& # 8217 ; s Spots Of Wood Essay, Research Paper
The novel was published in 1960, merely before Senegal became independent. It is based on a celebrated railway work stoppage which occurred in 1947-48. The fresh focal points on the late phases of Gallic colonialism. Sembene writes a dramatic and compelling narrative about the work stoppage. He besides uses it to do economic, political, and cultural points, every bit good, in support of Senegal & # 8217 ; s battle against the Gallic and labour & # 8217 ; s fight with direction.
The novel will look familiar in signifier and manner. That is, it & # 8217 ; s a realist-didactic, work stoppage novel that utilizes Western techniques. It is a political novel. The narrative is direct and consecutive. The novel may look long, but it & # 8217 ; s a comparatively easy and & # 8220 ; good & # 8221 ; read. It has a & # 8220 ; cinematic & # 8221 ; quality in its accent on ocular imagination, scene, and action. The opening descriptions of topographic point ( Bamako ) and individual ( Niakoro ) are typical. So is the set-up for & # 8220 ; Thi s: The City & # 8221 ; on page 13. Note, every bit good, how the narrative seems to & # 8220 ; pan & # 8221 ; the market topographic point on pages 15 and 16. The big figure of characters and the manner the puting moves from topographic point to topographic point may present some trouble, but they & # 8217 ; re reasonably simple to screen out. The map helps with topographic points. Making lists of characters associated with each town helps, every bit good.
The action takes topographic point in several locations ( an interesting filmic term ) & # 8211 ; chiefly in Bamako, Thi s, and Dakar. The map at the beginning shows the locations and suggests that the narrative is about a whole state and all of its people. There is a big dramatis personae of characters associated with each topographic point. Some are featured participants & # 8211 ; Fa Keita, Tiemoko, Maimouna, Ramatoulaye, Penda, Deune, N & # 8217 ; Deye, Dejean, and Bakayoko. Others portion of the public. You could state that the cardinal struggle is captured in two people, Dejean ( the Gallic director and colonialist ) and Bakayoko ( the psyche and spirit of the work stoppage. ) In another sense, nevertheless, the chief characters of the novel are the people as a collective, the topographic points they inhabit, and the railway.
Economic, Political, and Social Change: The universe Sembene portrays is in flux, possibly even in convulsion. Economic, political, and societal alterations are underway. The work stoppage intensifies the forces of alteration and sharpens our consciousness of them. & # 8220 ; The times were conveying away a new strain of work forces, they were besides conveying away a new strain of women. & # 8221 ; The novel relies a great trade on resistance and struggle to specify and dramatise the issues ( tribal-modern, management-labor, men-women, French-Bambara, France-Africa, White-Black ) , but Sembene does & # 8217 ; nt leave things in simplistic dualities or resistances. Note, for illustration, the manner the railway, the trains, are portrayed as the & # 8220 ; machine. & # 8221 ; & # 8220 ; The machine has ground everything together this manner and brought everything to a individual level. & # 8221 ; The people are dependent on it. They about desperation over its loss & # 8211 ; & # 8221 ; the loss of the machine. & # 8221 ; A typical, humanistic, work stoppage novel might project this as the awful dehumanisation of the worker in a grinding capitalist engineering. But for Bakayoko, possibly Sembene & # 8217 ; s spokesman, & # 8220 ; The sort of adult male we were is dead, and our lone hope for new life lies in the machine, which knows neither linguistic communication or race. & # 8221 ; It & # 8217 ; s a new universe. Peoples must travel on and unrecorded in it.
Race, Class, and Gender: The novel portrays ways in which these separate classs become iintertwined in experience. Each class, foremost of all, is relevant to the novel. Both the Africans and the Gallic are extremely witting of race & # 8211 ; & # 8221 ; the obstruction which until now had been unsurmountable & # 8211 ; the colour of their tegument & # 8221 ; ( 77 ) . The Gallic assume & # 8220 ; the right to an absolute authorization over existences whose colour made of them. . . work forces of another, inferior status & # 8221 ; ( 177-78 ) . The traditional functions for African adult females are clearly portrayed & # 8211 ; particularly through Niakoro and Assitan. But things are altering: & # 8220 ; The adult females became witting that a alteration was coming for them, every bit good & # 8221 ; ( 33 ) . This is made clear through characters like Ramatoulaye, N & # 8217 ; Deye, and Penda & # 8211 ; and in the terminal, all of the adult females who march on Dakar. The Gallic regard the differences between Africans and Europeans as cultural, every bit good as racial, as a affair of superior and inferio. Giving in to striker demands, e.g. would be & # 8220 ; a confirmation of the copper
stoms of inferior beings” ( 181 ) . The Africans, on the other manus, exchange the footings to category: “You do non stand for a state or a people here, but merely a category. We represent another category, whose involvements are non the same as yours” ( 182 ) . Think about the manner these ‘conditions’ ( classs ) interact in the novel–how they are tied together in the struggles and alterations Sembene portrays.
Discourse and Language: Sembene makes discourse and linguistic communication political and cultural issues, non merely affairs of communicating. Most of the Gallic colonialists do non talk or understand an African linguistic communication. They believe the address and civilizations of Africa are crude and inferior. Bakayoko & # 8217 ; s usage of linguistic communication in the racecourse scene ( pp.213ff ) & # 8211 ; his ability to exchange from one to another and thereby act upon the crowd and gull the French & # 8211 ; belies the premise of high quality. The earlier scene between labour and direction ( 179ff ) besides turns interestingly on discourse. The literate demands and intelligent behaviour of the strikers undercut the averment that they are kids. In the terminal, linguistic communication fails the Gallic. They do non hold a discourse to prosecute the strikers in any but a superior-inferior relationship. Dejean becomes frustrated and angry ( he is dumb ) and can merely strike out at Bakayoko.
Form and Style: Writing Against The Grain. The narrative is familiar. The work stoppage novel is a common Western type. The heroic, about super-human leader, Bakayoko, seems typical. The descriptive or cinematic technique is familiar, every bit good. Nevertheless, Sembene writes against western colonialism and western values. He uses Europe to oppose Europe. It & # 8217 ; s of import to see, hence, how he transforms both the discourse and the signifier of the novel into something insurgent. Is at that place some sort of & # 8220 ; reinvention & # 8221 ; of the novel traveling on here?
Poeticss of Politicss: In novel and movie, Sembene creates a sort of & # 8220 ; poetics of politics. & # 8221 ; Sembene is committed & # 8220 ; to advancing and transforming traditional civilization, to utilizing the cultural developments of Western society in the involvements of Africa. Sembene was ( sic ) more interested in happening a dialectical relationship between the two civilizations than in an noncritical nostalgia for pre-colonial pure African-ness. & # 8221 ; ( Laura Mulvey. )
* What is the intent of puting a map at the beginning of the novel?
* What is the intent and consequence of the ocular portrayals Sembene gives of towns and topographic points? ( Note, particularly, the gap of the novel and the beginning of chapters. )
* Sembene portrays several coevalss & # 8211 ; e.g. , Fa Keita, Niakoro, Bakayoko, and Ad & # 8217 ; jibid & # 8217 ; Jemaah Islamiyah in Bamako. Why does he? What is the consequence or point?
* What grounds do the workers give for traveling on work stoppage?
* The characters besides can be grouped harmonizing to their relationship to the work stoppage, their attitudes toward French and African civilizations, and by race, category, and gender. How do these different groupings help you understand the subjects of the novel?
* What make Dejean and the other Gallic think about the Africans? How make the Gallic describe the differences?
* Sembene portrays several different types of adult females & # 8211 ; Niakoro, Assitan, Ramatoulaye, N & # 8217 ; Deye, and Penda, e.g. How would you qualify each? Why does Sembene give us so many types?
* What is the corporate function of adult females in the novel? Does it alter as the action progresses?
* On page 34, the storyteller says & # 8220 ; And the work forces began to understand that if the times were conveying away a new strain of work forces, they were besides conveying away a new strain of women. & # 8221 ; What does that intend?
* Bakayoko is described as & # 8220 ; the psyche of the strike. & # 8221 ; ( 186 ) What does this mean? Why does he non look until p. 170? Why does Maimouna state, & # 8220 ; In Bakayoko & # 8217 ; s bosom there is no room for anyone & # 8221 ; ? ( 196 )
* Bakayoko frequently said: & # 8220 ; The sort of adult male we were is dead, and our lone hope for a new life lies in the machine, which knows neither a linguistic communication nor a race. & # 8221 ; What does he intend?
* Niakoro says ( p. 88 ) that & # 8220 ; our universe is falling apart. & # 8221 ; ( An allusion to Achebe? ) Fa Keita answers: & # 8220 ; No adult female ; it was your boy who said, & # 8216 ; Our universe is opening up. & # 8217 ; & # 8221 ; What is the point of this exchange?
