ipl-logo

The Houseboy Ferdinand Oyono Analysis

1448 Words6 Pages

The Houseboy is a novel which sheds illustrates the flaws of European colonialism in Cameroon. Ferdinand Oyono’s work satirizes the colonial experience through the eyes of ordinary Africans. The whites oppress and exploit the blacks without giving a thought to the dehumanization they are causing them. One Michael Leunig once said: “The hypocrisy of some is that we like to think of ourselves as sophisticated and evolved, but we’re still also driven by primal urges like greed and power.” This essay aims to extrapolate the falseness of the whites and present the subjugation the blacks endured in colonial Cameroun as revealed through the satire of Oyono. Through the employment of characterization fueled with situational irony, Oyono is able to …show more content…

The Commandant is a great chief to Toundi until Toundi sees him uncircumcised in the shower and loses respect for him. Uncircumcised Christian males are seen as filthy and unclean and the reduction of an eminent figure such as the Commandant. Oyono points out the flaw in the Commandant by the use of satire when Toundi says “He had seemed to me more naked than my fellow Africans who strip unconcerned and wash at the water channel in the market place.” By comparing the Commandant who bathes in private to his fellow Africans who bathe in public, Oyono creates a humorous scene in which he belittles and exposes the hypocrisy of the colonialist. The whites preach adultery as a sin but Madame and M. Moreau are perpetrators of that crime. Both Madame and M. Moreau are married Christians yet they indulge in adultery and they are not reprimanded whatsoever. But Father Vandermayer loves to beat native Christians who have committed adultery; he makes native Christian adulterators undress whiles he beats …show more content…

Toundi then runs to the white man. The white man takes him in and turns him into multipurpose labor machine; a boy who could: read, write, serve Mass, lay a table, sweep out his room and make his bed. When Toundi moves to the Residence, he faces an unpleasant, subjugated experience which makes him realize that the whites are oppressors. Oyono portrays the whites as people who rely on violence to exploit the blacks. One would have thought that Toundi would be fleeing to a better life, but instead he flees to his

Show More
Related

  • Heart Of Darkness Dialectical Journal

    1556 Words  | 7 Pages

    The book serves as a sharp contrast with the deception of Colonists as well as a symbol of solid realness within a fantastical dream where truth is impossible. When describing the book, Marlow’s diction are highly positive, using words like “honest”, “humble” and “simple”. The direct expression and singleness of intention serves as a contrast with the lies the Colonists tell to conceal the reality in Africa. Europeans justify their bloodthirsty conquest as something they did for a greater cause. In 1876, at the Geographical Conference on Central Africa, King Leopold justified “To open to civilization the only part of our globe which it has not yet penetrated, to pierce the darkness which hangs over entire peoples, is, I dare say, a crusade worthy of this century of progress” (Cleary).

    Read More

  • Creating African Americans Chapter 1 Summary

    485 Words  | 2 Pages

    This chapter addresses the central argument that African history and the lives of Africans are often dismissed. For example, the author underlines that approximately 50,000 African captives were taken to the Dutch Caribbean while 1,600,000 were sent to the French Caribbean. In addition, Painter provides excerpts from the memoirs of ex-slaves, Equiano and Ayuba in which they recount their personal experience as slaves. This is important because the author carefully presents the topic of slaves as not just numbers, but as individual people. In contrast, in my high school’s world history class, I can profoundly recall reading an excerpt from a European man in the early colonialism period which described his experience when he first encountered the African people.

    Read More

  • Olaudah Equiano Rhetorical Analysis

    683 Words  | 3 Pages

    In Equiano's personal slave narrative, "The Life of Olaudah Equiano, or Gustavus Vassa, the African", Equiano flips the idea that the African people are backwards and barbaric, thus ripe for slavery, by demonstrating his personal exceptionalism through his literacy to show that it is truly the white people who are backwards and barbaric through their own hypocrisy. This reversal that Equiano demonstrates in his slave narrative shows that the savagery of African people exists as a misconception and makes the reader fully grasp the need to abolish slavery and any inequality present. On page seventy-eight, Equiano uses first person pronouns like 'I', 'my', and 'me' to separate himself from the other African people and whites around him. This separation that Equiano creates demonstrates his exceptionalism as an African slave.

    Read More

  • Things Fall Apart And British Colonialism

    889 Words  | 4 Pages

    How do the British attempt to raise their own perception of “civilization” over that of the colonial subject? 4.How does Okonkwo retain his pride and cultural identity during the British colonial occupation? What cultural and social values make him less susceptible to British colonial tyranny? 5.How does Okonkwo’s understanding of the family unit define his role as a member of Igbo tribe? What indigenous values in African tribes provide a framework for tribal customs in contrast the white European family values that are imposed on him and his family?

    Read More

  • A Habit Of Waste By Nalo Hopkinson Summary

    530 Words  | 3 Pages

    The effects of colonialism are intergenerational, this story exposes the raw feelings of victims of colonization and the internalization of racist ideologies that often occurs as a result of Caribbean history being wrongly painted. Conforming to the standards of society is often easier than bearing the challenges associated with being an outlier; however, conformity leads to resentment and hatred. Cynthia chooses to conform to society's standards of white supremacy, which results in her discarding her own body for the figure of a white woman. Unfortunately, Cynthia begins to form a deep hatred for herself and her culture which her parents and strangers are subjected to.

    Read More

  • Jamaica Kincaid's Blackness Essay

    479 Words  | 2 Pages

    In the short story “Blackness” by Jamaica Kincaid, the narrator’s consciousness develops through a process of realization that she does not have to choose between the culture imposed on her and her authentic heritage. First, the narrator explains the metaphor “blackness” for the colonization her country that fills her own being and eventually becomes one with it. Unaware of her own nature, in isolation she is “all purpose and industry… as if [she] were the single survivor of a species” (472). Describing the annihilation of her culture, the narrator shows how “blackness” replaced her own culture with the ideology of the colonizers.

    Read More

  • Different But Equal Basil Davidson Analysis

    565 Words  | 3 Pages

    Africans were displayed as objects for buying and selling, which robbed them from their individuality and human dignity. Davidson states that the mutual respect that was once there between Africans and white people was forever changed. Boahen, in General History of Africa VII: Africa Under Colonial Domination 1880-1935, reports that there “…still stood an attitude of cultural and racial superiority, formed in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries and regularly given expression in descriptions of the African as childlike or ‘non-adult’. This latter attitude in turn gave birth to widespread belief that European domination had to last for a very long time”

    Read More

  • Narrative Of The Life Of Frederick Douglass Rhetorical Analysis Essay

    854 Words  | 4 Pages

    The idiosyncratic style Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, an American Slave by Frederick Douglass depicts the discriminatory actions of postcolonial slave owners in the southern United States, which reflects their greed for unpaid labor on their plantations. He employs the metaphor of the book that their masters prohibited them from owning by law throughout the memoir to demonstrate the avarice that drives white slave owners to turn a darker-skinned, intelligent being into a machine for personal benefit for centuries after the colonization of America. Also, the irony further displays the power of greed by expressing the slaveholder’s uncivilized method of forcing another human out of civilization. Furthermore, his use of a paradox of the use of pure religious beliefs to justify a slaveholder’s inhumane treatment reveals their rapacious actions that contradict the teachings of the church.

    Read More

  • Things Fall Apart Gender Roles Essay

    946 Words  | 4 Pages

    Chinua Achebe’s Things Fall Apart is a book based up on pre-colonial Nigeria back in the 1890s and it focuses on on traditional society’s and colonialism. The author presents the book Things Fall Apart through the eyes of the main character Okonkwo who was a respected elder in the village. Women in the book were all housewives and they were shown as weak, and as second class citizens of the Umuofian society. The roles of women in the Umuofia society is presented through several events that happened in in the village of Umuofia.

    Read More

  • Summary Of Many Thousands Gone By Ira Berlin

    520 Words  | 3 Pages

    Ira Berlin’s Many Thousands Gone: The First Two Centuries of Slavery in North America is a history of African-American slavery in mainland North America during the first two centuries of European and African settlement.” (1) The first slaves arrived in the New World in 1619 and over the next two hundred years the Atlantic developed from a society with slaves to a slave society. In Many Thousands Gone: The First Two Centuries of Slavery in North America, Berlin argues that both slavery and its culture evolved over time and place to fit the needs of the surroundings.

    Read More

  • Social Status In Things Fall Apart

    1027 Words  | 5 Pages

    The tripartite novel “Things Fall Apart” by Chinua Achebe, published in 1958 focuses on the changes taking place in Nigeria, as a result of colonization during the 20th century. Chinua Achebe’s pragmatics when writing the novel focused on changing the perspective of Western readers with regard to African society. He mainly wanted to falsify the assertions in books such as “Heart of Darkness” which he claimed gave people of African descent a dull personality. Social status is one of the novels’ main themes. Chinua Achebe successfully incorporates the importance of social status, giving readers the impression that for the Ibo society, social structure consists mainly of a hierarchy of both skill and strength.

    Read More

  • Stereotypes In Things Fall Apart

    1145 Words  | 5 Pages

    Many stereotypes of African culture have emerged due to western literature and media and first hand accounts of explorers. Things Fall Apart offers a view into the truth and reality of African cultures, which are often misconceptualized by these stereotypes. Acebe shows how African society functions well without assistance from foreign travelers. In Things Fall Apart, Achebe counters the imperialist stereotypes of Africa by keeping certain words in the Igbo language, as opposed to translating them into English, to fight back against the spreading western culture and to embrace their own way of life. He also counters the imperialist stereotypes of Africa by using Igbo proverbs to show how their culture values many of the same things that western

    Read More

  • The School Days Of An Indian Girl Zitkala Analysis

    882 Words  | 4 Pages

    The Narrative of the life of Frederick Douglass and The School Days of an Indian Girl by Zitkala-sa and Frederick Douglass himself, explores the ways in which colonialism brought about their distress. To which in turn set out a passion in them to succeed – and so they did. Both narrative essay explores death through American culture with the theme of education being their escape. Though one would think it would be the demise to their identity, upon their realization, succeeded to defeat the common notion that, un-American ethnic groups (minorities) were below the “white pale faces.” Language and education seemed to disconnect both cultures.

    Read More

  • How Did Colonialism Affect African Culture

    1753 Words  | 8 Pages

    Moreover, Western civilization became the ideal civilization, and became way superior to African “civilization.” As a consequence, African tradition became perceived as primitive, outmoded, and sadly not welcomed by the rest of the world. Unfortunately, a lot of Africans experienced a trend of a dying out culture. (2) It can be implied that even the Africans’ self-perception dropped because the only lifestyle they knew was suddenly taken away from them and they were taught that it was substandard. Therefore, the indigenous inhabitants of the colonies, the Africans, had to adapt to a new, “superlative” culture and view it as more sophisticated than theirs.

    Read More

  • Positive And Negative Impacts Of Colonialism In Things Fall Apart By Africa

    1715 Words  | 7 Pages

    The purpose of this paper is to analyse the positive and negative impacts of colonialism. Key words: - Colonialism, Religion, Culture, Civilization, Conflict INTRODUCTION Things Fall Apart was published in 1958 just two years before Nigeria’s independence from the British’s rule in 1960. Achebe, who was born in 1930, had experienced colonialism in his country. The novel depicts the pre-colonial and early colonial Nigerian society.

    Read More

More about The Houseboy Ferdinand Oyono Analysis

Open Document