African Literature

 

Allied –III

African Literature

Syllabus

UNIT-I PROSE

            Chinua Achebe- The Novelist as a Teacher

            Chimamanda Adichie- The Danger of a Single Story

UNIT-II POETRY

            Christopher Okigbo- Heaven’s Gate

            Gabriel Okara- Where I to Choose

            John Pepper Clark- The Casualities

            David Diop- Africa

UNIT-III SHORT STORY

            Chinua Achebe- The Madman

            Gloria Kembabazi Muhatane- The Gem and Your Dreams

UNIT-IV DRAMA

            Wole Soynika- A Dance of the Forest

UNIT-V FICTION

            Nadine Gardimer- A Guest of Honour

            Maaza Mengiste- The Shadow King

 

 

  UNIT-I

THE NOVELIST AS A TEACHER

            Chinua Achebe is the most influential novelist of Nigeria and one of the most authentic voices of the present African consciousness. “The Novelist as a Teacher” is a talk delivered at the first common Wealth Writers Conference at Leeds in 1964. It was considered as the literary manifesto of Achebe. The essay comprises two parts. In the first part, Achebe talks about the existence of a work of art in relation to its interaction with the readers. In the second part, he talks about the function of a writer. An African writer writing in English as Chinua Achebe does is new in Africa. He tries to find and describes in detail the complex relationship between the African writers and their readers.

            Though most of the African writers had their education in Europe they should not take it for granted that the relationship between the African writers and their audience is same as European writers and their audience. The European writer plays only a peripheral role. To impress his readers, he is growing a beard and is wearing a peculiar kind of dress and is behaving in a strange, unpredictable way. He is in revolt against the society. It makes the society not to entrust him with a responsible task. Achebe is not interested in what writers expect of society. It is generally contained in their books. He concerns only on what society expects of its writers which is not well documented.

            Achebe assumes that the African writer and his reader live in the same place that is Africa. There is an allegation that African readers are only students and they read only textbooks and so African writers have to write for European and American readers. To add strength to his belief he gives some statistical data. His novel, Things Fall Apart was sold 800 copies in Britain, 20,000 copies in Nigeria and about 2,500 copies in all other places. The same was happened to his novel No longer at Ease.

            Many of his readers take him as a kind of teacher. Achebe received a letter recently from Nigeria. It was written by I. Buba Yero Mafindi. Buba does not use to write to authors however the works of the author is interesting he wants to tell how much he enjoyed Things Fall Apart and No longer at Ease, the two novels of Achebe. He eagerly looks forward to read the other novel ‘Arrow of God’ of the author. He says that the novels of Achebe advice young people. He conveys his wishes to produce as many books.

            There is another letter from Ghana. He wrote a pathetic letter to Achebe. He asks the author why he had neglected to add questions and answers at the end of the novel, Things Fall Apart and that could make him to secure high marks in the school certificate examination. In Ghana Achebe met a young lady teacher. She spoke earnestly. She talks about his novel No longer at Ease. She asked the author to picture young men with enough guts to go against the custom to marry the girl with whom he fell in love. The author does not agree with the view of the lady teacher. He is uneasy at the accusation of the lady teacher. He feels that he has not used an opportunity to educate readers on such whimsical and frivolous matters as love marriage. Achebe chooses the causes for his fight. A Nigerian newspaper editor waging a war against the ‘soul-less efficiency’ of an industrial and technological civilization. He does not want to join with him. He holds the view that efficiency is essential for developing Africa.

            Achebe was thinking on the peculiar needs of different societies. He heard an English pop song not so long ago. The pop singer said that he was not going to wash for a week. Achebe was wondered why he should take such a vow where there were so many worthwhile resolutions to make. It was said that cleanliness was next to godliness.  Achebe saw him as a kind of divine administrator of vengeance.

            Achebe gives an example of the result of the disaster brought upon the African values and customs of alien races. In Achebe’s village, in his father’s generation, the local girls’ school performed Nigerian dances of the coming of the gospel. When Christianity spread the tradition was given up. They always put on something Christian. He also remembers that in those days the poor Nigerian people used earthen pots to carry water from the stream. They began to use tins and other metal-ware to carry water.

            Westernization has led Africans to denigrate their own culture. So it is the duty of Achebe to help his society to regain its belief and put away the complexes of the years of denigration and self-denigration. As Jean-Paul Sastre, the founder of the philosophical movement ‘existentialism’ said, ‘anti-racist racism is necessary to show that African is not only as good as the white but he is better. It is the duty of African writers to re-educate and regenerate Africans to make them aware of the greatness of their culture.     

 

The Danger of a Single story

-Chimamanda Ngozi Adichi

Summary

            The Danger of a Single story is a speech by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichi. She is an African writer. She grew up in a University campus in eastern Nigeria. She tells us the danger of single stories through her experiences.

            The Single story creates stereotypes. The problem with stereotypes is that they are incomplete and untrue. Stereotype makes us to look one side of the issue. A single story robs the dignity of people. It does not give the whole picture of anything clearly. We must analyse and understand the things very critically to get knowledge of anything in detail whether it may be a book, an incident, a situation, or a person. She shares her personal experiences that show us the danger of a single story.

             Adichie started writing stories when she was seven all her characters were white and blue eyed. They played in snow and ate apples. Because she read American and British books so she thought books should have foreigners in them and the books should deal with subject matters with which the writer should not have a personal relation. Things changed when she read African books `African writers like Chinua Achebe and Camara Laye showed her that books can be about different things. When she read African books, she realized that girls like her with kinky hair and chocolate coloured skin could also be characters in books. 

            When she was eight, they got a new house boy Fide. Her mother told them that his family was very poor. Once she went to Fide’s village, his mother showed them a beautiful basket of dyed raffia that his brother has made. She couldn’t believe because she simply knew only one thing about them that they were poor. Their poverty was her single story of them.

            When she was 19, she left Nigeria to study in the USA. Her roommate believed Africa was only a land of beautiful landscape and all Africans were poor and uneducated tribal people. Her American roommate shocked by her English speaking. She asked Adichie to where she learned to speak English so well. The roommate hadn’t known that English was the official language of Nigeria. Then the roommate asked Adichie to play some tribal music and was disappointed to see what her tape had Maria Carey. Her roommate had a single story of Africa. This single story made her to think like this.  

              Adichie’s American professor also had a single story about Africa. He believed that Adichie’s characters were not authentically African. In his single story, African authors’ characters should be uneducated and starving; they should not be educated and rich enough to drive cars.

            Though Adichie had a happy childhood in a close-knit family, she had also some painful life experiences. Her grandfather died in refugee camps. Her cousin Polle died due to lack of enough medical care. Her closest friend Okoloma died in a plane crash.     

            Finally Adichie in her speech that single stories create stereotypes, and the stereotypes are not true, but they are incomplete. There is more to a person, a story, a place than just a single narrative. By acknowledging that fact, the mind is opened to so many possibilities.

 

UNIT-II

Heaven’s Gate

Summary

            The title of the poem “Heaven’s gate” is emblematic of man’s quest for spiritual fulfillment. This is particularly significant as the poem describes the poet’s return to his native post colonization.

            The phrase “the passage” also echoes the concept of quest or search for the ultimate truth. He stands before the Mother Idoto , a symbol of the oilbean, tortoise and the python; this “water-goddess “ is a recurring motif in Christopher Okigbo’s works. The oilbean is an article to worship the Mother Idoto. The “oilbean” stands as a concrete symbol for traditional roots. He tries to lean on it, but fails. He pictures himself as the prodigal son, on whose return he finds the loss of his inheritance and riches. To Okigbo his ultimate asset is his cultural heritage. He is currently lost in the legend or ‘antiquity’ of the land. The term “watery presence” may refer to its diluted existence. It may also connote the traditional land where the poet was baptized.

            The poet longs to be the child in the lap of the Igbo society. The poet first asserts that he stands naked. Then he claims that he waits ‘bare-footed.’ This points to the rawness with which he is ready to give himself up, dismissing all airs of sophistication. He seeks to tread the threshold of the traditional heaven’s gate. He longs to take position as the person watching over its well being.

“Out of the depths my cry:
Give ear and hearken.”

            The words echo Christ’s words “let them hear if they have ears.” The cry, nevertheless, falls on deaf ears and is lost in the “DARK WATERS .Violet rays (dusk) foreshadow the fire or new dawn that was once envisaged. His remaining in solitude is more colourful-it as colourful as orangery, as colourful as the African rites and rituals. ‘Wagging his tail’, in complete submission, he has a tale to tell, that is a “tangled-wood-tale”. The tale is a confused saga of one’s identity in its quest for the truth in a tangled maze.

            As he stands in penance (one-leg standing) before the mother Idoto, he finds the most improbable occurrences-the rain and sun in a single combat: the yoking of opposite entities in a new culture. At crossroads there are just silent faces to encounter and no ‘guide’ to direct. The hitherto colorful festivity had rendered itself black. He just becomes one among the ‘long black column of ants’ devoid of any identity. Ants thrive in communities, and have no unique individual identity. The contemporary African generation apes Western culture, parade a refined air-they engage themselves frequently at formal meetings ‘behind the bell tower’ or ‘in the hot garden’. In such an existence everything leads to the same thing or “all the roads meet”, there are no different destinations.

O Anna at the knobs of the panel oblong
Hear us at crossroads at the great hinges

            He implores her to recognize their reality as she did of Christ. The sounds of their now lost culture can only be heard in the creaking sound of the hinges to old doors to new avenues. They are the players of soft pipe –organs that rehearse the tunes of the old times, that too in fragments as there no longer prevails a sense of unity. They long to listen to the loveliest fragment among nature (cornfields).In their own land; they seem to be in exile for now they reside in an alien culture. His guardian angel guides him to make over so that he assumes the mask of the Roman Catholic Church. This mask is not ancestral, but a one given by the white masters.

            He prays so that he is protected from the angels of this sophisticated religion and culture, from the Kingdom of Christianity. He longs to transcend into his native religion, one characterized by my “sand house and bones.” He wants to go back to the religion concerned with the worship of God at the time of harvesting:”IN THE CHILL breath of the days waking.”

 

            He now transitions into this superficial sophisticated world. The draper of May has sold out fine green garments for the sake of commercialization, the hill sides are made up. The gardens parade a painted smile. The synthetic welcome at the cock’s third siren refers to Simon Peter. The phrase “behind the bulrushes” refers to the betrayal of Christ.

            The speaker perceives an objective view of himself as the ‘newcomer’. As the poet ruminates on the bridge, he witnesses “the laughter of the waves”. Water has the property of dissolving, diluting or easily mingling with anything that it comes across. The poet unlike the water below cannot readily welcome this change. Water also can easily ‘weigh’ anything: It can easily displace an equal amount of burden. The poet finds himself standing above the waters where the tide flows only “under his feet”. He ardently wishes to immerse himself in its depth where all the burdens are light and one ‘floats’ in mere oblivion

            WERE I TO CHOOSE

            Summary

            Gabriel Okara’s “Were I to Choose” is reminiscent of Yeats’ “Adam’s Curse.” Adam toiling in the soil can be compared to the Negros working in the soil. They broke the stone themselves which was their very foundation. The red streams are symbolic of the multilingual diversity that reaches the womb Africa.

            Cain metaphorically represents the next generation. ‘I’ in Okara’s poems generally refers to the tribe. The poet implies that he is currently imprisoned in the present generation and its identity crisis. The earlier generation’s gaze would not go beyond; but his does and to him, the world is looked at from the brink. Written in 1950s, the period of Nigerian Independence, the poet sees his ancestors-their slavery, their groping lips and the breasts muted by heart-rending suffering. His vision goes outside and backwards. The memory is like a thread going through his ears.

            Cain was a wanderer, who if caught by anybody, would be definitely slain. Similar is the case of the modern uneducated man who does not possess any aim. At the turn of 31 years, the poet is multi-lingual and he wonders what should be the medium of his instruction. The tower of Babel symbolizes unity. During the construction of the Tower of Babel, God cursed the people concerned. The people wanted to build a great tower signifying oneness, and around it people would stand united. They wanted to speak the same language but God despised the very fact .There now remains no proper foundation, or structure and his world has deteriorated to a ‘world of bones’.

            He wants free himself from the imprisonment of this dark halo(a halo generally considered ‘blessed’ seems dark to the poet).His conflict is not being able to choose from the different languages. He is torn between different worlds. The poet likens his predicament with the Harmattan, a parching wind mingling with dust during the period of Dec-Feb in Nigeria. The throat is dry and he is unable to speak out. He is delirious as the flames of torture are burning his existence. The colonial period has made him an amalgam of European and African cultures, and now he finds himself in a no man’s land. He relishes the idea of resolving the crisis by seeking refuge in the silence of the grave. In such a context, he would be even cheating the worms as he would enjoy the state of affairs.

 

THE CASUALTIES

Summary

            John Pepper Clark, Nigerian poet, is the pioneer of Modern African Literature. He is considered as the most lyrical among Nigerian poets. 

            J.P.Clark’s “The Casualties” is a protest poem set against the backdrop of the Nigeria-Biafra War (1967-1970) and first published in a collection titled “The Casualties: Poems 1966-68” in 1970.

            The themes embedded in “The Casualties” include ‘Futility of war’, ‘Self-inflicted Suffering’, ‘Social Inequality’, ‘Collective Misfortune’, ‘Consequences of War’ and ‘Inevitability of Change’.       

            The poem, “The Casualties” is about the most popular among the legendary writer’s protest writings. The Casualties explores the vagaries of the Nigerian civil war with emphasis on its devastation on both sides of the divide. The poet believes the real “casualties” are the survivors, ranging from the harbingers of the war, the political elite to innocuous victims who are inexorably caught in the ensuing inferno.

The casualties are not only those who are dead.

They are well out of  it.

The casualties are not only those who are dead.

            The poem points to 1966, the time of the Civil War. Biafra wanted to be free and independent. It affected the common people who were suffering endlessly. The Battle failed and the problem was silenced. The poet asserts that the casualties are not only the ones who are dead, for they are far from the devastating consequences of the war. They are not only those who are wounded though they are well on the route to death. They await burial by instalments as death is the Ultimate escapism. It is not only those who have lost their material assets and property, it is also those who have irretrievably lost their relatives and beloved ones.

The casualties are not only those led away by night.

The cell is a cruel place, sometimes a haven.

            The casualties are not only those led away by the law at night, there is always the uncertainty about the cell. To some it may be a cruel place, to others it may function as a haven.

            People are caught in the hatred of communities, or a cause that they see only the crowds. In a tumultuous situation nobody can hear each other speak. Nobody sees the innocent individual faces that are unnecessarily made the victims. This is very significant in the contemporary context of terrorism. 

The cases celebrated for kwashiorkor.

The unforseen camp-follower of not just our war.

            Kwashiorkor is the unseen camp follower of every war: a huge personification of all the deteriorating and devastating effects of the claustrophobic war. It is an acute form of childhood protein-energy malnutrition. The poet says that the war is like a disease afflicting a child, or a new generation at its very core. It is the children of today that is the future of tomorrow. Therefore the best way to win a war is to prevent it.

Africa

-David diop

About the poet

David Diop was born in Paris in 1966 to a French mother and Senegalese father. He received the 2021 International Booker Prize for his novel At Night All Blood is Black as the first French author. He specializes in 18^th Century French and Francophone African literature. His poems are Vultures, Africa and Close to You.

The poem “Africa,” also known by its first line, “Africa my Africa,” was first published in French as “Afrique” in David Diop’s only collection of poetry, Coups de Pilon (“Pounding”) in 1956. It was published by the Pan-African quarterly literary magazine Présence Africaine. This journal was highly influential in the Pan-Africanist movement, the decolonization struggle of former French colonies, and the Negritude movement. The translated poem is taken from the book “Hammer Blows and Other Writings” published in 1973.

In this poem, Diop, sitting in France, expresses his admiration for Africa. He became “the voice of the people without voice”, such as enslaved and colonized Africans. He was a prominent figure of the Négritude movement, which was in vehement opposition to colonialism. His Coups de Pilon poems, including “Africa,” kindle the hope for free Africa and show his detestation toward the colonizers. The pride in the African spirit, an assertion of African identity, ideas of home, and a sense of belonging are part of this piece.

Summary

            “Africa” is a free-verse lyrical ode to Africa and its people. It consists of a single stanza containing 23 lines. The tone of the poem is filled with the poet’s admiration and empathy for Africa and its people. His voice reflects a sense of nostalgia for its past. When the speaker thinks about the suffering of enslaved people, his tone turns sad yet reflects a sense of pride. Africa was colonized for an extended period. While Diop was writing this poem, imperialism was at its height in Africa. Protests and liberation movements were on the rise, and Diop, even being in France, showed his support for such revolutionary events through writing.

Africa my Africa

Africa of proud warriors in ancestral savannahs

Africa of whom my grandmother sings

Diop expresses his love for Africa. He is aware of his lineage and became familiar with the glorious past of his nation from the tales his grandmother used to tell. That had made him keep the essence of Africa alive. He evokes the spirit of Africa and proclaims his identity: Africa is his own, its people are his own. No matter how colonizers see his country, he still takes pride in being an African.  He also takes pride in the spirit of tribal warriors who bravely fought in the open savannahs and tried to obstruct the invasion of heavily equipped colonizers. Though they were under-equipped had traditional weapons, they still fought back to protect their soil.

On the banks of the distant river

 “on the banks of the distant river” is where Diop was born and brought up. His voice sounds sad and reverberates the aching of his heart. The speaker has never known Africa, having lived in France, but he is aware of the African “blood” gushing through his veins. Diop symbolizes the “blood” as his true African identity. Like blood caters sustenance to the body, the sense of cultural consciousness keeps his spirit alive. 

            Your beautiful black blood that irrigates the fields

            The blood of your sweat

            The sweat of your work

            The work of your slavery

            Diop addresses Africa as a human being representing all colonized Africans who irrigated fields for their white masters by putting in back-breaking labor. The colonizers and their superiority complex subjugated them and their culture. Diop refers to the beauty of their culture as well as identity. The blood that flows in his veins is the same that runs through all the Africans, who toil under the scorching sun, work tirelessly, and serve under European slavers.

Splendidly alone amidst white and faded flowers

            While the speaker thinks about Africa’s pain under colonial rule, a voice reaches out to him. She points towards a tree, “young and strong”, standing “amidst white and faded flowers”, to say that it is the Africa he is searching for. The phrase “white and faded flowers” portrays the colonizers’ culture in the dim light in order to contrast the glow of his own culture.

UNIT-III

The Madman

-Chinua Achebe

About the Author

            Chinua Achebe, Nigerian novelist, poet and critic was born on 16 November 1930 in British Nigeria. His first novel Things Fall Apart occupies a pivotal place in African Literature. He died on 21 March 2013 in Boston.

            The Madman is published in the collection Girls at War and Other Stories in 1991. It criticises the quest and longing of human to become popular. It is about a man called Nwibe who has worked hard, long, earned success. He wants to rise to be the headmen in his village and that was his greatest goal.

Summary

            The story is in third person narrative and the narrator starts the story by giving the description of Eke market. The madman used to roam in the market where women gossip and purchase ogili for evening soup. The madman had discovered two markets, Afo and Eke which are linked by highway. From the Afo market it took two days for the madman to move to Eke, but he got accustomed to it. He had placed his belongings in the market and so was chased by the men to be away from the market hut.

             On the next day, the madman started to move to Eke in the distant town of Ogbu. He walked on the middle of the road and ignored everything. He got a slap from a wagon driver and was scared by of the noisy Lorries. When he neared the Eke market he saw young ladies with water- pots on their heads and he was thirsty at that time.

            Nwibe is high standing in Ogbu. He has given notice to all men of the ozo tribe. He was willing to draw the attention of the ozo men by making himself wealthy and showing himself to be luxuries.     

            On the particular day, Nwibe woke early and moved to his farm before going to the market to buy roofing bundle for his wives’ huts. He had two wives named Mgboye and Udenkwo and he has planned to weave the roof of their huts at a time. Udenkwo was the junior wife with provoking tongue and accused Mgboye for behaviour of the little dog. Nwibe intervened and stopped the quarrel between them. He has a thought of moving to the stream to bathe.

             As it was the market day, there were none in the stream. He has placed his clothes on a boulder. The madman noted him in the stream and realised that this was the man who whipped and chased him from the Afo market. He picked the clothes of Nwibe and wrapped it round his waist to make Nwibe naked in the stream. Nwibe immediately came out of the stream naked and started chasing the madman who flew away his clothes and disappeared. The people started felt that Nwibe is a madman running naked through the highway. In the crowd, Nwibe was shouting to hold the madman was running naked. Few men from his village recognised him and stopped him. He was covered by clothes torn from Udenkwo.

            Nwibe explained that the madman has taken away his clothes. However, his relatives think that it was a worst kind of madness. He was cured by a practitioner who did a miracle and was called as Sojourner to the Land of the Spirits. Nwibe isolated himself from the men and after two years he thought to join the community of title man.

 CHARACTER SKETCH OF NWIBE

            Nwibe is a farmer in the town of Obgu. He is a rustic African. He has married several times as it is the custom in his place and he has fathered many children. He has all his assets in the village and its surroundings and he is bound to his environment. He has several wives and has to interact with them every day. He is fearful of breaking the traditions and must live by the code of his people and his village. So, in effect, even though Nwibe is a man, society has placed some constraints on him.

            Nwibe has a dream of only being elected as the headman. He is content with his huts and surroundings and he has even got a zinc sheet cover for the roof and to him that is the epitome of advancement in his village.

            Nwibe’s wives Mgboye and Udenkwo while the former was quiet and ready to accept her fate and the other wife Udenkwo was a woman of fiery temper, she was being scolded and chastised by Nwibe. She was shouting in her anger and complaint loudly. It can be understood that she resents the other wife Mgboye who she feels is more loved by their common husband and she is unhappy with her lot.    

    

 THE GEM AND YOUR DREAMS

-gloria Kembabazi Muhatane

SAM’S DREAM

            Sam, the narrator of the story notes down his dreams in a neatly decorated pad in “careful handwriting” as it is very important for him. Even the pen that he uses to write is a unique one, distinct from other ordinary pens. Sam believes that writing down his dreams with “rare materials” will make them happen in reality. He tears the paper out of the notepad and keeps it under his pillow and trusts that God will help him in achieving his dreams. Though he trusts God, he often wonders whether he will be able to achieve his dreams. According to him, for everyman, finding the right woman to marry will be one of his dreams. For him, marrying Karen is the greatest of his dreams.

CHALLENGES IN MARRYING KAREN

            Karen will want to live with a successful man. According to Sam, a successful man is the one who can spend more money on his wife. So he keeps on wondering how he is going to make his dream come true. To convince her and woo her, Sam has lied to her that he is rich, that his father is a minister. Mother is a doctor, and that his siblings are in the USA. But in reality, he lives with his aunty, has no siblings, and not even knows who his parents are. His aunt’s place is in Buwate, Najjera. The aunt’s house that he resides in is only a “two roomed self-contained house”.

SAM’S OTHER DREAMS

            Sam lists his other dreams as well. He wishes to build a mansion, buying a 2000 model Nolan Car, to run a few businesses and not to work under anyone in all his lifetime. All of his dreams require money to be obtained. So Sam is anxious and worried about finding this large amount of money before marrying Karen, or else, he says that Karen may run away with another man.

SAM’S MEETING WITH KAREN

            Sam wears his lucky t-shirt and goes to a cheap bar in a place kiwatule. The bar has a room that accommodates only 10 people at a time. It has only an old black &white Panasonic TV for entertainment sake. Karen was there already sipping her Sprite. She gently massages him and Sam takes this opportunity to confess his dreams. He shows her the paper that bore the list of hid dreams, of which the very first one was “To find the woman of my dreams”. He even shows her the date on which it was written- almost a year ago. Karen, on seeing the paper is happy.

SAM’S FRIEND NICKO

            The Next day Sam meets his friend Nicko, at Kisasi. Nicko stays with his father in a famous 5 storeyed apartment called “Yellow Apartments”. Nicko’s apartment seems to be a mess with dirty utensils and foul smell. Sam talks to him about his needs and his dreams. On the other hand, Nicko grabs him an opportunity of attending a Nigerian billionaire’s party at his mansion in Bugolobi. Sam is as excited as Nicko as he had never seen a rich man’s mansion. Moreover, meeting all the rich people of the city excites them and the very thought of dining with them makes both of them happy. Sam even hears about the billionaire’s daughter who is said to be beautiful, but for Sam she can never be more beautiful with Karen.

TO THE PARTY

            Getting an opportunity to visit and dine in a billionaire’s party and to feel important for the very first time in his life makes Sam quiet nervous. He understands that he does not have “a proper outfit” for presenting himself in the party. Nicko promises him to get his father’s suit and asks him to take shower before wearing the suit. Sam gets ready and Nicko orders him to clean his dirty room soon after the party and Sam agrees- as he has no other way, but to obey him. Sam feels as if he is a “pawn” on his friend’s chess board, because if he disagrees to clean the room, he would have to return back the suit. They both arrive at the party and are received with a mean look by the security as they did not arrive in a Chauffeured, shiny balck car like the other billionaries. Still, VIP treatment is guaranteed. Sam and Nicko are taken inside the luxurious mansion and both of them are awestruck by the different artefacts that gave the effect of an art gallery. The important Artefacts that Sam admires- white statues of west African Subjects, hanging on the walls, portrait of the billionaire’s daughter in multicoloured glass, Nigerian emblem made of shining metal, water fountain in the middle of the room and paintings in the walls.

THE GEM

            Sam notices a group of people in one place and turns curious to know the reason. He gets in after they leave and is astonished to see a gem. He even remembers the gem being featured in a newspaper article. “The Rich Men’s Possessions”. It is a “flawless star ruby”. The gem is red in colour with a medium dark tone and about 15 carats. Having originated in Burma, it has “a strong florescence when exposed to ultra violet rays”. The gem marks its presence for about five generations in the mansion and is worth around fifty thousand dollars.

THE THEFT

            Sam decides to steal the gem as he thinks its value can make all his dreams come true. Nicko is busy talking to a beautiful lady, the rich man’s daughter. Sam makes sure that the people are leaving the gallery and picks up the gem. He places the gem inside his pockets of the trousers which actually belonged to Nicko’s father. He is indeed afraid that God will not hear his prayers; did not even think who will buy the gem as the rare features of the gem are already famous throughout the country through newspapers. He is even afraid of juju, as he thinks that the gem may contain harmful magical powers. He has done a risky deed and feels burdened. Losing interest in the party, he informs Nicko that he is leaving. Nicko is confused but he is drawn towards “the aura of the billionaire’s daughter”.                  

THE CRISIS

            Sam manages to cross the tree exists and gestures at the watchmen with a smile. All of a sudden, two heavy bodied bouncers catch hold of him ruining Niko’s father’s coat that he was wearing. He is asked as with whom he has come, and Sam points out Nicko. Nicko, on the other hand says that he do not even know him. Sam is pushed out and thrown into a cabin vehicle like garbage. Sam is worried about the gem, his dreams and of course about Karen. He experiences the physical pain, about ruining Nicko’s father’s suit and imagines Karen in another man’s embrace. He understands that he is being lead into the Luzira maximum prison and feels chilled and nervous. He gets depressed as he is locked in. He takes his coat and keeps it aside. Very casually putting his hands inside the trousers, he understands that the gem is still inside his pocket. He gets excited and fearful as well. Though Sam gets the gem, he feels sad that he is locked inside. But on catching hold of the bars, he comes to know that the cell is not locked and gets excited. The door being completely open, Sam enjoys the freedom and feels optimistic as he rejoices that his dreams are not ruined. He is indeed happy about his immediate future and is optimistic.