HopeinAfricanLit

//Mr. M: I’ve been sweating for a week. Why? Because one of those animals, the one, called Hope, has broken loose and is looking for food. Don’t be fooled by its gentle name. It is as dangerous as Hate and Despair would be if they ever managed to break out. You think I’m exaggerating? Pushing my metaphor a little too far? Then I’d like to put you inside a black skin and ask you to keep Hope alive, find food for it on these streets where our children, our loved and precious children go hungry and die of malnutrition.// (27-28, My Children! My Africa! )

The theme of Hope is ever present in African Literature. The story of Africa is ridden with despair, oppression, violence, poverty, and disease. However in the end there always seems to be a small hope that the present generations are suffering so that the future generations will be able to live a better life. In the play, //My Children! My Africa!//, every character has a hope that their struggle will pave the way for future generations in Africa. Mr. M, as quoted in the above passage, is a teacher for precisely this reason. He hopes that through education and a greater knowledge of the world, some of his students will go on to get scholarships to higher level universities. He is a true believer that education results in success, that it will provide more opportunities for Africans to make a difference in their countries and in the world. Also education means better jobs and better jobs mean more money. Mr. M hopes that many of his students won’t spend the rest of their lives in the location. His student, Thami, hopes that there are better things in the future for his culture, but he cannot see it being acheived through education because “it’s hard, you know, for us ‘bright young blacks’ to dream about wonderful careers as doctors, or lawyers when we keep waking up in a world which doesn’t allow the majority of our people any dreams at all” (47). Thami wants his people to stand up for themselves and fight for their equality. He doesn’t believe, like Mr. M, that it can be gained peacefully. He doesn’t think that Africans should have to earn their equality, but that they have always been equal and need to fight for it. Thami dreams of an Africa where Africans run their own countries and his people are able to vote and make decisions for themselves. Isabel is not an African but she still has hope that one day the two races will be able to freely interact. She too feels oppressed, for she does not have the opportunity to know and understand the blacks and their culture. She feels as if she has “discovered a new world” (18) when she meets Thami and his friends; as if her whole life she has been locked in and isolated from reality. However, Mr. M warns that his Hope is extremely dangerous. To hope and believe that there is a better life will destroy black Africans who become educated only to discover that they do not have the same opportunities as the whites, nor are they considered equal. To live thinking that tomorrow will be better is lto lie to oneself. Progress in Africa is completed in baby steps, and one's hopes may not come true for many generations. It is also extremely difficult, living under poverty stricken conditions, to keep hope alive. However, how is it possible to live if one believes that one is not, in some way, making life better for one's children? Hope is a theme that is carried throughout African literature. In the novel //Sozaboy// by Ken Saro-Wiwa, the protagonist Mene is forced to face reality when he enters the war. His innocent and peaceful life comes crashing down around him when he sees men killed and tortured, witnesses the respected leaders of the village betray him for a few rations of food, and realizes that some men, the “manmuswaks,” will do anything, to anyone, to stay alive. However, being able to recognize reality means that Mene can change it and prevent the corruption and violence from occurring again, for without understanding reality one can never make it better. In the novel //When Rain Clouds Gather// by Bessie Head, the protagonist Makhaya flees from a world of oppression both under white rule and under tribalism. He hates that women are considered inferior in his culture and that Africans are the “pets” of the white men. In the refugee town of Golema Mmidi, however, Makhaya finds progress. With the help of an Englishman, Gilbert, the villagers are using western techniques to benefit their agriculture as well gaining profits from the sale of their cattle. The women are playing a large role in increasing the village profit and have just as much say in the decisions of the town. The villagers also stand up to their corrupt leader, coming together to fight for their rights and support each other. This progress gives Makhaya enormous hope that his people won’t always have to live in poverty and despair. That with the opportunity, Africans are quite possible of making a better life for themselves and working together to succeed. Progress and Hope are also evident in the novel //God’s Bits of Wood// by Sembene Ousmane. The Africans who work on the railway are oppressed by the whites because, for the same work, they get lower salaries and fewer privileges. The men go on strike to demand higher wages and more rights. The women are instrumental in this protest, marching from one end of the railroad to the other to convince the European railroad company to grant their demands as well as proving to their men that they are equals. Although the strike is very difficult because the men are no longer bringing home money and the Europeans have cut off their water supply, the Africans never give into the pressure and continue to protest until they are acknowledged and their requests are granted. This novel is all about fighting for tomorrow. The novel, //Nervous Conditions// by Tsitsi Dangarembga, portrays the danger of hope that Mr. M warns about. Tambu, the protagonist, works to get an education because she believes that it will bring her more opportunities to succeed, as well as alleviate her from poverty and inferiority. However, she soon discovers that she will never be considered equal to men or to whites and that integrating herself in a European culture will only alienate her from her own native culture and family. However, toward the end of the book, Tambu’s mother Mainini, a poor uneducated woman, has the insight that Englishness is destroying her daughter and tearing her away from Africa. Not only is this important for Tambu to recognize and understand, but the fact that an uneducated woman has said this means that education isn’t everything. The novel ends when with Tambu fighting to discover how she is going to lift herself from poverty without forgetting her native roots. This fight also brings hope to the future generations. In all of these books, there is poverty and famine. There is pain and suffering. There is discrimination and oppressiveness. But overshadowing all this, there is hope and a belief in a future worth living. This theme is interwoven in much of African literature, because without hope there is nothing.

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