Fiery Language

We talked about the repititon of words portraying heat, burning, and fire in The Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man. But upon rereading parts of My Life in the Bush of Ghosts for my essay, I realized the image holds true in this novel as well.

"It was these eyes which were bringing out splashes of fire all the time and were used to bring out fire on the firewood whenever she wanted to cook food and the flash of fire of these eyes was so strong that it would catch the firewood at the same moment like petrol or other inflammable spirit or gunpowder, and also use it at night as a flood of light in lighting the whole town as electricity lights, so by that, they were not using other lights except the flash fire of her eyes" (pg 99)

In the passage above, the narrator is describing the power of the flash-eyed mother. Here we see this excessive repetition of heat and fire and if we associate that with the connotation of suffering and Hell, we can see that Tutuola is drawing a connection between this ghost town and its obsession with Hell. I think he is commenting on the excessive nature of Christianity of describing sin and the inevitable punishment associated. Like Stephen, this narrator is frightened by the idea of the fires of Hell and punishment for sin, but I think this narrator is more of an observer than an activist. Stephen blatantly referred to religion and made a conscious effort to save his soul (ex. praying in the cold). Here, though, we so no quick religious turn around, and it is easy to read past this Hellish illusion.

I think it is also worth noticing that this flash-eyed mother, the political leader, holds so much power that she is described as an element of nature. Perhaps Tutuola is commenting on the power of colonial leaders through this metaphor and is explaining the punishment of defying them (sinning and Hell). This is what is being taught, anyways.