Camara Laye: The African Child

CAMARA LAYE: THE AFRICAN CHILD

 AUTHOR’S BACKGROUND

Born on January 1, 1928, at Kouroussa, Dakar, Senegal, Camara Laye was a Guinean novelist. He first attended local schools where his formal French education started. He attended a technical high school in Conakry and later left for France on a government scholarship. He got a certificate in automotive technology at Argenteuil, and proceeded to Paris for a degree course in automotive engineering. He kept many odd jobs and experienced privation until he found employment in an automotive factory.

In 1956, Camara Laye return to Guinea and worked there in a technical capacity for the French colonial regime. 

    When Guinea became independent, he was sent on a diplomatic mission to many African countries and later became Director, Sekou Tour’s Study and Research Centre in the Ministry of Information in Conakry. He soon fell out of favor with President Toure as a result of his writings that were becoming too critical of the regime, and he consequently fled to Senegal in exile. He worked and lived in Senegal until his death on February 4, 1980.

Laye published L’enfant noir (The African Child) in 1953. The novel, which has been described as a famous African novel in French, is a series of nostalgic reminiscences from his earlier days in the family compound at Kouroussa to the time he left for Paris. It is full of romantic evocations of daily life in the village and the ritual of growing up in a traditional African village.

TEXTUAL BACKGROUND

Camara Laye’s The Africa Child was ordinarily published in French as L’enfant noir in 1953. It is autobiographical in nature because it tells a story built upon Laye’s own childhood experiences among his people – the Malinke people of Guinea. As a child, he grew up amidst ritual magic and superstitions before his gradual growth into maturity, manhood, and independence. In his native African society are compared with his experience in the Western, European society of Paris.

THE SETTING OF THE NOVEL

The African Child is set in the Malinke society of Guinea – a society that largely believes in magic, miracles, and traditional ceremonies. In society, there are principles guiding the behavior of people and one of such is the mandatory initiation process which a child has to undergo before series of childhood experience which builds up his awareness of the Africa cultural tradition is distinct from the European ways of life. Since the novel revolves around the events that take place among a people having African traditional values and ways of life, we conclude that the novel has an authentic cultural undertone.

PLOT

Camara Laye’s The African Child is an autobiographical a novel which lucidly presents the earliest experiences of the author at his native home and among his own people; an enduring impression which these experiences of his immediate world have had on him and his perception of the universal world. Laye’s native Malinke region of Guinea is an agrarian a traditional community that is being gradually transformed by both the Islamic and French culture. The narrative, therefore, begins with the filial attachment of the narrator, the author, to his parents and blood relations, and the difficulties involved in having to be separated from his loved ones in order to attend school.

The African Child narrates a fascinating story of the love and companionship enjoyed by a boy in his simple, polygamous family setting and the parting pains he suffers at every interval he has to be separated from home and his people. His school days experiences at Kouroussa and Conakry are vividly described, and his love relationship with Marie is interestingly presented. The novel ends at the point where Laye has to leave home to France in pursuit of more advanced western education and the pain of saying goodbye to his loved ones which he manages to contend with, is well portrayed.

THEME

There are two major themes in this novel, and the two are hereby summarized:

(i)                            Growth from Innocence to Experience

Camara Laye explores this theme against the background of traditional African society. Laye, the little boy, and the narrator is initially innocent and this is well suggested in the incident where he takes a poisonous snake for an attractive toy and plays with it:

                        It was laughing, I had not the slightest fear, and now I know that

                        The snake would not have hesitated much longer.

As the boy passes through a number of experiences, he begins to grow from nativity to knowledge and from innocence to experience. For instance, he discovers the importance of his father’s magical pot; he experiences first, a passionately innocent love relationship with Fanta, and later adolescent, mature love with Marie.   Initially, he submits to the brutality of his elders and seniors at school but later he rebels against it. He sheds his childhood innocence when he undergoes the rituals of initiation and circumcision to be accepted into the experienced world of adulthood. He equally learns self-sufficiency, and he suffers the pain of parting when he has to leave for Paris in search of further education. He goes to Paris to acquire a greater maturity in all ramifications.

(ii)                   The superiority       of traditional life to the modern way of life

The second central theme which Laye is trying to assert in The African Child is that the traditional African way of life is quite simple but it is preferable to the sophistication of the modern civilization. He is able to do this through the comparison he makes between the European way of life experienced in France and their traditional African way of life that nursed and nurtured him into maturity.  In effect, this makes him idealize or romanticize the traditional African way of life, associating it with peasant soul-harmony and noble savagery. He then blames the disappearance of certain cherished rich African custom such as magic, miracle, and peasant innocence on the advent of western culture in Africa.

                        It is evident, from the novel that Camara Laye aims at condemning western tradition, hence, his idealization of the traditional African culture. This is why he paints several vivid pictures of incidents given under the first theme – innocence and experienced.

(iii)                       Love

The theme of love here can be divided into two: the filial love which Laye has towards his mother in particular, and towards every member of his family (immediate and extended). This is strongly presented in the novel. And the other one is the love relationship between Laye and Marie, the only lady that has had a lasting impression in his mind apart from his mother. The depth of the love which Laye has for these people is explained in his finding it difficult to part with them.

(iv)                       The Pain of Parting

The theme derives from the theme of love which we have just highlighted. Because of the deep and intimate love Laye has for his people and friends, he finds it painful to be parted from them.

CHARACTERIZATION

CAMARA LAYE

The African Child is an autobiography of Camara Laye and so he performs the dual role of being the narrator and the major character in the novel. The story told is his story of growth from a young boy, through his school days to being an adult.

He is closely attached to his mother and he has a strong attachment to his lovers – Fanta and Marie. The depth of his love for these people and his friends makes it difficult to part from them when the need arises. His short biography is given at the beginning of this chapter.    

LAYE’S MOTHER

Laye’s mother is from Tindican, and the last of three children of her parents. She is Laye’s father’s wife because she has a co-wife. She has efficient control of the home as the first wife because she is not the only firm in her dealings, she is also said to have mysterious powers because she receives spiritual visitation in her sleep.

She loves, cares for, and protects her son, Laye, because there is a strong emotional attachment between them. She is too possessive of her – she warns him not to go too near his father at the goldsmith workshop because she does not want his sight to be ruined and she tries to regulate his movement with his friends of the opposite sex. Laye’s mother seems to have no time for nonsense as she promptly rebukes Laye if he does anything contrary to her regulations. She sees her husband as a crazy fellow because of his extreme generosity. She is too authoritarian.

LAYE’S FATHER

Laye’s father has two wives and about a dozen children. He is simple, taciturn, and easy-going. However, he is firm and decisive when it comes to taking a stand on any issue. He lost his parents very early in life, and he had no work as a drudge to some Syrians but his uncles who were cruel to him got the money he made from his drudgery. He is both a blacksmith and a goldsmith who has many apprentices. He is generous to a fault and he considers every child as having equal opportunity before him.

Laye’s father is a disciplinarian because he rebukes any wrong-doer and cuts the excesses of the wayward. He keeps a snake as a ‘guiding spirit’, and is considered to have supernatural powers. He equally loves Laye and sees him off part of his way to Conakry with fatherly counsel.

He is a reputable and successful blacksmith and goldsmith who has ‘authority over all the blacksmiths in the cantons.

MARIE

Apart from Laye’s own mother, Marie is loved by all women in Laye’s life. She gets to live with Laye in his uncle’s house in Conakry and they both fall in love. Marie normally spends her Sundays in the house of Laye’s uncle because she is a daughter of a close friend to Laye’s uncle. She is half-caste, very beautiful, in fact, the most beautiful of all the girls in the Girls’ High School, Conakry.

She also loves Laye so much that she had to visit the marabous on his behalf to enable him to pass the proficiency certificate examination. While Laye goes to Paris, she goes to Senegal to continue her studies. She travels in the same plane with Laye up to Dakar. She makes a permanent impression on Laye and their parting is tearfully made.

LANGUAGE AND NARRATIVE TECHNIQUE

Perhaps because the story narrated is that of a childhood experience, the language of Camara Laye’s The African Child is interestingly simple and accessible. Unlike the language of Amadi’s The Concubine, which is decorated with proverbs and local expressions, The African child is almost totally devoid of such proverbs and expressions. The simplicity of the language of this text serves to enhance the beauty of natural expression. The language of this text also demonstrates an adroit use of poetic language and diction when feelings and emotions are to be raised. Examples of such touching, graphic and emotional descriptions of associations and relationships abound gracefully in the novel.

The narrative technique used in the novel is that of a first-person narrator, evidently because it is an autobiography. Readers are able to see things and appreciate events only from the perspective of the author who happens to be the chief character. The use of rhetorical questions quite frequently in this novel is to engage the reader in the process of probing matters beyond the knowledge of the innocent, and it is well employed.

REVISION QUESTIONS

1.     Laye’s The African Child is about love and innocence. Discuss.

2.     Compare and contrast Laye’s love relationships with Fanta and Marie.

3.     Discuss the role played in Laye’s growth by his maternal uncle.

4.     Compare and contrast Laye’s father’s and mother’s character.

5.     What are the themes expressed in the novel?