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Chapter 5
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
No longer harried by the rebellion, the town flourishes, much as Father Huismans predicted. The economic boom benefits Salim as the town at the bend in the river becomes a diverse center for trade once more. Government departments revive and new projects begin in the town—buses, taxis, telephone wires—far more than was necessary for the town, but the Big Man insists upon the industry and sophistication. In a similar way, Salim begins dealing in agencies, trading in tools and items he hardly understands, but benefits from regardless. Salim sees the town much like the one he had imagined from Nazruddin’s stories.
The President begins his modernization effort in earnest, investing in public works largely for the appearance of modernity rather than for their necessity or function. As a result, the town begins to appear like its past, fulfilling the predictions of both Nazruddin and Father Huismans.
Themes
Mahesh cycles through various get-rich-quick schemes, seized by an entrepreneurial spirit which is only encouraged by the economic boom. First trying nameplates, then flat wood spoons for ice cream, Mahesh feverishly searches for some modern, proprietary invention that will allow him to corner a market all to himself. But these ventures are mostly failures, and before too long Mahesh begins smuggling ivory and gold.
To Mahesh, the enchanting nature of these inventions springs from their connection to modernity and the freedom they might provide. Ownership might provide him identity, and therefore the power and protection he and Shoba currently lack, so cut off from their home and culture.
Themes
The occupying force uses intimidation and clout to poach and loot freely, and while Salim is put off by their crookedness, Mahesh greedily engages in the lucrative business. Salim even begrudgingly helps him, burying gold and ivory to help with various drops. Mahesh skirts real trouble after a local general steals a “piece” of uranium and tries to fence it through Mahesh, who foolishly tries to sell it through a local consul. Salim thinks the general was duped himself, understanding the stuff vaguely from his magazines, and luckily the Big Man reassigns him before anything bad comes about.
Despite the “peace,” corruption has already taken root in the President’s government, evident in the smuggling and extortion that his forces feel empowered to partake in. The empowered military is an early sign of the authoritarianism soon to come, even evident in the President’s ease of reassignment for the general, able to shift pieces and players at will while making everything seem like a part of his greater plan.
Themes
While also enjoying the boom himself, Salim is restless. Although he knows it all so well, Salim feels disconnected from the town and most of its people. While he might have always planned to just pass through on his way to bigger things, Salim wonders where else he could even go. Salim learns of an uprising in Uganda, where Nazruddin currently has his cotton-ginning business. Ultimately, nothing comes of the rebellion, and life there returns to normal. However, the situation in Uganda reminds Salim of the cyclical nature of trouble in Africa—how during days of fear he had felt the spirits and the forest alive and tense, and how simple they all seem now, in peace. . There is nothing he can do but carry on.
Benefitting economically does not free Salim. Whatever wealth he accrues cannot heal the placelessness that defines his existence. Moreso, it articulates how his identity inherently limits his mobility. Salim feels there are also potentially no better options, and this diasporic anxiety colors his experience of the town. The greater cycles of unrest in Africa and beyond will continue regardless of him, and in this way Salim is completely at the mercy of the world around him, as is Nazruddin, and as are Shoba and Mahesh. No amount of success can protect them completely.
Themes
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Success comes for Mahesh, but in a surprising form. Mahesh ceases smuggling and opens a branch of the BigBurger franchise in town. They make their house servant, Idlephonse, the manager, and Salim watches him perform enthusiasm and pride in front of Shoba and Mahesh, only to go completely vacant whenever he watches the store on his own. The Big Man claims a large tract of bush next to the town and begins to level it and build, calling the new development The Domain of the State. The Domain springs up incredibly quickly, with countless contractors, though no statement is made as to the purpose of it, leading Salim to believe it is another project of the Big Man to create a “modern Africa,” as urbane and advanced as the rest of the modern world.
Idlephonse is a microcosm of the contradictions of performed identity. He is aware of how he must seem and appear in order to enjoy the benefits of his position, but it is just a façade. In this way, he is trapped (at least temporarily) performing the version of himself that those in power desire of him, in this case Shoba and Mahesh. The President begins building his new, “modern Africa,” in the form of the State’s Domain. The space seeks to emulate the modernity of the Western world and is also built on the site of an old European suburb, and is therefore layered with colonial influence and history. The project of the Domain seems to be to present Africa as a modern destination, topic, and idea.
Themes
The Domain is something of a façade. Buildings spring up in sleek, modern designs with new but cheap materials, but other areas languish in partial completion. New pools are built but never filled, and building equipment is abandoned and left out to rust. Plans are created and scrapped mid-way through. Eventually, the Domain develops into something of a university town, with foreign lecturers and research centers. A new polytechnic institute is established in the Domain, and Salim learns Ferdinand will be attending on a scholarship from the government, rekindling his jealousy of the boy’s education. His envy of Ferdinand, alongside the stark contrast between his meager existence in town and the contemporary, sophisticated appointment of The Domain, complete with imported ornamental trees and all-glass structures, causes him to detest the place.
The primary purpose of the Domain is what it projects to the rest of the world, rather than what it is to the place in which it exists, illustrated by the half-finished projects and cheap materials. Salim sees this façade evident in the imported trees and glass structures as well—as much a point of personal envy as general skepticism for this modern space that he is excluded from. The embodiment of "new Africa” that the Domain is meant to be is also where “new Africans” like Ferdinand will be educated and molded, notably also by foreign professors and academics. In other words, “the new African” is quite literally the product of the Western world, as much as the President claims it is its own, salient and singular national identity.
Themes
While Ferdinand becomes preoccupied in the Domain, Metty also seems distracted to Salim. Metty had become a man about town in recent years, fully integrated into the culture of the town and the locals. One day a woman comes looking for Metty at the shop, and Salim learns through her that Metty has a child somewhere in town. Salim feels disgusted by the idea of Metty having “a little African child running about,” and also deeply betrayed that he wouldn’t have told him. This fracture in their relationship seems to remind Salim of the home he has lost, and he wonders if he really has a home at all anymore, or if he will ever call a place home again.
The fractures in Metty and Salim’s relationship are most evident in the ways Metty begins to become independent and ceases to perform the deference of his former servile position. As Metty becomes more localized, he becomes, in Salim’s eyes, more African, which Salim detests. But on a deeper level, Salim also resents Metty for beginning to belong elsewhere in a way Salim cannot. Though Metty’s new home might be objectionable in Salim’s eyes, he still has something that Salim does not.
Themes
