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Chapter 13
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 glad that the Youth Guard are being disbanded, as they were a menace in the town. But in their absence, the police and other officials become increasingly brazen, constantly tormenting Metty whenever he is out running errands. One of these times the police take Metty into custody and Salim is forced to go track him down. He finds Metty locked up in a shed behind an old Colonial building some of the police are using as a station. Above their photograph of the president are the words “Discipline Avant Tout." Salim realizes all of the officials and police are opportunists who had sniffed out the economic and political changes, which they now use to extort people for money completely unchecked, all in the name of the president but in total rejection of any real overseeing authority. Things in town are as lawless and fluid as they were when Salim first arrived, he realizes grimly.
The increase in crooked police shows how quickly corruption manifests itself in the void of proper systems. Moreover, they seem to take the place of the problems caused by the Youth Guard, showing how the problem is systemic rather than specific to the Youth Guard as the President attempted to frame it. This is further displayed by the irony of the Latin motto emblazoning the colonial building where Metty is briefly imprisoned—the irony of the President’s authoritarian discipline is it allows those with any ounce of power to run all over people. In this way, there is no real discipline or safety, and the town is just as dangerous as ever—the unrest merely taking on another new form.
Themes
Salim comforts himself with some of Raymond’s faith that the President will soon establish order. The pressure does ease, not because of the Big Man but rather because former members of the Youth Guard form a Liberation Army. Violence breaks out all over town and the Liberation Army distribute a leaflet called “The Ancestor’s Shriek.” Their manifesto declares war on the powers of imperialism and multi-nationalism in all its manifestations, calling out “puppet-powers” and “false gods.” They also denounce education in its current form and promote a truth that is ancestral and implicit rather than written or taught. Shops are attacked, two or three people are killed every night, and Salim feels more vulnerable than ever. News is scarce and no statement is made by the President. But with no actual options available to him, Salim is forced to carry on.
The Liberation Army establish themselves in opposition to everything the President stands for, and they are, in many ways, the natural reaction to his tyranny. Their manifesto calls out the President’s regime precisely as a dark reflection of the colonial rule that came before. Extremism begets extremism, and as the President steers the country more and more toward “the new Africa,” the Liberation Army turns instead to the ancient ways of the bush, notably rejecting all education from places like the lycée and the polytechnic. Violence begets violence, and the city and the bush threaten to consume each other once more, showing how the President’s delusions of escaping the past have only caused it to manifest itself once more, continuing in cycles of unrest. Salim feels his diasporic identity more acutely than ever, as without culture or creed, he is completely unprotected and in danger of violence from both sides equally.
Themes
With the insurrection and lack of word from the President, Raymond finally gives up on ever returning to favor with the Big Man. A Madonna statue is smashed in the Domain and Raymond becomes worried that the President will dismiss him altogether, as is the President’s habit with his associates who come under attack. Because of Raymond’s depression, their house is no longer the site of parties, meaning Salim and Yvette’s affair lapses. Salim realizes the passion and quality of their relationship relies on Raymond just as much as it does the two of them. Yvette calls to maintain appearances with Salim, but he begins to feel this continuity is merely another illusion. He feels their relationship beginning to wane.
The other effect of the violence is shattering any of the remaining illusion of power and safety promised by the Domain to Salim. Even the passion of Salim’s and Yvette’s sexual relationship is tied up in the threads of power that trace to the President, as Raymond’s despondence effects Yvette, which in turn effects Salim, showing how much of their relationship was entangled in matters of power and freedom rather than pure attraction. When the priority becomes survival, the triviality of clout and prominence fades away entirely.
Themes
Yvette shows up to the flat one evening unannounced. Her presence seems to momentarily return her brightness in Salim’s mind, and he briefly forgets how trapped and defeated she too had seemed. Then Salim is overcome by the feeling that Yvette thinks of him in the same way she thinks of Raymond: an encumbrance. He beats her viciously and she crawls into his bed after. Salim spits on her between her legs and then beats her again. Yvette uses Salim’s phone to call Raymond, tells him she’s coming home, and then leaves.
Violence also breaks all illusion of sophistication and modernity. Salim, fearing he has become trapped, lashes out, and here readers see most clearly the unreliability of his narration. Despite his air of detachment and readers’ exposure to his interiority, Salim is no better than any of the people he criticizes. Rendered completely powerless, Salim attempts to regain some feeling of control through violence against his partner.
Themes
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Metty, having heard all that transpired, comes into Salim’s room and tries to get him to take a walk with him. The phone rings and it is Yvette, who tells Salim she hadn’t wanted to leave and asks if Salim had wanted her to come back. She says she should’ve given him valium to calm him down. Salim realizes she had never felt closer to him than she did in that moment. Salim stays up all night, and in the small hours of the morning has a dream-like epiphany. He sees that everyone born into the world is shaped by their experiences, and although some are pleasurable and others are painful, it is only the experiences themselves that matter. Pain and pleasure are both meaningless things. This new knowledge refreshes Salim, but also makes him feel distant from himself.
Yvette’s call illuminates the twisted nature of their relationship, illuminating just how trapped both of them have become. Salim has an epiphany similar in nature to the one Indar had, also by a river, that results in a sort of cynicism and self-alienation, though Salim’s is more metaphysical in nature. Rather than suffer the pain of his isolation and estrangement from the world, Salim resolves to see it as merely the side effect of experience, no different than pleasure.
Themes
Salim takes a morning drive and ends up at BigBurger. Mahesh comes in a little after he arrives and to Salim’s surprise tells him that Shoba wants him to come over for lunch the next day. Zabeth comes in later that morning to do her shopping and updates Salim on Ferdinand. She explains he has finished his time as a cadet in the capital and is due for a big post, which might well be as the new local commissioner. Zabeth’s visits had waned recently as the bush was at war and increasingly dangerous as a result. Salim intuits she is probably on the side of the rebels and tries to appear as neutral as possible.
Ferdinand continues to benefit from the integrity of his African identity, the poster-child for the President’s “new African,” but now this puts him in obvious danger. Zabeth, who hoped to break generational cycles by giving Ferdinand an education beyond the “timeless ways of village and river,” now finds her son in more danger than ever.
Themes
Zabeth seems trepidatious about Ferdinand taking the position, believing that “both sides would want to kill him.” She notes how the President is a jealous man, and cannot allow others to take the national attention away from him. As if to illustrate this point, Zabeth points to a photograph of him in the paper amongst various officials, showing how much of the frame is taken up by him, and how everyone else is made small and indistinguishable. Salim realizes he is always photographed in such a manner that he is towering over local people—only visiting foreigners appear on even ground with him.
Ferdinand represents the internal hypocrisy of the “new African,” as now having a foot in both worlds, city and bush, he benefits from the protection of neither and is a target of both. In his portrayal in photographs, the president has literally eclipsed his people, ceding equal space only to foreign dignitaries. This illustrates how the President’s motivation has only ever been to prove himself as a viable leader in the context of the Western world—exalting the African people was only a means to an end.
Themes
Zabeth says that the chieftain’s stick he is always pictured with contains “nothing,” not a powerful fetish in the carving of a man’s belly as it is thought to.” Zabeth tells Salim that she has seen the President in the bush, and that he was accompanied by a White man who always got out of the car before him. His presence seemed to attract everything bad coming for the president, leaving the Big Man free. Salim protests that the President has never been there, and Zabeth calls him foolish.
The President’s famous fetish being nothing more than a stick represents the hollow appropriation of the traditions of the bush the President has used to consolidate his power. The President’s real fetish was the White man all along. Through the scapegoating of figures like Raymond, the President weaponized his country’s trauma from colonial rule, funneling their criticism toward the continued influence of colonial powers on the post-colonial country while freely engaging in the same tactics and policies, creating a cycle of fury that only bolstered his own power toward absolute authoritarianism.
Themes
Metty seems to handle Salim with refreshed awe after the events of the previous evening. Salim recalls family quarrels back on the coast and sees Metty falling into the old ways of their servants; he allows him to do so, taking comfort for himself in performing for Metty’s care. Salim goes to Shoba and Mahesh’s for lunch, noticing how dim and demure the place has become with all the curtains drawn. After they eat Shoba asks if Salim can see any disfigurement on her face. Eventually he notices a slight discoloration and things begin to clarify. When Shoba returned home, her brothers carried out their threat of throwing acid on her face through a Sindhi hairdresser who applied a cream to her face full of peroxide.
Metty remains as Salim’s only physical connection to his past, and his reawakened awe reminds Salim of how power of every kind is so often performed and upheld through violence. They have both derived comfort from continuing to perform this dynamic, even as both pretended to leave their past behind. Similarly, Shoba and Mahesh comforted themselves through a continued performance of their past prominence.
Themes
Salim realizes this is why they had cut him off, but also sees that their obsession ran deeper than simply the blemish on Shoba’s face. He sees how their reliance on the protections and history of their culture and traditions back home allowed them to remain aloof in their high ideas of themselves. But now without them they are beginning to “rot,” cut off and unprotected. Salim fears if he does not act soon he will end up just like them. He writes to Nazruddin to say that he is coming to London, implying that he will be fulfilling his promise of engagement to his daughter. He takes a direct flight to London, skipping over the capital entirely. In the air, he dreams that Yvette is there next to him, but when he wakes up he is all alone.
The permanent marring of Shoba’s physical appearance is symbolic of the trauma of being cut off from home and culture. The pair have held on desperately to their traditions as a means of feeling comforted and protected in an unfamiliar context, but the reality of the diaspora is that there is no real place for them. The further away they get from their home and history, the more the image of their prominence fades. Appearances were all they had left, and now that too is forever blemished. Without the assurance, no matter how illusory, of something to fall back on, the two are diminished in Salim’s eyes, their carrying on no different than the passivity Salim sought to escape in the first place.
Themes
