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Chapter 12
Themes
Key
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in A Bend in the River, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
Power, Freedom, and Identity
Racism and Diasporic Identity
Postcolonialism and Perpetual Unrest
The City vs. the Bush
Layers of the Past
Summary
Analysis
Salim is shocked to find that Noimon, a prominent Greek businessman in town, has sold all of his business in the country and left for Australia. Noimon was the biggest businessman in town, and his departure spells the end of the economic boom. The papers from the capital explain his selling as a kind of compensated nationalization of the local economy, though Salim ignores this. Everyone in town tries to say Noimon is foolish and will regret his decision, but this is more of a form of coping with the boom ending. Mahesh is especially incensed, feeling that anyone looking for success abroad is a fool, and that those who stayed would live just as well. Salim believes Mahesh is being complacent and ignoring the writing on the wall, but Salim is also reluctant to let go of what he has.
The papers which Salim ignores foreshadow the climax of the President’s plan to engender new nationalism within the country. Mahesh, not unlike Raymond, has also cast his lot in with the town, and with no other options outside, turns to indignation and denial in order to validate his continued way of life.
Themes
Nazruddin writes to Salim, explaining that there are troubles in Uganda as well. The situation has rapidly deteriorated, and Nazruddin blames the tribalism and cultural priorities of the country for its lack of stability. For the third time in his life, Nazruddin is considering making a fresh start, this time by bringing his family with him to Canada. Salim writes back, explaining how helpless he himself feels with all the recent changes in the country, and it is as if writing it down suddenly makes his anxieties real. Salim is suddenly gripped by panic as to what his future in the town will hold. He questions if he is possessed by Yvette, or his relationship to her, and eventually finds security in the fact that all of it will have to end eventually.
Nazruddin’s phobic comments about a perceived tribalism reflect Salim’s own sentiments, as both businessmen are inclined to blame savagery and something inherent to African culture for the cycles of unrest, rather than the exploitative economic and political systems put in place. Salim finds himself trapped as well, bound by the threads of power through his various relationships and commitments. Suddenly Yvette, whose clout and liberated sexuality represented freedom to Salim, is trapped herself, and is trapping Salim by extension. Salim’s turn to abject pessimism resembles that of Indar, who uses cynicism to insulate himself from the pain of existing in a system stacked against him.
Themes
Shoba suddenly leaves town, having received word of her father’s death and feeling obligated to return to the coast to attend his funeral. This would be the first time she returned home since she and Mahesh were married and her family excommunicated her. She promised to be gone for a couple months but returns after three weeks, dismayed and outraged by violence and corruption rife in her home. After returning, Shoba and Mahesh stop inviting Salim over for lunches and are cold to him in public. Salim also sees age and pessimism finally settle over Mahesh, no longer defiant in his decision to stay, and dreading what seems to be an inevitable economic collapse.
Even though the pair had travelled to the town to escape their past, Shoba’s connection to a family of prominence was something both still took pride in, evident in their dress, attitude, and lifestyle. Despite now being members of the diaspora, much like Indar, the pair performed an inflated self-image due to their connection to their roots, despite it being tenuous at best. But Shoba’s quick return suggests that whatever may have occurred while she was home severed any illusion of that remaining bond, causing the pair to withdraw into themselves, now facing the fullness of their alienation and placelessness.
Themes
In the flat, Salim and Metty listen to one of the President’s speeches on the radio. Other than the constant intonations of citoyens and citoyennes, the President no longer gives his speeches in French, opting instead for a mix of African languages that engages every level of African society through a “regal and musical use of the lowest language,” including slang and profanity amidst strong rhetoric. Both Salim and Metty are compelled by it, and Salim notices the President’s amazing ability to make all the events he touches on, good or bad, seem like a part of his larger plan for the country. At the end of his speech, the President makes specific reference to their town and region, announcing the dissolving of the Youth Guard. The President accuses them of having lost their sense of duty to the people, and they are stripped of their positions and stipend and banished to the bush where they will learn “the wisdom of the monkey.”
This is the first time in the novel that one of the President’s speeches is actually described, and it illustrates how he has utilized rhetoric and exploited African identity to present a mono-narrative of the country and its direction. Everybody is a “citoyen” or “citoyenne,” immediately imposing a level of equality in the people he is addressing, and treating them as if they are all participants within this national project. Likewise, he uses a common tongue to appeal to the biggest group of his citizenry. Finally, the President uses scapegoat tactics to pin failures onto groups outside of himself; the failure of the Youth Guard is not a failure of his idea, but rather their failure to live up to the nation’s ideals. Still, the President exposes a bit of hypocrisy by banishing them to the bush, a space he claims to hold sacred, clearly drawing a line between his upright citizenry and the backwards ways of the village—a decision that will come back to bite him.
Themes
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