Colonial and Post-Colonial books contrasted: Mister Johnson by Joyce
Cary, She by Rider Haggard, and the works of Chinua Achebe
by Kevin Patrick Mahoney
Rider Haggard reveals a diverse picture of Africa: ”their
appearance had a good deal in common with that of the East African Somali, only
their hair was not frizzed up, and hung in thick black locks upon their
shoulders”(1). Neither does Cary create a unitary view of Africa within Mister
Johnson. What they and Achebe do , however, is to write about the Africa they
knew. There is no simple division between colonised and coloniser in Johnson.
Even within the hierarchies of the British, no two figures are the same. Cary
uses the techniques which Achebe employs to greater effect. Bamiro has written
a couple of essays in which he discusses Nigerian Pidgin English in Achebe’s
novels. The way his characters speak pidgin English reveals a lot about them.
As Achebe himself has said,”The price a world language must be prepared to pay
is submission to many different kinds of use”(2). Yet Cary is very much aware
of this himself. This is revealed in his troubling creation of Sergeant Gollup.
No one can say that the following is a great example of ‘correct’ English: ”But
look ‘ere, w’y, suppose you didn’t blow off, suppose you didn’t say about being
up to anybody and then you knock ‘is block off; w’y, it’s a bloomin’
wonder”(3). This is Cary’s attempt at writing Cockney, a variety of pidgin
English. One cannot say whether Cary’s representation is
accurate.
Surprisingly, one has to say the same of Achebe:
he also writes in Cockney. “Your boys like us, ain’ they? My girlfriend saiz
it’s the Desdemona complex. Nice word Des-de-mona. Italian I think. Ever hear
it?”(4). This seems just as problematical as Cary’s example. It may be that
Achebe wants to portray the woman as being stupid but then she talks about
Shakespeare. It may be meant to reveal that
(1) SHE p.77
(2) Killam p.6
(3) Johnson p.139
(4) Anthills p.80
2
Beatrice is far more intelligent, but at the same time it
is a patronising portrait of a woman in a novel which is supposed to be
supporting the authority of women. Also it seems to be linguistically incorrect:”ain’
they” should be “don’t they” (or “don’ they”). Achebe may justifiably protest
at Cary’s attempts to convey Nigerian Pidgin English, but he can be equally as
fallible.
Applying Bamiro’s analysis further to Mister Johnson can lead to
disturbing conclusions and contradictions. In another of Achebe’s novels,
Captain Winterbottom accommodates his servant by speaking in pidgin English to
him, and Bamiro sees this as a positive sign. However, the only person who does
this in Mister Johnson is Gollup - “I don’ want to kill you, ole chap, ‘cause I’gree
for you too much”(5). The highlighted phrase is one that Cary often
ascribes to Johnson. Again, it may not be linguistically correct, but It is
used throughout the novel as a form of pidgin English. Yes, Sergeant Gollup is
using language to accommodate Johnson here, but it is within the context of a
very racist speech.
Although one can argue that Mister Johnson is not of the highest
literary value, one has to say at the same time that it is very complex. It
does allow several different readings. One can very much understand Achebe’s
reaction against it if he read Johnson the same way that Larsen did. In
Larsen’s interpretation, Johnson is a very stupid person. It is difficult to
credit a reading which describes Gollup as thus: “intelligent and
imaginative”(6). In Larsen’s view, there are varying levels of civilisation in
Cary’s novel, and Gollup is definitely “going native” (7) as was the convention
for English men in Imperialist novels.
The biggest criticism of Cary one can make is that he is not greatly original.
For instance, Celia Rudbeck often resembles Adela Quested in Passage to India,
such as when she asks Johnson how many wives he has. On the other hand,
(5) Johnson p.138
(6) Larsen p.65
(7) Brantlinger p.230
3
it is very tempting to say that Cary was right all the
long - Anthills of the Savannah does rather dwell on Nigerian corruption.
Cary’s portrait of contemporary African rulers was very negative. Achebe
refutes this by showing that his Nigerian rulers have very English backgrounds,
which explain their behaviour. Ikem identifies himself with the previous
colonial rulers when he talks of “The very words the white master had said in
his time about the black race as a whole. Now we say them about the poor”(8).
Just as Ajali seems to get some satisfaction out of Gollup beating Matumbi, so
Ikem revels when his neighbour beats his wife. At the beginning, there are many
references to Sandhurst (to which Sam went) and the London School of Economics.
They are shown as being no different from Cary’s African rulers. Sam’s cabinet
say what they think he wants to hear, whilst the Waziri does exactly the same:
”We pray that you make still more roads”(9). Or, as Achebe says: ”The
withdrawal of the colonial powers was in many ways merely a tactical move to
get out of the limelight, but to retain the control in all practical ways”(10).
Yet this contradicts much of what Achebe wrote in his earlier fictions.
Achebe portrayed African leaders positively in Things Fall Apart, in one
of his reactions against Cary’s fiction. One cannot easily make this concur
with his above statement. He seems to be saying that Nigerians will always be
corrupt if they are linked to the old colonial powers. It may well be that Anthills
sees him writing as a disappointed man. Again, it is too easy to blame
colonialism for everything that went wrong in Nigeria after independence.
Achebe is not completely negative when discussing imperialism, as the
quotations in Killarn reveal. He believes that colonialism united people by
giving them a common language.
At the same time though, Achebe reveals that he is trying to save
African civilisation by collecting oral tales on tape (11). This is quite
similar to the drive to collect
(8) Anthills p.40
(9) Johnson p.182
(10) Gikandi p.127
(11) Wilkinson p.57
4
traditional English ballads a century earlier. Bishop
(12) reveals that just such a collection contributed to Cary’s reading for
Johnson: A.J.N.Tremearne’s The Ban of the Bori. This, more than anything else,
reveals the paradox that was Imperialism. They banned aspects of African
culture, but also preserved them - at least to a limited extent - by
translating them into English. What is important about Mister Johnson is
that it reflects what Cary thought to be true. Nobody could deny that the
British were very interested in all aspects of Africa. Admittedly, they did it
from their own view point. At least Cary and Haggard did spend a great deal of
time in Africa.
One could also go on to say that Anthills is a
refutation of She. Yet Achebe has never mentioned that it is. In the novel
itself, Beatrice is purposefully compared with Idemili, an African mythical
Goddess. As Achebe says,”Idemili actually means the ‘pillar of water’... The
source of Idemili River is a lake. It runs through a territory throughout which
the python is held sacred”(13). Whereas throughout She, Aeysha is represented
as snake-like, as Karlin writes: ”The serpent motif... is another mark of
Holly’s power over Aeysha, as her interpreter” (14). Achebe subverts this
by making Beatrice the powerful narrator:”The big snake, the royal python of a
gigantic erection began to stir in the shrubbery of my shrine as we danced
closer and closer”(15). Gilbert and Gubar make clear the phallic symbolism of
Aeysha’s Pillar of Fire - “She Herself represents a ‘heart of darkness’ into
which the flaming sword of patriarchal justice must be ritually stabbed”(16).
Again, Achebe’s description of the Pillar of Water is unmistakably phallic
(17), yet it is the very opposite of the Pillar of Fire. In Achebe’s story,
unlike Haggard’s, the New Woman is presented as nothing to be
(12) Bishop p.244
(13) Wilkinson p.54
(14) Karlin p.xxx
(15) Anthills p.81
(16) Gilbert & Gubar p.20
(17) Anthills p.102
5
frightened of. The fact that things have changed is shown
by Chris’ death saving a woman from rape, whilst Aeysha had to be “fucked to
death by the ‘unalterable law’ of the Father” (18). This is Achebe’s greatest
achievement, his subversion of the imperial Gothic which portrayed women as
monsters. The generalisation which initiated this essay is thus revealed to be
false. There are rather more similarities than differences between these
particular writers. After years of civil war, of men fighting men, Achebe
finally says that the time has come for women to take the reins of power,
everywhere. For if these are novels of men writing about Africa, they are also
novels of men writing about the ‘Other’ - Woman. It is refreshing to see that
the modern author is the one to have come up with the most positive female
archetype. What Achebe fulfils is that centuries-old task of creating great new
works of art by refuting past ones.
(18) Gilbert & Gubar P.21
6
Bibliography
Nigerian Englishes in Nigerian English Literature by
Edmund 0. Bamiro, World Englishes Vol.10, No.1, spring 1991.
The Social and Functional Power of Nigerian English by
Edmund 0. Bamiro, World Englishes Vol.10, No.3, Winter 1991.
Rule of Darkness by Patrick Brantlinger.
Gentleman Rider: A Biography of Joyce Cary by Alan Bishop
(1988).
Reading Chinua Achebe by Simon Gikandi (1991).
No Man’s Land, Volume 2: Sexchanges by Sandra M. Gilbert
and Susan Gubar.
The Writings of Chinua Achebe by G.D. Killam (1977).
Chinua Achebe by C.L. Innes (1992).
The Dark Descent by Golden L. Larsen (1965).
Joyce Cary’s Africa by M.M. Mahood (1964).
Talking with African Writers interviews by Jane
Wilkinson.
