.
Okot p'Bitek's art is an example of that rare phenomenon:
popular art which appeals to the highly educated while being intelligible to
the common man and woman in the street.
Furthermore, in his Song of Lawino, Okot foregrounds
a black female speaker whose pride in the traditional Acoli ways of life
inspires her to criticise a husband who has become a product of colonial
attitudes. This post colonial text advocates pre-colonial society through the
voice of Lawino, who takes pride in her black identity. Okot `p Bitek himself
shows his own attitudes towards black feminine difference in Song of Lawino.
Through the analysis of the poems, we have explored some of
the strategies and images employed by Ugandan poet Okot in his attack on
colonization and apply a number of ideas on the female self to a postcolonial
text. Cultural, racial difference and essence contribute to an appreciation of
woman and Acoli culture in Okot's companion poems.
Notice that Lawino `s traditional Acoli sense of time, her
references to non-verbal forms of expression such as notive dance are
constructed with western forms in an attempt to liberate the colonized A frican
from the grip of the colonizer. Okot based the Song of Lawino on an Acoli folk
Song and originally wrote this piece in Acoli before translating it into
English.
This history of conception of Lawino's poem together with the
choice of the subject matter enabled Okot p'Bitek to engage in sustained critic
of Colonization.
Wich is not achieved as convincingly in the
accompanying Song of poem that lacks an acoli version.
Song of Lawino and Song of Ocol are satiritical poems
of post-colonial period. Song of Lawino is a debate about moral norms
and shared assumptions between satirist and audience. It is satirical comment
on the neo-colonial mentality of the African petty bourgeoisie, the
intellectuals and political leaders of Africa.
To enable Lawino to advance her argument forcefully, Okot
gives her the gift of wit and employs Acoli poetic forms to produce a pungent
work of satire.
Although gender is an important factor in these poems, the
racial and pre-colonial /colonial tensions seem to establish an essentialist
position towards male/ female worlds of experience. Through the voice of the
black female subject in Song of Lawino, Okot p'Bitek
may conveya resistance to the trappings of colonialism, but he fails to
liberate his characters from the strict binary opposition of male and female
gender categories.
II.8. Philosophy of the
author
Okot P' Bitek is among Africa's best author whose views
on important philosophical issues remain UN exoplored. His poems not only
locate his views very well within African philosophy, but will provoke and
stimulate African philosophers to search for African philosophy, he wrote
African religions in western scholarship, Africa's Cultural Revolution,
song of Lawino and of Ocol, and other essays. Therefore, in reading
Oral traditions as philosophy one gets a holistic purview of P' Bitek's views.
In song of Lowino, Okot P' Bitek takes Lawino
as his tool for making his own comments on the way people behave in East
Africa. In his philosophy, P'Bitek argues that Africa should reject European
ways by having Lawino state that they are good, but only good for Europeans.
Okot speaks out against the prejudice that African tribes have received for
him, there is no room for song of Ocol, and Okot argues that Ocol is allowed to
address his own beliefs, but his argument is not strongly realized at Lawino's.
According to P'Bitek, Ocol does not bring up issues regarding healthcare in
Africa, stating that traditional medicines harm people rather than help them.
Using Luo toles, Imbo (2002:44) argues that the narratives are
best apprehended by a holistic approach that sees the spirits, the living, and
the unborn as members of the same extended family.
According to P' Bitek, the spoken can sustain analytical and
rigorous philosophical dialogue. Imbue (idem P49) in supporting P'Bitek's view
mutatis mutandis, postulates that the spoken word plays an important role
within philosophy and as poets, novelists and story tellers. According to him
philosophy is the extraction of meaning from the accounts of the oral
traditions. That extraction is made richer by admission of oral traditions as
texts.
Okot P'Bitek, believed that his work dealt honestly with human
condition and had deep human roots although, he has been criticized by other
African writers, including Ngugi wa Thiong'o, for not adequately addressing the
underlying causes of Africa's problems.
Brief, P' Bitek dealt with the conflict between European and
African cultures by using medium of satirical monologues.
In order to provide an easy understanding to our readers, we
give some definitions of some techniques according to the dictionary of English
language.
CHAPTER
THREE: THE IMAGE OF WOMAN IN OKOT P'BITEK'S SONG OF LAWINO AND SONG OF
OCOL
Introduction
In this chapter Three, we quote some passages showing the
image of a woman that Okot uses and speaks to in his poems. Before dealing with
this chapter, we confirm that the study of literary techniques in the preceding
chapter Two is worthy for the good understanding of p'Bitek's Song of
Lawino and Song of Ocol. The summary of the analysis helps us enough to
get the full meaning of each poem.
We find it better to divide this chapter which treats the
image of woman according to different point of view into three subdivisions
with a personal point of view which closes the lines: Social point of view
educationa point of view and religious point of view.
The woman has a mission of defending her ancestor's traditions
and preserving them from western influences.
III.1. Social point of
view
A great deal of appeal of Song of Lawino comes from
Okot's exploitation of dramatic possibilities of Lawino's rivalry with
Clementine. Lawino, the traditional woman is opposed to Clementine, the modern
woman. This opposition is due to the fact that the latter praises modern
notions of style while the former is making a mockery of them. This traditional
woman stands for African culture and the westernized woman stands for European
culture.
Okot P'Bitek through Lawino attacks this modern slyly funny
woman who has disappeared completely in poem replaced by Ocol:
«Brother, had you beheld the said Clementine,
Her mouth glows red like live embers
Her lips are red like a ghost's after drinking blood,
Her mouth protrudes like yaw-point,
It looks like ulcer,
Like a wild-beast's mouth!
Her face is freckled; she looks like hyena (SOL,
P.37)».
The attack on dramatic reversal of values is limited to
cosmetic and make-up it yoes on European social and cultural values which go
against traditional codes of behavior, imported forms of dancing. African songs
and dances are full of emotins said Lawino:
«You dance naughtily with pride,
You dance with spirit, you compete,
You insult, you provoke» (SOL, P.42)
African songs and dances require skill and stamina:
«A girl whose waist is stiff is a clumsy
girl» (SOL, P.43)
Where as western dances are stameful, result immorality,
Each man dances with a woman who is not his wife:
«Being held so tightly I fell ashamed,
Being held so tightly in public I cannot do it,
It looks shameful tome» (SOL, P.44).
A part from being immoral, their kissing and dancing are seen
as grotesquely ugly:
«You kiss her on the cheek
As their teeth look
As if they have been boxed in the mouth» (SOL, P.44).
From Lawino's point of view, imported forms of dancing result
in immoral behavior when each man dances with a woman who is not his wife while
dancing, one can told me waists of the woman. Even touch the woman's breasts in
order to provoke her for sexual inter course.
Western people's emotions are derived more likely from alcohol
than from spiritual means:
«They fall face upwards like fish that are dead
drunk» (SOL, P45).
The white man considers the traditional woman as a thing and
the modern woman as a University woman: «He has no time to waste
discussing things with a thing like Lawino. University man can only have useful
talk with another University man or woman» (S O L, 88).
Okot presents the traditional woman as simple preasant woman
and then twins her into a political scientist without creating the
circumstances that give rive rise to such a shift:
«And while the pythons of sickness
Swallow the children
And the buffaloes of poverty
Knock the people down
And ignorance stands there
Like an elephant»(S O L, P. 111).
If we take into account her analysis of behaviour of
politicians, one may wonder if she is the same woman commenting about political
rivalry.
Brief colonial education taught African lives. In song of
Lawino and song of Ocol, Okot p'bitek laments a situation.
Western people consider African woman as a sweeper of the floor, as a mattress
for man; her arm as a pillow for his head! (SOO , P.134).
«Thus Alice walker quoter from the site web: www. Unb.
c/ca/CACLAS/chin 0 26. Html argues that Apartheid exerts
A double oppression on black woman, since the policy is
rife
Wife Un official inscriptions of Manichean gender models,
models which are themselves powerful marginalizing structures.
Womanism denotes the impossibility of a unity predominantly
Based either on gender (on gender) or race.»
Moreover, another woman, MS Zollar quoted with grin.
«we woman will never have peace. The troubles with man
are ceaseless. At night they are worse «From htt: // query. nytimes.
Com /gst/full page. Html?
III.2. ducation Point of
view
On the educational point of views, the traditional woman is
considered y the white man as an illiterate for she does not know English, she
does not know the names of the names of the moons/ How many moons in a year/And
the number of Sabbath / In one moon `(SOL, P. 69)
She is also considered as a numb and an empty head for his
husband says, she can not tell when their children were born. (S O L, p 72) in
which colonial education emasculates the emerging African elite: «my
husband's house is a dark forest of books.../ their manhood was finished in the
classrooms, their testicles were smashed with big books.» (SOL, P. 117)
III.3. Religious Point of
view,
On the religious point of view, Okot presents the immorality
of a woman. For instance, Lawino's preoccupation of sexual morality is in
evolved in her later comment on the catholic priests and nuns, the long
tradition of priestly and nun's hypocrisy. Again Okot attacks the idea of
celibacy which has a serious basis in many people's minds and has been and
still is a familiar and influential idea in European culture.
So when then Padré and the nun shout at Lawino, it must
be their sexual frustration:
They are angry with me
As if it was I
Who prevented then marrying ( SOL,P.85).
The intellectual woman is hypocrite and again no priest can
possibly discipline his sexual desires. So no one can resist another:
«In the Padré's car
The Nun pats them one their backs
And says my son you are good! (SOL, P.86)».
Religion is also against woman's nakedness in Western dances.
The teacher from the evening speaker's class follows Lawino to the dance. And
every teacher must be like this:
«And all the teacher
Are like
They have sharp eyes
For gils' full breasts... (SOL, P.81).
They white man should accept the traditional woman if she
takes the commitment of being baptized and getting a Christian name. According
to the white man, the suitable name is that of Maria the clean woman, Mother of
the Hunchback:
«Ocol wanted me
To be baptized Benedeta
He has christened one daughter Marta
The other took
The name of the mother of the Hunchback» (SOL, P.81)
The Whiteman rejects Acoli names, meaningful names.
He says that they are folk names. Payan names.
He says belong to sinners who will burn in ever lasting fires
(SOL, P.82).
Personal point of view
As far as the debate about two cultures is concerned, the
evidence is that one of the two characters, the antagonist and the antagonist
pretends to belong to a worthy culture different from another one.
On our part, there is no better culture than another. To avoid
the polemic however, reconciliation between the two cultures should be done.
We mean, forgiveness between old type and traditional woman
and modern woman has its raison d'être. Neverthless, each man has to
defend and protect his culture from foreigner's influence.
Okot through Lawino, the defender of her ancestor's customs
shows that white men despise African culture. Colonialism denied Africa the
right to cultural development and self expression and set up a state of siege
that it justified with theories about cultural assimilation. So Okot as a
writer during colonial and post-colonial period attacks colonizers who imposed
their culture to African people.
Quote fromthe site web htt:HWWW.info please.Com/Ce
6/People/AO835542html
Okot P'Bitek protest against the white mean of the colonial
period like Ferdinand Oyono in his novel: Houseboy because his feels
that they deny the African and his power as a human being.
Okot uses a woman Lawino to describe the beauty of the tribal
dances, particularly the beauty of the female dancers. Lawino seems to lament
to the role that Western females take in the dance of their culture. Perhaps
this is importand because it is universally true of their sexuality as it seems
to be Okoy for men in both cultures to participate in basturbation.
In the closing lines of the poem there is not only anger, but
also devastating sense of frustration and hopelessness on the prantagonist
side:
WEBOGRAPHY
«Open the door,
Man
I want to dance
All the dances of the world
I want to sleep with
All the young dancers
I want to dance
And forget my smallness,
Let me dance and forget
For a small while
That I am a wretch
...Torn down by the whirlwind of Uhuru» (SOL, P.120).
Now the question is that what kind of liberation should Africa
take on? Should it honour its traditions or should it adopt the European's
values that were already set in place during colonialism? The answer is that
Africa should respect its traditions.
After analysis the poems, we realize that Okot speaks out
against the prejudice that African tribes have receive during colonial period.
He attacks the Western colonizers and addresses the African people to inherit
his philosophy, and to stay firm to their culture, not to be uprooted.
Conclusion
Okot P'Bitek presents the traditional woman as an uneducated
woman. He uses her like a tool to remind African people to protect their
culture and not to forget their africaness. He wants African people to
buildnations and to take care of the future of Africa.
Okot throughout fawino does not accept the western people to
impose their culture to africanpeople. Although colonizers denied Africa the
right to cultural development and self expression, Africa has its own identity
and its own civilisation.
Okot throughout the woman he portrays shows his attitude
towards negative behaviours of social, educational and religious aspects.
These colonial aspects above developed in the chapter three
are the major elements to support my thesis statement. These elements help us
to enter into Okot nP'Bitek's mind and share with him the evidence that there
is no better culture than another. However, people should sort out the positive
elements for the development of their own culture.
GENERAL CONCLUSION
To sum up, Okotp' Bitek's idea, we consider Song of
Lawino and Song of Ocool as poems of attack against western
influences. The poem on the whole is an appeal for African people to be the
defenders of African culture, not to be unprooted.
Through out this poem Okot' p Bitek involves the real social
problems very common in rural areas of East Africa. Furthermore, the poem is an
appeal for renewal of traditional ways. It captures the confrontation of Africa
and Europe with eloquent force.
Okot wants African people not to embrace western values and
modes of life, but to remove blindness which they got during the pre colonia
and the colonial periods.
Taking into account all that we hve developed in the
preceeding chapters of the present work, Song of Lawino and Song
of Ocol is a concern of a long debate between two characters. The so
called debate is about moral norms and assumptions between satirist and
audience. Through the song of Lawino, P' Bitek comments on the neo-colonial
mentality of African bourgeoisie and politica leaders of Africa.
To make himself understood, P'Bitek uses a black female
speaker whose pride in the traditional Acoli way of life inspises her to
criticize a husband who has become the fruit of colonial attitudes. Okot' p
Bitek through Zawine shows his own attitude towards black feminine difference
in song of Lawino.
Lawino in her behavior praises African traditional ways,
while Acom a white man indsults Lawino, his wife. Lawino now laments because of
Acol's insuts, his attitude towards his ancestor's customs. Thus, the
conflict begins between them.
To restore peace between Lawino, the defender of Africa
tradition and Acol whose behavior's like a white man, the latter recognizes his
identity and asks forgiveness, finally the reconciliation between the two
characters.
What we find consistant is that Song of Lawino and
Song of Ocol is written in Acoli and latter on translated in English,
the two languages that the author masters very well. If we take into account
the fact that Acol communicates more effectively in that Acoli language, his
achievement becomes more significant and that language helps him to defend the
African culture.
Brief, Song of Lawino and song of Acol a
text of colonial period is an appeal to the highly educated while being
intelligible to the common man and woman in the street.
Finally, it is a text that spreaks out against the prejudice
that African tribes received during colonial period.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Amin, Samir, (1965): Neocolonialism in West Africa
translated by Mc
Donagh HarmondSwarth:
Penguin Books.
Awoonor, Kofi, (1972): This Earth My
Brother, London: Heinemann Educational Books .
Canton, William, (1971): The African, London:
Heinemann
Educational Books.
Davidson, Basil, (1973): The Africans: An Entry to
Cultural History,
Harmondsworth: Penguin Books Diop David, Mindelense, (1990):
Idealism and Realism in Negritude
London Heinemann Educational Books.
Eliot, T.S., (1990): Individualistic idealism and social
commitment,
London Heinemann Educational Books. Karin, Beeler(1986):
The Dark continent of Woman, Nairobi East Africa
P.H.
Kasereka, Vwakya Albert, (2006): Charles Dickens'
Attitude
Towards Labours
and Poor People in Hard
Times During the
Victorian Ages with Light on
Our Days
Social Ways of Living. Unpublished
Monograph,
UNILUK.
Madhavigupta, (1989): Writing the
Ordinary: Society Story as Woman's prose, London: Heinemann
Educational Books.
Ngara, Emanuel, (1990): Ideology and form in Africa
Poetry:
Implications for communication,
Nairobi: Heinemann Kenya
_______________, (1990): Cultural Nationalism and Okot
p'Bitek Petty
Bourgeoisie,
Nairobi: Heinemann Kenya.
Molefi, Kete Adante and Kariamu W. Asante, (1990):
African Culture:
Rhythm of
Unity, Nairobi: Heinemann Edition.
Okot, P'bitek, (1972-1984): Song of Lawino and Song of
Ocol,
Nairobi: East
Africa publishing House.
_____________ (1966-1967): Song of Lawino and Song of
Ocol,
Nairobi:
Heinemann Educational Publishers.
Ngala mulume, Kapula Kabasele, (2001): Ferdinand Oyono's
House Boy: A short study», Unpublished Thesis, UNIKIS.
Ngugi, Wa Thiong'o, (1986): Decolonizing the Mind: The
Politics of Language in African Literature, Heinemann Educational
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Oluoch Imbo Samuel, (2002): Legacy for African Philosophy,
Vol. 8,
Issue 2, Row
Man and Little field Publishes.
III. WEBOGRAPHY
http://www. Unb. calcalals/chim026.html
http: www Wikipedia 2008
CONTENTS
INTRODUCTION
1
0.1. Interest and
choice of the topic
1
0.2. Purpose and methods
1
0.2.1. Purpose
1
0.3. 2. Methods
1
0.3. Hypothesis
2
0.4. Limitation of the work
3
0.5. Review of the literature.
3
0.6. Division of the work
3
CHAPTER ONE: OKOT p' BITEK'S LIFE AND WORK
3
I.1. Introduction
3
I.1.1. His life
3
I.1.2. Work
3
CHAPTER TWO: A LITERARY ANALYSIS OF OKOT P'BITEK'S
SONG OF LAWINO AND SONG OF OCOL
3
II.1. Introduction:
3
II.2. Characters and characterization
3
II.2.1. Character
3
II. 3. Point of view
3
II.4. CONTEXT OF THE POEM
3
II.5. Imagery, form and interpretation
3
II.6. Mood and Tone
3
II.8. Philosophy of the author
3
III.1. Social point of view
3
III.2. Education Point of view
3
III.3. Religious Point of view,
3
Conclusion
3
BIBLIOGRAPHY
3
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