TABLE OF CONTENTS

-PLAY: “TI-JEAN AND HIS BROTHERS”....................................................................................3

BIOGRAPHY OF THE AUTHOR.................................................................................................3

SUMMARY OF THE PLAY..........................................................................................................3

MAJOR THEMES...........................................................................................................................5

COLONIALISM......................................................................................................................5

OPPRESSION AND EXPLOITATION..................................................................................6

HOPE AND HOPELESSNESS...............................................................................................7

NAMING..................................................................................................................................8

MAGICAL REALISM.............................................................................................................8

GENDER..................................................................................................................................9

II- CONTENT ANALYSIS OF THE POEMS..............................................................................10

1- "YOU LAUGHED AND LAUGHED AND LAUGHED” BY GABRIEL OKORA..................10

BIOGRAPHY OF THE AUTHOR...............................................................................................13

SUMMARY...................................................................................................................................13

MAJOR THEMES.........................................................................................................................14

RACISM.................................................................................................................................14

MAGICAL REALISM...........................................................................................................14

2- “EXPELLED” BY JARED ANGIRA......................................................................................16

BIOGRAPHY OF THE AUTHOR...............................................................................................18

SUMMARY...................................................................................................................................18

MAJOR THEMES.........................................................................................................................18
1
 COLONIALISM....................................................................................................................18

LOST OF IDENTITY AND HOPELESSNESS....................................................................19

3- “AFRICAN COMMUNION” BY TOM SIMPSON..................................................................20

SUMMARY...................................................................................................................................22

MAJOR THEMES.........................................................................................................................22

RELIGION.............................................................................................................................22

COLONIALISM....................................................................................................................23

CONCLUSION..............................................................................................................................24

REFERENCES..............................................................................................................................25

2
INTRODUCTION

“If you control a man’s mind, you don’t need to bother about his actions.” This quotation
is just a perfect illustration of what colonialism has been. This is to say that the invaders enslaved
us not only physically but also morally by taking us away from our cultures and beliefs to lead us
to their own. Therefore, African writers decided to put in a literature that would have to do with
the moral values that governed the way of life of people in a given community at a given period
of time, each epoque having its own realities: the African literature. In fact, before the arrival of
the whites, Africans had their own oral culture which was replaced by the whites’ political art
and religion leading us later on to the fragile state and leadership we are in nowadays (pre-
colonial, colonial neocolonial periods). The postcolonial writers then started producing literary
works that intended to celebrate as well as valorize the African culture together with the myths
and legends of the people. Moreover, it is worth noting that, the diasporic literature also shines
by its significance as it portrays the way African people find their way home. With major themes
such as gender, magical realism, colonialism, oppression, just to mention few, these literatures
will make use of a mixture of Creole and English language to show out the rebellion of the
writers. Several authors such as Chinua Achebe, Amos Tutuola, Chris Abani can be used as
reference to this, but the ones on which our attention will be drawn are Derek Walcott with his
play “Ti-Jean and his brothers”, Gabriel Okara with his poem “You laughed and laughed and
laughed”, Jared Angira’s “Expelled” and Tom Simpson’s “African Communion”.

3
PLAY: “TI-JEAN AND HIS BROTHERS”

BIOGRAPHY OF THE AUTHOR

Derek Walcott was a Caribbean poet, playwright, writer and visual artist. Born in
Castries, St. Lucia, he won the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1992 “ for a poetic oeuvre of great
luminosity, sustained by a historical vision, the outcome of a multicultural commitment.” Derek
Walcott was trained to be a painter but he turned to writing as a young man. He published his
first poem in the local newspaper at the age of 14. Five years later, he printed his first collection,
25 poems, which he distributed on street corners. He was best known for his epic poem Omeros,
a reworking of Homeric story and tradition into a journey around the Caribbean and beyond the
American West and London. Walcott was also won an Obie Award for his play Dream on
Monkey Mountain, which the New Yorker described as “a dramatic form.” His plays generally
treat aspects of the West Indian experience, often dealing with the socio-political and
epistemological implications of post-colonialism and drawing upon various genres such as the
fable, allegory, folk, and morality play. With his twin brother, he cofounded the Trinidad Theater
Workshop in 1950; in 1981, while teaching at Boston University, he founded the Boston
Playwrights’ Theatre. He got married twice and got three children; he died on March 17, 2017 at
the age of 87.

SUMMARY OF THE PLAY

First performed at the little Carib Theatre Port of Spain, Trinidad, in 1958, the play “Ti-
Jean and his brothers” was written by Derek Walcott and is subdivided into four parts the
prologue and three scenes. It is a play as it has comedy, tragedy, music, poetry… It provides a
full effect that transports the audience to the Caribbean.

The play starts with a frog narrating the story of Ti-Jean the hunter who God put in the
height of the moon to be the sun’s right hand because he beat the devil. It is the story of a mother
with his three sons living in a little house made up of wood and thatch on the fore head of the
mountain. The first son called Gros-Jean, though the biggest and the strongest among his
4
brothers, was very stupid; Mi-Jean the second son, was a fisherman and was called the jurist as
he was always studying books; he was only half as stupid. The two elders were always
complaining of “doing all the damned work and thinking while their junior brother Ti-Jean was
sitting as a prince”. However, Ti-Jean, though the smallest, was the smartest. The family was
starving and suffering because the devil owned the land. They were living with faith that one day
or the other, God will save them from that situation by sending them “something”.

One day, the devil, while looking for a child to eat, send one of his servants the Bolom, to
pass across a message to the family. In fact, the devil owns half of the world in the kingdom of
night but still cannot enjoy his vices; he is dying to be human. Thus, they have to challenge him
and if one of them makes him feel one of the humanweaknesses such as anger, pride, jealousy…
he will be rewarded, but if they fail their flesh shall be eaten.

In the first scene, Gros-jean, the first son, is the first one to leave the house to meet the
devil. He went into the forest, but because he has an utmost confidence in his strength, he lacks
of patience and wisdom. He has the sin called over-confidence and has no sense. On his way, he
meets an old man and asks him the way to success. Knowing Gros-Jean as impatient, the old
man shows him the way of the white’s man plantation advising him that working for the devil is
the shortest way to success. Once in the plantation, he meets the devil who told him about the
first challenge: Gros-Jean had to count the leaves of all the sugar canes in the plantation, and the
first to show signs of anger would be eaten. The planter was calling Gros-Jean with plenty of
names different from the one he was supposed to use, and that gets him lose all his temper. After
a moment, he gets angry, and is eaten by the devil.

In the scene two, it is Mi-jean’s turn to leave the house andgo into the forest to meet papa
Bois. During their conversation, the old man, who is in fact the planter, gives him as plan to beat
the devil with silence and smile (“silence is the ultimate weapon against adversity”). The planter
gets frustrated as compared to his predecessor Gros-Jean, Mi-Jean did not talk too much. His
first challenge is then to fix a goat that constantly gets lost. However, though eloquent and logic,
Mi-Jean still has some part of animosity in him, as when the devil makes fun of him by saying he
is not more intelligent than a goat, he loses his patience, gets angry and is finally eaten by the
devil.

5
 In the scene three, Ti-Jean leaves the house. While her mother cries and tries to keep him
at home, he is determinate to meet and fight the devil. Because he has faith in God, he even
compares himself to David in the Bible. This is why, contrarily to his brothers, he asked for his
mother’s strength and blessings. He is neither strong nor has ever learnt from books but Ti-Jean
is kind and friendly with everyone even the animals. He then meets the old man and asks him
for some advice to beat the devil. In the course of the conversation, Ti-Jean discovers the old
man has a cow foot and a forked tail. The devil is obliged to unmask earlier to take the
appearance of the planter. He then gives the same challenge to Ti-Jean with the goat. He is so
smart that rather than running constantly after the goat, he makes it an eunuch so that it cannot
run away no more. The old man gets vexed but faints to smile. The next challenge Ti-Jean is
given is to count all the leaves in a cane-field. Once more, instead of doing it himself, he makes
use of his wisdom: he asks all the damned souls working in the plantation to burn everything
telling them that it was the devil’s will. When the devil gets out to enjoy, drink and eat, Ti-Jean
burns his house after having eaten and drank everything, and when the devil says is was the only
house he had, he answers that his own mother had three sons but she did not get vexed. The devil
is so angry that he asks his assistants to seize Ti-Jean, but the Bolom appears and asks his master
to be reasonable and fair. Though he is not really willing to, the devil asks Ti-Jeanwhat he wants
as reward, and thelatter asks for life in spite of all the adversity it brings. The Bolom is born, Ti-
Jean then goes back home. The devil leaves and promises to Ti- Jean that they will meet again
and he will take his revenge. They all end the play with a song.

MAJOR THEMES

COLONIALISM
Colonialism can be defined as a process by which a central system of power dominates
the surrounding land and its components. The main idea with this theme is occupation; it came in
in the form of imperialism. In this play, colonialism has several/multiple forms or shapes: “the
devil can hide in several features: a woman, a white gentleman, even a bishop”, “...no one can
know what the devil wears”. This is to portray the imposture of the colonisers when coming to
us. They came with the Bible, education, a new state of living showing us kindness and care
while hiding their real intentions, those of taking6 off our lands: They gave us Bibles with the left
hand and kept the right one hidden. By the time we bent down to read, they showed us their
guns, and before we could realise, they had already occupied our lands.This imposture is
portrayed in the novel through the image of the old man who was actually the planter and thus
the devil: “he removed his mask and ate Mi-Jean”. We all know that an old man generally
represents innocence, weakness, and thus a perfect cover for the devil. Nobody could ever
imagine an old man doing any harm to anybody: “and when I meet this devil, whatever shape he
taking, and I know he is not you…”That is how he easily succeeded in gaining Gros-Jean and
Mi-Jean’s confidence; instead, they thought they could get some advice from him to find the way
to success:” I am looking for the way to success”, “You old and have experience. So don’t be
selfish with it”. As well did the white colonizer by hiding behind the titles of priests and
educators to easily gain our hearts, minds and lands.

OPPRESSION AND EXPLOITATION

Oppression can be defined as a situation in which people are governed in an unfair and
cruel way and prevented from having opportunities and freedom. The devil, who is considered in
the play as the symbol of the white, owns half of the world: “you have all this land, all this big
house and so forth…” The mother and the son are thus the colonized, the exploited as they suffer
while the devil is enjoying. “What does your white master want from us?” The image of poverty
of that family really portrays that reality. Poverty is a state or condition in which a person or
community lacks the financial resources and essentials for a minimum standard living. In the
play, the theme of poverty is retraced through the life condition of Ti-Jean’s family. They: “lived
in a little house, made up of wood and thatch on the forehead of the mountain.”It is also
mentioned when the bird described the mother by saying “how poor their mother was”. Also,
Gros-jean, complaining on their unchanging living condition, one day asserts: “one time again it
has nothing to eat”; mother: “here all of us are starving” etc.

The aspect of oppression is also portrayed in the play with the scene that describes the
devil having several servants whose he doesn’t even know the names: “You have all this land…
people working for you as if is ants self....”Those workers were even working in the plantation
without resting. In scene one the planter says to Gros-jean ‘’sorry, sorry, Gros-jean, sometimes
we people in charge of industry forget that you 7people aren’t machines. I mean people like you,
Hubert…” The devil or the planter symbolizes the oppressor. In the same vene, the Bolom in the
prologue says “the devil my master” “I hear the voice of my master”, and the devil to bolom
“child do all that I ordered you”. The devil is thus the master as he controls everything and
everybody in the land.

Exploitation is the action or the fact of treating someone unfairly in order to benefit from
his services. In the play, the planter has a number of servants who work as machines in his
plantations and others who cook for him. This is confirmed in the scene one when the old man
says: “I was coming through the forest now and I passed by the white spring, and I saw some
poor souls going to work for the white planter”. In the same optic, Gros-jean asserts: “The first
job I had, was to stand up in a sugar –cane field and count all the leaves of the cane. That take
me up till four o’clock.” We can also read further in the play the extract where the planter,
talking to Mi-Jean in scene two says: “Now, before it gets dark, I want you to come up to the
house, check and polish the sliver, rearrange my library.”

HOPE AND HOPELESSNESS

Hope is an optimistic state of mind that is based on expectation of positive outcomes with
respect to events and circumstances in one’s life. Although Ti-Jean’s family is suffering, their
mother has the conviction that God will send them “something” from heaven that will save them
from that bad situation, and that they just have to be patient: “God will send us something”. Also,
in scene one, the theme of hope is manifested through Gros-Jean’s attitude when he says to the
devil: “don’t meant I can’t come like you, or because I black. One day, all this could be mine”.
Here we notice that Gros-Jean has the desire, the faith to become one day as rich and powerful as
the devil whom he is working for. Without caring about the color of his skin (black), he
expresses an almost unrealisable wish, the one of becoming one day as a white. Furthermore, we
can read a statement of the Bolom who says in scene three: ‘’Look, look, there is the hut, look
there, Ti-jean, the walls, the walls are glowing with gold. Ti-jean, you can’t see it? You have
won, you have won”. The faith of Ti-Jean is rewarded as we notice somewhere in the play that
the latter has big faith in God; he compared himself to David in the Bible. He was neither strong
nor had he never read from books, but contrarily to his brothers, he has taken blessings from his
mother before living the house as acomplement8to God’s power upon him. Also,the devil at the
end of the play says” the features will change but the fight is still one.” to mean that the realities
will certainly change though the fight is still on.

Hopelessness is a feeling or a state of despair, lack of hope. At the beginning of the play,
Gros-Jean says, to talk about their unsustainable hard living condition, that: “God forget where
he put us”, and Mi-jean to add: “God is irresponsible’’. At this level, we notice despair in
theirsayings as they think their case is so desperate that even God let them down. Also, when
Bolom, the angel of the devil comes to visit them, the mother thinks that God has abandoned her
family; he is blind to supplication, he is heartless and she says: “I prayed to God all day while the
knuckles of my knees all day in the hungry house, now God has sent evil who can understand it?
Death, death is coming nearer.

NAMING
Naming can simply be seen as the act of giving a name to a person or thing. Generally,
when a child comes to life, he is given a name and it becomes for a king of identity. When the
whites came to Africa, they started giving us different names from the ones we had: they
baptised and renamed us. They taught us through the Bible that we had to change our way of
living and turn our souls to God. However, to become a born again, we had to change our names
too, to show we are completely different from who we were before. That is how the renaming
process or identity crisis came into play. The latter is illustrated in the novel through the several
names given to Gros-Jean by the planter: Joe, Benton, Mervin, Hubert, Henry, Francis,
Charley… In spite of all Gros-Jean’s efforts to tell the planter he has a name already, he still
continues doing it saying: “…Can’t tell one face from the next out here”. We understand by this
statement that for the whites, we have no identity; we are just all the same, all animals without
names. That really puts Gros-Jean out of him, he gets very angry and that made him lose his
temper: “… he always like he don’t know my name…And if you don’t know my name, you best
don’t call me nothing.

9
MAGICAL REALISM
In Africa, more than anywhere else, people believe in unreasonable or unscientific things,
and that explains the causes for events in ways that are connected to magic: in other words, that
is called superstition. Magical realism is one of the aspects that represented the African culture
before the arrival of the colonisers, and it is the most mentioned in African texts. Several
instances in the text illustrate this theme: At the beginning of the play, when the family hears the
voice of the Bolom outside the house, they are so scared that to chase that evil spirit, Gros-Jean
says to the others: “Line the step with fine sand to keep the devil out.” He is followed by Mi-Jean
who will say: “Turn over, Mother, the hem of your skirt”. And after both of them will then shout
out:” Let two of our fingers form in one crucifix”. In fact, here we can notice that these two sons
do not believe in God as compared to their junior brother Ti-Jean and their mother. They are not
only superstitious, they also believe in and only in themselves: Gros-Jean in his strength and Mi-
Jean in his knowledge of books; this somehow explains why they get angry towards God telling
he is irresponsible and went out of the house to fight the Bolom without asking for their mother’s
blessings. Furthermore, in one of his discussions with Ti-Jean about the devil, the old man says:”
when the sun and rain contend for mastery, they say the devil is beating his wife”.

GENDER
In general terms, gender refers to the range of characteristics pertaining to, and
differentiating between, masculinity and femininity. Gender has a significant role the African
and diasporic literature. In the play, we notice some sort of gender bias as the woman is
considered as an inferior being and her life is said to be useless: “women life is so: watching and
losing”. Also, women are considered as the downfall of man by Mi-Jean, reason why he doesn’t
care for: “women have no brain. Their foot just like yours.” This statement seeks to portray the
misleading nature of women whom all the negative traits are attached to. Moreover, when listing
all the different possible features the devil can hide in, an allusion is to the woman: “the devil
can hide in several features, A woman, a white gentleman, even a bishop” to portray the evil
nature of the woman.

10
11
II- CONTENT ANALYSIS OF THE POEMS

1-“YOU LAUGHED AND LAUGHED AND LAUGHED” BY GABRIEL OKORA

In your ears my song

is motor car misfiring

stopping with a choking cough;

and you laughed and laughed and laughed.

In your eyes my ante-

natal walk inhuman, passing

your ‘omnivorous understanding’

and you laughed and laughed and laughed

You laughed at my song,

you laughed at my walk.!

Then I danced my magic dance

to the rhythm of talking drums

pleading, but you shut your eyes

and laughed and laughed and laughed

And then I opened my mystic

inside wide like the sky,

12
instead you entered your

car and laughed and laughed and laughed

You laughed at my dance,

you laughed at my inside.

you laughed and laughed and laughed.

But your laughter was ice-block

laughter and it froze your inside froze

your voice froze our ears

froze your eyes and froze your tongue.

And now it’s my turn to laugh;

but my laughter is not

ice-block laughter. for I

know not cars, know not ice-blocks.

My laughter is the fire

of the eye of the sky, the fire

of the earth, the fire of the air,

the fie of the seas and the

rivers fishes animals trees

and it thawed your inside, 13

thawed your voice, thawed your

ears, thawed your eyes and

thawed your tongue.

So a meek wonder held

your shadow and you whispered;

‘Why so?”

and I answered:

‘Because my fathers and i

are owned by the living

warmth of the earth

through our naked feet.’

14
BIOGRAPHY OF THE AUTHOR
Gabriel Okara, of his full name Gabriel Imomotimc Gbalngbain Okara, was a poet and
novelist born on April 24, in Bomouridi at Nigeria. Being an African poet, Okara supported his
native people and fought for the rights of his people to lead them to a peaceful and happy life. He
brought out the problems of African people in both his poem and prose. His notable works
include The voice (1964), a remarkable linguistic experiment in which Okara translated directly
from the Ijo language, imposing Ijo syntax onto English in order to give literal expression to
African ideas and imagery his first novel. Okara incorporated African thought, religion, folklore,
and imagery into both his verse and prose. During much of the 1960s Okara worked in civil
service. Together with Chinua Achebe, Okara was roving ambassador for Biafra’s cause during
part of 1969. From 1972 to 1980 he was director of the Rivers State Publishing House in Port
Harcourt. His later work includes a collection of poems, The Fisherman’s Invocation (1978), and
two books of children, Little Snake and Little Frog (1981) and An Adventure to Juju Island
(1992). He died in March 26, 2019 at the age of 97. In 1979, he was rewarded the
Commonwealth Poetry Prize. You laughed and laughed and laughed is a well-known poem
sometimes wrongly attributed to the South African writer Dennis Brutus.

SUMMARY
The speaker of the poem talks about the life and culture of African people that were
somehow discriminated by the white men. Everything they could do: the song they sang, their
dances, the poems they read, was ‘omnivorously understood’ by the white men who always
laughed and laughed and laughed at them. In fact, because they were not used to and could not
understand the Africans’ way of living and traditions which brought out their inner feelings and
emotions, their pain and suffering, the white men could not stop themselves from laughing.
However, they did not laugh for long as the roles were reversed, and it was the Africans’ turn to
laugh too. The latter made use of supernatural power to freeze the whites with the contribution of
the nature. The white men then started questioning the black natives on how they did to become
so powerful and brave. They said it was due to the fact that, contrarily to them (the whites), they
walked barefoot over the land.

15
MAJOR THEMES

RACISM
The poem develops the theme of racism as we notice that the black people are mocked
for their culture and also discriminated for their color: “In your ears my son/ Is motor car
misfiring/Stopping with a smoking cough/And you laughed and laughed and laughed” (line 1-4),
“You laughed at my dance/ You laughed at my inside” (line 18-20). The whites cannot
understand the suffering and the pain endured by the black people because they are not the ones
who feel it: “…passing your ‘omnivorous understanding’ and you laughed and laughed and
laughed” (line 6-8). The poem also portrays the barbarism of the black people. The blacks’ ways
of doing things are so strange to them because they are not as stylish and modern as the whites.
The use of the verb “laughed” denotes the whites’ attitude towards the abnormal actions and
behaviors of the black natives. Their music was so harsh, their dance was so brutal, their culture
was so strange to them and all that was hilarious to them: “Then I danced my magic dance to the
rhythm of talking drums pleading, but you shut your eyes and laughed and laughed and
laughed”.

MAGICAL REALISM
At the end of the poem, the speaker makes mention of the whites who are frozen as they
could not understand what the natives were feeling: “But your laughter was ice-block laughter
and it froze your inside froze your voice froze our ears froze your eyes and froze your
tongue.”(Line 23-25).The latter did that thanks to the nature which granted them with
supernatural strength: “And then I opened my mystic inside wide like the sky, instead you
entered your car and laughed and laughed and laughed”. (Line 15-18). We know that magic can
only be understood by those who are implied in and practise it. As it was not the case for the
whites, they were then wondering on how they succeeded in becoming so strong: “So a meek
wonder held your shadow and you whispered; ‘Why so?”(Line 40-42). At this level, we notice
an inversion of the roles as the whites are no more laughing but wish to know the secrets of the
natives. As answer, they were told that the contact they have with the nature elements such as
sea, sun, air and fire was what made the difference between them and the whites who were in
contact only with sophisticated machines and 16
new technology: “Because my fathers and I are
owned by the living warmth of the earth through our naked feet.”(Line 44-46). Thus, this theme
can be associated to the one of the blacks’ empowerment.

17
2-“EXPELLED” BY JARED ANGIRA
We had traded in the market competitively perfect

till you came in the boat, and polished goodwill

approval from high order

all pepper differentials, denied flag-bearers

and cut our ribs, dried our cows

the vaccine from the lake

burst the cowshed, the drought you brought

planted on the market place, the tree of memory

I had no safe locket to keep my records

when Sodom burnt and Gomorrah fell

the debtor’s records blared

the creditors tapped my rusty door

My tears flowed to flooded streams

and source the rivulets from the human lake

from my veins, my heart my whole

disposition of the last penny

the last sight of my fishing-net

Everyone avoids my path; I avoid death’s too

18
pursuit in a dark circus

the floating garden in a gale

plants reject sea water, the sea water rejects me

I have nothing to reject

the broken lines run across my face

The auctioneer will gong his hammer

for the good left behind

19
BIOGRAPHY OF THE AUTHOR
Jared Angira is a Kenyan foremost poet born on the 21 st of November 1947 who has been
called “the country’s first truly significant poet’. He studied commerce at the University of
Nairobi from 1968 until 1971 where he was also the editor of the journal Busara. He has spent
much of his working life in the Kenyan civil service, and published seven volumes of poetry
which includes Juices( 1970), Silent Voices( 1972), Soft Corals( 1973), Cascades( 1979), and
Tides of Time: Selected Poems(1996). He also founded the Kenya Writers’ Association.

SUMMARY
“Expelled” is a poem that portrays the economic, cultural and emotional dislocation
experienced by the African people after the intrusion of the stranger in their land. The poem
starts with the arrival of the colonisers, the intrusion of strangers and exploitation of African
people, the loss of identity as an effect of colonialism and also hopelessness and suffering. In
fact, before the arrival of the white man, African people had flourishing market where they trade
freely. There is harmony among the traders; no one has a monopoly of a section of the market.
They all trade perfectly with peace, tranquility and satisfaction. This can be illustrated with the
first stanza of the poem where the speaker begins by reminding the strangers that the African
native people have “traded in the market competitively perfect”. The way of life of the Africans
suddenly changes at the arrival of the colonizers as it brought in suffering and pain. Also, that
intrusion makes the Africans to somehow lose their identity as the invaders came in with a new
life style that changed the one they were used to.

MAJOR THEMES

COLONIALISM
The speaker tells about the Africans’ way of life that changed with the advent of
strangers. He tells us about the white men who “came in boat”; they wormed their way in the
heart of native with “a polished goodwill”: “Till you came in the boat, and polished goodwill
20
approval from high order all pepper differentials, denied flag-bearers…” (Line 2-4).The polished
goodwill here can be interpreted as the Christian religion brought by the white man to convert
the people to the faith that promises a second life after death. They were actually hiding their real
intentions as they came with the purpose of taking the control of the African economy and
government. While the African were busy listening toand living following the goodwill message,
they were dispossessed of their lands and cheated out of their means of substance: “and cut our
ribs, dried our cows the vaccine from the lake burst the cowshed, the drought you brought
planted on the market place, the tree of memory” (Line 5-8). Furthermore, the African were
forced to work in those lands which were no longer their own.

LOST OF IDENTITY AND HOPELESSNESS

In stanza 3, the speaker’s tears: “My tears flowed to flooded streams and source the
rivulets from the human lake” (line 13-14) indicate the widespread suffering and emotional pain
of the indigenous people in their homeland which was no more their own but the strangers’. The
African people are suffering because the foreigners have seized their dearest belonging: their
land. The metaphor “human lake” in the poem refers to the sources of living of the African
natives, their veins, their heart which have been taken away. Everything they have worked for
before the arrival of the colonial settlers has been lost and this had as immediate consequence,
poverty and total devastation in their life. The natives then became strangers to their lands,
traditions and culture as they were no more at home. Also in the poem, the lines 21 and 22 give
us an insight into the theme of hopelessness: “plants reject to sea water, the sea water rejects me/
I have nothing to reject”. Here, the African people cannot do anything to save their land, they
cannot fight nor take it back; they just watched their hope taken away by the white invaders.

21
3-“AFRICAN COMMUNION” BY TOM SIMPSON
They came concealed in ceremonial robes;

HIC EST ENIM CORPUS MEUM.

White robes, beautifully bright robes;

Behold, your new God!

But this new God was a jealous God,

And righteous was his jealousy;

He was pure,

White,

Abstract,

Singular,

Universal;

He would suffer no toleration of black gods,

Impure gods,

Gods of darkness and not of light.

The light was shone in the darkness,

And the black gods were sent to a black, ashy death.

Around the African body was draped the new robe;

A skin, white,

Stripped from the man they called their God.

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A skin stripped from the man they sacrificed to their selves.

But the skin bore a paradise,

And it ate of the African body

As white eats of Christ’s black death,

To hide the guilt of their sin,

To begin the ceremony of the communion,

Which was their division.

“Take you and eat of this, for this is my body.”

The unleaven wafer was taken and eaten,

And it nourished the Saviours who had brought

Africa its Salvation.

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SUMMARY
The poem talks about the arrival of religion into the African community. The white
missionaries come in with white and bright robes exhibiting a new God. That white God is so
jealous that he cannot allow any other black god; thus they are all killed. The Africans are then
put on the white robes; they are now in charge of spreading the news of the God around the black
community.What the blacks do not know is that the robe they are asked to wear are infected of
some sort of parasite that would eat their body as the whites eat of blacks. The whites, to hide
their game, then came out with the scene of communion were the body of the Christ is eaten.
That act is then considered as the division that nourished the whites, the saviors who brought the
light and Salvation to Africans.

MAJOR THEMES

RELIGION
One of the weapons the white colonizers used to pave their way into the African
community was religion: “They came concealed in ceremonial robes;” (Line 1). They showed us
the pure face of their white and perfect God: “He was pure, White, Abstract, Singular,
Universal ;”( Line 7-11); a God who betrayed any other god as He was jealous: “Behold, your
new God! But this new God was a jealous God, and righteous was his jealousy;” (Line 4-6). Of
course, African already had their own gods, they had their traditions. But the missionaries
succeeded in convincing them that their gods were devil and that they should be abandoned: “…
black gods, Impure gods, Gods of darkness and not of light. The light was shone in the darkness,
And the black gods were sent to a black, ashy death.” (Line 12-16). Filled with the conviction of
serving the real and only God, the blacks were now the ones to make its advertisement: “Around
the African body was draped the new robe; A skin, white, Stripped from the man they called
their God. A skin stripped from the man they sacrificed to their selves.” (17-20).

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COLONIALISM
What Africans did not realise is that, all that was only a ruse of gaining their confidence
and getting into their lands more easily: “But the skin bore a paradise, And it ate of the African
body As white eats of Christ’s black death” (line 21-24). By bringing religion to them, the white
missionaries were planning to soften the hearts and minds of the natives for their intrusion to be
effective. Thus, to hide their sin, they brought in the communion: “To hide the guilt of their sin,
To begin the ceremony of the communion, Which was their division. “Take you and eat of this,
for this is my body.” (Line 25-28). The act of communion actually portrays how the white
invaders shared the African territories between themselves: “The unleaven wafer was taken and
eaten, And it nourished the Saviours who had brought Africa its Salvation” (Line 29-31).

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CONCLUSION
The relationship between the Africans and the Europeans was conflictual and that conflict
came out through slave trade, that lead to deshumanisation and then to commodification.The
whites considered themselves as superior and thus treated the blacks as “things”. Therefore, that
inspired the African writers who then decided to recount the story of African colonialism starting
from the pre-colonial to the postcolonial periods passing through the colonial one: known as
African Literature. Also, the various ways in which characters found a way to their homeland is
an aspect tackled by the diasporic literature. That was portrayed in books and poems among
other means.

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REFERENCES
Walcott, D., “Ti-Jean and his brothers”.

Okara, G., 2014. “You laughed and laughed and laughed” in The African Book Review.

Angira, J. “Expelled” in Poems of Black Africa.

Simpson, T., “African Communion” in Poems of Black Africa.

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