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.
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