The ending of this novel leaves off in a precarious position. As this unnamed boy egresses from his stay in the bush world he enters an Africa that is not far from the environment he entered when he first stumbled into the bush world. It is a world of forced servitude and slavery, a world of "un-living". This being juxtaposed with the tenth town of ghosts that the unnamed boy just exited leaves the reader with quite a quandary. Is the idealized town which he just left a model for society? In the tenth town we see infrastructure being developed by the returning ghost of his cousin. Hospitals, schools, churches, all these vital elements of a functioning society are now being implemented in this ethereal world. Is the Africa that he re-enters, or rather, the reality that he re-enters not as appealing as this land of industrial apparition?
Most of us today in class, and I one of them, offered up the opinion that this tenth town is an indictment of colonialism. The bringing in of outside infrastructural influence, the development of social resources, and our protagonists acquisition of literary skills all lend to the evidence of colonial metaphor, but on closer inspection is seems that perhaps I was remiss in this opinion.
To assert that infrastructure, social resources, and social mobility are all facets of colonialism, then one would be denying anyone in their indigenous region the ability to individually govern their land with any amount of autonomy. Social infrastructure and resources are not solely development by colonization. I do not think that the returning ghosts of his native people represent colonial forces of a foreign power but rather the transitioned peoples going back to their local environments with the knowledge given to them after colonization. I can definitely see the point of post-colonialism, and in keeping with the running narrative, this would be poignant given the towns literary placement at the end of the novel.
If the bush world is an running allegory for the development of Nigeria after its contact with Colonialism and its subsequent subjugation via the slave trade
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I dont really know what happened with that bit at the end, that was not intended.
ReplyDeleteI like the points you bring up here. First, I like that you draw a connection between the character first entering the bush world and the fear, mistreatment, and confusion associated with that scene, with the character entering reality after being in the bush world for so long. I think that his reality is flipped. At first, he is used to his home town and the bush world is bizarre, but then, he is used to the bush world and his hometown is a bit bizarre. Also, I like that you come to the conclusion that this would be a post-colonial time. I think I would change my opinion on that subject after reading this post b/c you're right, just because they have schools and churches and a government does not necessarily mean they are being colonized. In fact, it could even mean that they have learned how to make these things for themselves. Maybe we were a bit hasty to label it as colonialism.
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