Previous
Chapter 7
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
Indar invites Salim to a dinner party in The Domain, hosted by a prominent couple he is friends with: Yvette and Raymond. Indar describes Raymond as “the Big Man’s white man,” deeply knowledgeable about the country and history in general. Yvette greets them at the door and Salim feels a new and confusing attraction toward the woman. Her black silk blouse and slacks lend her an air of unreachability and sophistication, and Salim notes she is in her late 20s, like Salim, and almost 30 years younger than her husband. Salim notices that all of the European-style furniture has been removed from the interior and replaced with traditional African cushions and mats—to this end, Yvette makes an ironic comment about the President’s idea of Europe. The walls, likewise, are decorated by African tapestries, masks, and spears.
The people of the Domain’s performative engagement in African culture is epitomized by the redecoration of Raymond and Yvette’s house. To the foreign—often White—academics, scholars, and politicians, the “Africa of words” is a topic, a pursuit, or a fascination more than a physical space and culture to be engaged in. On the other hand, the President’s attempts to design the Domain after European cities belies his real desire to make Africa into something more European or cosmopolitan. In this case, the masks symbolize the ownership or coopting of a symbol or culture to legitimize an agenda. It is especially important for Raymond, “the Big Man’s white Man,” to project a connection to Africa as a sign of loyalty to the President’s ideals.
Themes
Salim is intrigued by the party’s atmosphere, particularly the liberated femininity and self-determination of the women in the space. Salim realizes he has only know women in subservience, in the context of brothels and when they have been paid for, and begins to feel those satisfactions were hardly satisfactions at all. Immediately he begins to yearn for this more balanced, sophisticated relationality, marveling at how the men and women dance with one another for mutual pleasure. He is particularly moved by the Joan Baez record that comes on, “Barbara Allen,” which seems to awaken a repressed part of himself full of “loss, homesickness, and grief,” a part that “longed for love.” After inquiring about Baez’s story, Salim recognizes the central tension of her music, an irony where someone sings softly about great injustice.
In Yvette, Salim encounters a new form of femininity that he associates with the elevated, civilized space of the Domain. How the women at the party perform their relationship to themselves and to the men around them—equal, balanced, and modern—is representative of the sophistication Salim often fears he lacks, and is therefore seductive to him on multiple levels. Salim’s eyes are opened to relationships that are not just transactional, but in fact mutually beneficial, which is his first inkling of the web of relationships and influence within the political world. The operating tension of Joan Baez’s music is, in a way, symbolic of the subtlety and power of the space.
Themes
Raymond emerges from his office later on to join the party. His aura of depressive toil and intelligence subtly pulls all attention toward him. Raymond laments that his studies reveal to him that finding the real truth of something is an impossible task. The party-goers protest, offering him support that with persistence anything is possible, but Raymond insists that as a historian, he knows better than most how much is lost, and how much history goes unrecorded. Indar makes a comment about another scholar who had published a paper on a rebellion on the continent, and how people are turning to Africa to make “the fast academic buck.”
The irony of Indar’s statement is twofold. For one, Indar’s touring lecture business, as readers come to learn, is almost entirely built off of “the fast academic buck” that Africa in its current state of global interest presents. Furthermore, most of the partygoers present, and the population of the Domain at large, are foreign academics looking to benefit from the country’s burgeoning global identity through early study. But also, this can be read as Naipaul taking a self-reflexive jab at non-native authors writing about the region, himself included. Meanwhile, Raymond’s affect is clearly somewhat of a performance, yet it is clearly captivating; part of his social clout is vested in playing the tortured academic and the brilliant historian who suffers for the dangers the country faces internally and externally.
Themes
At this point, Indar finally introduces Salim to Raymond, and urges him to tell the story of how he met the President. Raymond explains that he worked at a college in the country’s capital during the colonial period. At one point, an older African woman who worked as a hotel maid came to him worried for her son: he was depressed and had left school. Raymond was impressed by the woman and her dignity and agreed to help her. When Raymond met her son, he was blown away by his brilliance and empathy. The son suffered because of the world that required his mother to face such constant humiliation, and saw no way out. Raymond, after listening to him, had encouraged the boy to become practical about his politics by joining the Defense Force, which would provide him real skills and show him what forces and structures truly make up the country.
The story of the President and Raymond’s meeting sheds light on the deep-seated colonial influence in the President’s current policies. Raymond’s prejudices are evident in the exceptionalism he grants the young man for being smart and empathetic. And Raymond’s encouragement for the boy to join and study the military clearly influenced the President’s tactics as a leader toward a violent upholding of power. The nature of the “humiliations” are never specified, but given their seemingly traumatic nature, it can be inferred that they were economic, sexual, and perhaps even violent in nature, adding to the intensity of the wounding the President still carries from the colonial period.
Themes
Get the entire A Bend in the River LitChart as a printable PDF.
Raymond goes on to praise all the President has done during his time in office, particularly with regard to his disciplining of the military and the peace he has created. He also celebrates the freedom of ideas that he believes the president has allowed. To this end, Raymond notes how, through his depiction in the widely spread photograph wearing “African costume,” The Big Man has created a sense of pride and connection with the African people for being a part of something larger, citing his army uniform in the Defense Force and his mother’s maid outfit. Raymond recalls a student bristling at a remark he made about the photographs in class, and when Raymond inquired as to what he felt when he saw the photo, the student responded, “I also consider it a photo of myself.” “It takes an African to rule Africa,” Raymond claims.
The President recognizes the power and importance of uniforms or costumes as a part of identity. Clothing, like a mask, is an immediate and physical way to express support or participate in cultural or national identities, and the President utilizes this in how he presents himself in his photograph in order to make all of the people and cultures within the country feel they are involved in this “new Africa,” of his creation. But the President then also controls what that identity means, thus consolidating his power through visual control of national identity. He is both relatable and aspirational, promising representation but also demanding public obedience.
Themes
Raymond explains he is currently working on a collection of the President’s speeches which would chart the development of his political philosophy over time. Raymond believes, if done properly, such a book could become a “handbook for true revolution throughout the continent.” At the core of the President’s outlook and being, Raymond senses that same young man he met, wounded by the humiliations of his mother. Raymond feels this makes him pious and empathetic, noting how he has uplifted the bush and its culture. Most leaders in Africa have sought to level the bush and build skyscrapers, following a European modernity, but Raymond believes “this man wants to build a shrine.”
Raymond paints the President’s policies in a positive light as his own power relies on the President’s goodwill. As “the Big Man’s white Man,” Raymond has exploited his identity to gain power, but now his power is completely beholden to that of the President, and therefore he is no longer free. The speeches becoming “a handbook for true revolution throughout the continent” relies as much on Raymond’s execution of the collection as it does the President’s own success as a leader, and literally relies on the President deciding to publish it in the first place. Still, Raymond does point out the colonial wound at the core of the President’s policies that continues to influence him even in a “postcolonial” context. While the President might differ from other leaders in his reverence for the bush, it is understood even in the context of Raymond’s speech that the President’s motivation is not purely pious. Rather, the President sees the power implicit to the bush in its deep connection to the physical space and strong ancestral grounding, and recognizes it as an essential component of his control over the country. The irony of Raymond’s claim is evident as it is spoken at a dinner table in the State’s Domain, as much a glittering monument to European modernity as anything else. Whether through study in the Domain or worship in the cults, the exploitation of the bush’s legitimacy and power is core to the President’s plan for the country.
Themes
Ending what has essentially turned into a speech of his own, Raymond insists he must return to his work. But before he does so, he once again laments the various hardships of writing, particularly in writing history. When compared to Theodore Mommsen, the great German scholar whose history of the Romans charts a great empire, Raymond has no guarantees the history of Africa will be as worthy, as its history is still being written. He ends by imparting “we can only carry on,” strangely echoing Mahesh’s sentiments but in a vastly different context. Indar asks Salim if he knows Raymond’s work, and when he admits he doesn’t, Indar says that is the tragedy of the continent, that “the great men of Africa are not known,” thereby including all of them in the greater narrative of Africa, despite not being African themselves.
The echo of Raymond’s phrase to that of Mahesh illuminates how both men lack true power or freedom within the broader systems of the country and world they live in. Though they operate at totally different levels of social clout and economic freedom, both have made a choice to exploit themselves in one way or another, and are stuck living the life they chose. The end of Raymond’s speech also suggests that his motivations are not actually focused on the uplifting of the country, but rather his own academic success—he wants the unnamed country to be his Rome. The histrionics of his speech are essential to the illusion that the men of the Domain are doing grand and important work, and those listening are as much a part of upholding the performance. To this end, Indar laments the lack of credit “great men” get, allowing them all to feel both important and involved in the greater project of “new Africa.”
Themes
After leaving the party, Salim and Indar discuss everything Raymond said. Indar agrees with the multiplicity of the President’s identity, noting how he is so many different Africans at once. He is able to straddle seeming opposites—the old ways and the new, the chieftain and the everyman, conservatism and revolution—by folding it all into this greater African identity for which he is the one symbol. They walk down to the river and listen to the rapids, and Indar notes how seductive the idea of a “Europe in Africa” is, but feels it is probably an illusion. He points to Raymond having no real sway over the President as he pretends to, and his presence in The Domain being more performance than anything else. Salim’s mind remains on the embrace he shared with Yvette at his departure, the shape of her posture, and the sound of Joan Baez’s voice.
Indar’s description of the president’s tactics of representation begin to show how the President slyly turns appreciation into assimilation by subtly eliminating the diversity within his country by representing all identities within his own singular image. This allows the Big Man over time to seamlessly shift from “I am all of Africa” to “all of Africa is me,” by containing everything involved within the country into his own personal narrative for the state. Indar and Salim are both aware of the illusion or hoax of the Domain, literally calling it for what it is: “Europe in Africa.” Yet both remain seduced. Indar continues to participate in the Domain and Salim yearns for Yvette and what she represents, symbolized by her image paired with the voice of Joan Baez.
Themes
