If fiction provides itself with characters, it is in order to do somethingessential: it provides itself characters in order to take place. This isequallywhyspaceisessentialintheunfoldingofrepresentation.Fictiontakesplace:spaceisessentialforrepresentation.Likecharacter, space is something which representation creates for itself. Itmayhavephysicalfeatures,likegeographicalspace,itmayhavefeatures that mark it out as a field of consciousness, or it may be apurely moral space. This novelistic space needn't always have thesolidityof a geographicallydelineatedone.
The vision of a certain emptiness, which is here called the abyss,is a key factor of representation in Nkem Nwankwo's My Mercedes isBigger than Yours. But the narrator's regard of the character Onuma,ofthecorrelatesofhisexperience,andtheconditionswhichcomprehend his existence is not in the mode of a meditation whichmaycometoanend,asbyuncoveringtheulteriorrealitywhichunderlies these. It seems ordered to go on interminably, as it has noprospect of uncovering such a principle. Onuma and the conditions ofhis experience do not appear to be something which thought may hopeto encompass finally. The narrator is able to relate Onuma and hisfather and their people in a network of resemblance, based on anidentical set of formative principles. Thus to know this principle is tounderstand Onuma and his people perfectly, and why they behave theway they do. Thought can achieve finitude in this format because it isunidirectional: nothing can escape it along the line. Onuma, his fatherUdemezue,andthevillagecommunityarelinkedtogetherinachain,
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thelineofdescent.Thecommunitydoesnotloseitselfintheindividual: heisineverysenseof thewordafigureofthecollective.
This pattern is equally well established in Ifeoma Okoye's MenWithout Ears. For example, the narrator, Chigo, denounces the so-called 'decent burial' his older brother Uloko is demanding for theirfatherasanoveltyinthecountry,'somethingantitheticaltoourtraditionsandcustoms;an offshootof the materialism,ostentation,andconformi[sm]'whichhad 'cometopermeateourlives'(140).
Perhaps this is merely the impression of an outsider, who canknow nothing of the traditions and customs in regard to which heattempts to lay down the law. For Chigo is an outsider. He has spenthis entire life in other African countries and Europe. As to his realexperience of his people, we are certain of his having been with themfortwo weeks atonetime (14).
The real lives of the people of the narrative seem quite different,and in fact to have a great deal in common with the attitudes whichpertain to Onuma's people in My Mercedes is Bigger than Yours. Notonly does the entire kindred, except for Chigo and one lone supporter,conspire to set aside the old man's dying wish, to be buried soon afterdeath,andundernocircumstanceshavehisremainssenttothemortuary for preservation, but we also see that the exaggerated andhypocritical grief of the old man's second wife at his funeral severalweeks after his death is not something she could have learned fromUlokoand his friends.Weread:
InonecorneroftheroomsatAdaego,surroundedbyherrelations. Shewascrying inconsolablyand beating herchest.Just before I left the room, she burst into a dirge, telling theworld how she had loved Father dearly and had done everythingin her power to make him happy; and how she was going to belost in the world without him. She sang about the beautiful hoursshe and Father had spent together and ended by saying that Fatewas wicked to take him away from her; he who was her onlyfriendand companion (145).
The old man has married Adaego very many years after the death ofhisfirstwife.Andheknowsfromexperience,afteryearsofmarriage
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to Adaego, and several children, that he had been right to have tried toresist the pressure of kith and kin to remarry, because as he tells Chigonot longbeforebis death,'Nowomancanreplaceyourmother'(52).
We equally know, as do many who witness Adaego's expressionofgrief,thatshehashardlyeversparedanythoughtforherhusband,or for anyone else, for that matter. Despite that she is given sufficientmoneyonaregularbasisfortheupkeepofthefamily,shenevertheless spends her whole day every day in the market, and herSundays at numberless meetings, so that she rarely comes home anyday before nightfall. Both her husband and her children have to gowithout foodallday, unlessakindneighbouroffersthem something.
In Men Without Ears, the characters who behave differently arepeople who have spent large portions of their lives in other Africancountries, and find these places and cultures germane, only that theyhave been forced by various kinds of pressures to come back home.These are Chigo and his father. They are not at all menaced by theabyss. All the other characters do not know the extent to which theyaremenacedbythisvitalanddemonicemptiness,systematicallysuckingtheminfordestruction.Thereisnoevidencethattheycometoanysortofdiscovery(Aristotle),evenwhenthemovementofdestruction sets in. Uloko, for example, will go on giving whateverseems to be demanded in order to reassure himself that where he is, isnot the place of destruction, but of great wealth, power, recognition,influence, and limitless enjoyment. He is prepared even to kidnap andmurderin order toobtainthis assurance.
One of the ways in which the abyss gives rise to thought is whatwe see in Men Without Ears; that is, as a vital and demonic entity.Whatevergivesriseto thoughtin thiswayissymbolic:thisisamovement of thought without finitude, without hope of resolution orillumination. This is what Omovo is faced with in Ben Okri's TheLandscapes Within. Omovo sees himself in confrontation with a voidwithin, but also with a precipice in the outer world. Initially, it is incertainstatesofconsciousnessthathebecomessoaware.Progressively,thiswillbecomeforhimtheordinarystateofconsciousness.
The inner void is first named after he has taken in a strange storyfrom hisfriend Keme,whohas paidhim a flyingvisit:
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Omovo saw Keme to the gate and came back inside. He sat onhis bed and pondered on what Keme had told him. After a longmomentOmovocametohimselfandrealizedthathehadbeenin some kind of void, thinking and not thinking. His mind wentround and round on some vague axis and he felt far and far awayfrom himself. He was trying to contain many things in his mindandthethoughtsclashed;andhegrewmoreandmoreuncomfortablewithinhimself.Hethought:Lifeisadream;things are there and then they are not there; things are what theyare and then they are not what they were. You ask the universequestionsandyou getnoanswers(154).
He has just received a shock as Keme who has been with the police toinquire about what they had thought to be a ritual murder comes backtosaythatthepolicehadfoundnothing.Ithadbeenthebodyofavery young girl, with certain organs missing. The police say they hadgone to the scene in answer to their anonymous call, without findinganything. As a result, the two are almostdriven to doubt themselves.In utter amazement, Omovo is asking the question of meaning andseeking reassurance from the universe at large. Such is the questionand demand for assurance which Higler places before the Christianmissionary'sGod. Neitherreceivesan answer.
Both these questioners are honest men who are able to stare theenigmas of their existence squarely in the face. Higler will be held upin confrontation with his own enigmas because he presupposes thatthere is no explanation, that instead of an explanation, he must positfaith.ButOmovocangofurther.Everypointofdifficultyheencounters is a challenge to ponder and to understand. He must go tothebottomofthings,undeterredby thefearthatthissearchmayunfoldacatastrophe.Thereisatragicnecessityinallthis—thetragedy of the knowledge seeker, whose prototype in the tradition isEzeulu of Achebe's Arrow of God. This aspect of Ezeulu's charactermay be glimpsed in the apparently trivial incident of his unlocking ofhis son Oduche's box to find out why it moves. But the trivial incidentgains from beingnarrated in detail, fromthe consequences itgivesriseto,andtheendlessinterpretationswherebyitisagainandagain
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recalledtoconsciousness,andmaintainedinthisfieldasakeyelementfortheinterpretationofnewexperiences.Theincidentconnects to the symbolic, insofar as it gives rise to thought endlessly(Ricoeur, 1974). What it brings into the open for thought to deal within everyday language (Heidegger, 1949) is precisely the symbolism oftheknowledge seeker.
At the moment Ezeulu is confronted by the box, what appearslike wise counsel suggests that nothing be done until the owner of thebox returns. He is able to silence this internal voice by remindinghimself that he is the priest of Ulu, and that it must not be said that heis driven by fear to follow a given line of action. But this is only areinforcement to a decision already made by the knowledge seeker toopen the box and see whatever is inside,'Whether it is bad medicineor goodone' (43).
The figure of the knowledge seeker is ancient in literature and,moreover, universal. We see him in Adam in the biblical tradition, inPrometheusin theGreek tradition, and inOjadiliofancientIgbopoetry.ThemythofPandora'sBoxisoftenseeninassociationwiththe sequences of the knowledge seeker, particularly in the Adamicform. That is equally the case in Arrow of God. Ezeulu's opening ofOduche'sboxissymbolicusheringofevilintotheworld.Forinstance, no sooner is this done than Ezeulu's neighbour Anosi, whohaswitnessedtheincident,beginstospreadthestorythroughoutUmuaro, so that before 'midday the story had reached the ears ofEzidemili whose deity, Idemili, owned the royal python' (45). Fromnowon,therelationshipbetweenthegodsandhumanbeingsiscomplicating. More and more, the gods are confronted with humanassertiveness.Theirprimacyisnolongertakenforgranted.EvenEzeulu himself has to be pulled up short by his deity, when he findsthat the man is preparing to do a kind of single combat with Umuarobecause he believes they had let him down in his struggle with thewhite man. But the god's sharp rebuke (191), does not prevent Ezeulufrom revealing, after 'a long period of silent preparation … that heintended to hit Umuaro at its most vulnerable point—the Feast of theNewYam'(201).
Ezidemili, of course, holds Ezeulu responsible for the evil thatOduchehascommittedinimprisoningthepythoninhisbox.Butin
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spreading the story, Anosi connects it to the religion of the white manrecentlyintroducedinUmuaro.Thelinkageseemstohavetheapprovalofthecommunity,andEzeulu'sfriendAkuebuewhoobviously accepts the logic of this linkage, has to put it to Ezeulu intheir conversation together in the way it would give the least offence.This charitable view is that by allowing Oduche to participate in thereligious practices of the white man and his converts, Ezeulu hadtherefore given him the freedom to 'join strangers in desecrating theland'(134).
In strict historical sequence, impiety and blasphemy are thingswhich Ezeulu's great enemy Ogbuefi Nwaka is beforehand with, sothat, for Ezeulu, as Paul Ricoeur would say, 'to begin is to continue.'But the two are not the same scale of cultural figures. In the case ofEzeulu, impiety is 'like the lizard in the fable who ruined his mother'sfuneralby his own hand'(230).
In the tragic sequence of the knowledge seeker, the abyss isalways to be found. It may occur as a resultant of the knowledgeattained,asinOedipusoftheGreektraditioncomingtotheknowledge of himself. This would seem to give an edge to the bitterwisdomoftheaphorisminMachiavelli'sTheMandrake,that'ignoranceisbliss.'The abyss mayequallybeunveiledwhen,incoming to this knowing, one has overturned the world's order, as insequencesofPandora'sBox.Thequestmay,ontheotherhand,leadto the uncovering of absence or an unplumbable depth in the thingwhich had offered itself as supremely knowable, and the attaining ofknowledgeofitassupremefulfilment―thecaseintheAdamicquest forthe knowledge of goodand evil.
Asimilarknowable,whichwehaveencounteredinthelastchapter, is what it means to be. This is what Karl Jaspers calls thesupreme question of existence. For Ezeulu, the question takes form aswhatitmeanstobeUlu'spriest.Ishemerelyaministertoperformthe rituals of his deity and divine his will, or could he force his will onthe deity (Arrow of God 3). The relationship between the human willand the divine is rendered unproblematic in Aluko's His WorshipfulMajesty, where the Alaiye habitually makes up his mind what to do,and leaves it to the Ifa priests to foresee. All the same, the questionwhatitmeanstobedoescropupforhim:whatdoesitmeantobea
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king if his wishes may be set aside? The same question of what itmeans to be, Omovo formulates in these terms, 'Life is adream:things are there and then they are not there; things are what they areand then they are not what they were.' But there are characters likeOnuma of My Mercedes is Bigger than Yours, who stumble upon thisknowledgewithouthaving soughtforit.They experiencereversalsandcatastropheslikethetrueknowledgeseekers,onlythattheirsequencesrarelyattainthestatusofsublimetragedy,sincethecharacters lack the quality of soul whereby they are 'better' (Aristotle)thantheeverydayindividual.
In Men Without Ears, Uloko's ruling passion is to get on like allthe people he knows and thinks highly of. These are contractors andbusinessmen, professionals and senior civil servants who are not justcommitted to well-living and pleasure, but aim to dazzle other peoplebythekindofluxuriestheycanbuyandsurroundthemselveswith.His great enemies are his father and his only brother Chigo, newlyreturned from abroad where he has spent almost his entire life. Thereason for this enmity is because they disagree with his conformistmentality and try to push him to think for himself. These two enemiesagree between them that Uloko is at the edge of the abyss, and willsurely tumble in unless he is able to get a grip of himself. In thefollowing speech to Chigo by the father, premature death is the all-signifyingtermforthe abyss:
'Chigo, my son, there is another reason why I want you to comehome. Perhaps you may be able to talk your brother out of thetype of life he is bent on living now. This type of life will bringhimaprematuredeath,andthenyou'llbealone.Ulokohascometothelandofpeoplewithoutearsandisbentoncuttingoffhisowntoo' (48-49).
The kind of salvation Uloko is in need of is salvation from prematuredeath, which may only be attained by breaking away from the 'peoplewithout ears' he associates with. What he needs is, in short, to hold onto his ears in order to hear nothing, except the discourse of the innerself. The role assigned Chigo in all this by the father is not directly tosave,buttoarticulatethediscoursewhichUlokowastohaveheardin
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the inward plane, if only he had his ears still. That is to say, he ischarged to be Uloko's conscience. He is to try and talk him out of thelifeheisbentonliving now.
The necessity of this outward articulation of conscience seems tobe because the developmental process of the inward man had beenarrested and derailed early. The significant reference is in the instanceof narration, on page 15, where we learn of Uloko dropping out ofschool:
WhenIvisitedhomeaboutfiveyearsbefore,Ulokowaslivingin a two-bedroom flat in a high density area of Enugu. At thattime he was an executive officer in the Ministry of Health. Hehadrisentothispostfromtheranks,becausehehadleftgrammar school in Ghana a year before he was due to finish hiscourse, and no amount of preaching and threats from Father, norcajoling and hysterics from Mother at that time would make himgo backtoschool.
Ulokoseemstograsp attheleveloftotalsignificancethatheisintellectuallyandmorallymaimedinfailingtocompletehiseducation,but as he lacksthe capacity for abstract thought, he isunable to call the matter to the theatre of consciousness for analysis.Heisnotevenabletorepresentittohimselfbymeansoflanguage.For him, representation can only be by means of physical objects.Upon his return to visit home again after five years, Chigo sees thatUloko now lives in the upper-class area of the city. But he finds thefollowingparticularly noteworthy:
Iwassurprisedtoseethatmybrotherhadtwosetsofencyclopedias—Britannica and Americana. The volumes weredisplayed in two beautiful glass-panelled bookshelves. He hadnever liked reading, and that was one of the reasons why he leftgrammarschoolwithout completing hiscourse(19).
It is as if to keep the repository of knowledge handy for the purpose ofmaking up in adult life what he had foolishly denied himself as anadolescent,asifbydisplayingthesebooksinaplacewheretheir
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presence would quickly strike the eye, to ensure that this unfinishedtaskmay neverbe allowedto drop out ofmind.
Adifferentreadingmaybethatweareseeingreflectedinthatpassage,aninstanceofpuredisplay.Thiswouldbesupportedbythegeneralorientationofthenarrative.Inthiscase,theplacingofthebookswouldbe'communicativeaction';andgivingtheimpressionofintellectualsophisticationwouldbetheintentionalact.Theaspectoftheintentionalactmayonlybegraspedbypeoplewiththesamesharedassumptions.Notbeingpartofthiscommunity,Chigomaypickupeithertheprojecttoinformoneselforthedisplay.Ifheevergets to the real intentional act, it will probably be with help from thosewhoknow,orbywhatFowlercalls'acomplexactofdecoding',undertakenafterfurtherrelevantexperiencehasbeenadded.Inourcriticalreading,however,noneofthedimensionsofmeaningmaybeexcludedordisplaced.Thebooksremainarepositoryofknowledge,aswellaswhateverelseUlokointendsthemas.Aliteraryworkhasthequalityofsemanticdensitypreciselybecauseallaspectsofmeaning, even contradictory ones, are fully preserved in its processes.Certainly,thedisplayofpossessions,richclothesandtrinkets,
cars, houses, titles and self-assigned praise-names, is something whichOkoye's 'people without ears' do compulsively as a distinctive traitand token. Its functional role in their everyday lives seems to be thenoise factor to distract oneself from the constitutive absence whichexercises its pressure with all force, until the noise can no longer holdout against it. We see Uloko at the end overtaken by the resultantdespair, and then nothing can hold back premature death. That noise isloudest when the 'people without ears' hold their parties and funerals,for the purposeof which theyhave setup numbers ofsocial clubs,withnodistinguishing characteristics,excepttheirnames.
Forexample,ataninduction ceremony intotheOliliSocialClub, of which Uloko is a member, we read of the hundreds of bottlesof whiskey, gin, wine, and so on, andthe chicken served whole toeach of the five hundred or so guests present. We have the report fromChigo'snarration:
I looked around me and saw women, lipstick and all, devouringtheirchickenslikelions.Theclamourofconversationhadabatedaseverybodywasbusywithhisorherteeth.Asifthe
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chickenswerenotenough,hundredsofsticksofsuyawereserved. Later came pieces of fried meat, mounds of moi-moi,platesofjollofrice,andtoroundit[off],yamfoo-fooanddifferenttypes of soup tochoosefrom(87).
Whatthisvoraciousconsumptionandcompulsivedisplaypreventfrombecomingmanifestistheneedforcarefulmanagementandeconomy or even the reality of hardship in the lives of the 'peoplewithout ears.'
To maintain the illusion of well-living and limitless abundance,they borrow frombanks sums of moneythey haveno means or hopeofpayingback,andcircumventtherulesbybribingtheseniorofficialsofthebankswhofacilitatethefraud.Theydivertfundsadvanced for the execution of contracts and official projects, and thesupply of other goods and services to their own private use, especiallythe funding of lavish parties and the acquisition of luxury goods. Theyexploittheirpositionsoftrustineveryconceivableway.Theywheedle one another out of large sums of money, and take delivery oflarge consignments of goods, such as building materials, and try andavoid paying up. For their own part, the professionals among them,like medical doctors and accountants in government service, engage inprivate practice against the rules, run down the government hospitalswhere they are employed, in the case of the former, and divert thewell-to-do patients to their own private clinics, where they chargeextortionary fees. The accountants help falsify corporate accounts tocheat the national treasury of its tax entitlements, and receive hugesums of money for these services. Other criminal activities includesmuggling and ritual murder for money-spinning jujus. Uloko and hisfriends,therefore,consciouslylivetheillusion,andthereadyjustificationbothforthe modeofbehaviourandthecheatingandfraud by which it is maintained is that everybody else does the same(67). Everybody of course means, people of the kind who count withUloko,thosewhodonotmerelyobjecttothedrabnessandordinariness of everyday reality, but try to cause it to be forgotten bythenoisydisplayoffancydressesandnoisycelebrations,ortrytoputa glamorous veneer on it, using for the most part money they have noright to.
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By contrast, there is a certain starkness about the world of Okri'sThe Landscapes Within. Here we do find characters who attempt todissimulate reality, but the effort is entirely ineffectual, cancelled outwholly by the force itself, Reality, which gains in significance byrepresentationbythe'piouscapitalletter'(Baudelaire).Whataccounts especially forthe surplus value of Reality inthis work iswhat we have called the symbolism of the abyss. The sense of thisbottomless void is what confronts the characters in their squalid multi-tenant habitations, the broken-up, potholed, and refuse-ridden streets,and the unmaintained, slime-covered, stinking, and rancid communalbathrooms and kitchens. There are also artistic images of it, as inOmovo's painting of a Lagos traffic jam, which he leaves without atitle (155). But the central image is an earlier painting entitled 'Drift,'ofwhichtheinspirationisthescum alongthestreet near hishouse.
But 'Drift' is the official name. The artist's private name for it isthe 'vanishing scumscape.' This painting is confiscated by the militaryat anexhibition, as they object:
'This is a dynamic country. We are not on some stupid scum-likedrift in somebadartist's imagination'(50).
Omovo, of course, denies thatthepainting is social commentaryorhastheintentiontobeapoliticalsatire.Heaccusestheofficerquestioning him: 'It is you people who are reading hidden meaningsinto it. I just did it' (50). Nevertheless, what the characters of thesequence experience is that to be is to be in a state of drift. The onlyoneswhodonothavetheexperiencearethecharacterswhoarewhollycoarseandbrutish.OnesuchcharacterisTakpo,thehusbandoftheunwillingIfeyinwa,whohasatasteforcultureandisinstinctively noble-hearted. On the other hand, the man's markingsinclude'Brownedkola-stainedteeth.Largeelasticmouth.Indiscriminatefarts,'andmoreover,'woreold-fashionedkhakiunderpants and was incredibly hairy'(100).Takpo is equally brutishatthemorallevel.Weread:
Hishabitsappalledher.Allmorninghechewedthechewingstickandspatthemangledfibrealloverthehouse.Hetreated
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herlikea slave, and that wasthehardestpartto adjustto. Heseemedto have nostyle.He was plainlycoarse(100).
For all his moral and physical brutishness, however, Takpo has needsof which the fulfilment is essential for his self-respect and recognitioninhissmallsocialworld.Forinstance,hegivesoutthathehasahappy family life and is loved and respected by his charming andtender wife. The make-believe keeps unravelling, while he tries tobuttress it with more fictions. He finds he cannot face his peers in thisrestricted social world when Ifeyinwa finally runs away. He too has tomove out elsewhere, presumably to a place where he can safely buildanother make-believe world to suit his needs of self-regard, the firstmake-believeworldhavingcollapsed.
Itispossible,however,to seeTakpoas someone likeUloko,who has registered at the back of his mind that there is a certainemptinessinside,whichhedarenotlookat,ormakeanyacknowledgement of. In this case, to be is, for him, as for everyoneelse in the sequence, to be in a state of drift; only that he commitshimselfwhollyto disguising thisfact.
Ifeyinwa is, of course, a victim of the movement of drift. Shewants to fight it, has always wanted to do so; but she needs a solidground to stand on to fight. This she can't attain. This means that forher always, the fight is already lost, even before she comes to grips—theothertobeengagedseemssounattainable.Hersupremesatisfaction is that she does finally come to grips—without a surefooting, without any human support: just her and her fate. She loses.But in coming to grips under those conditions, is it not because theoutcome,whatever thatmay be, hasceasedtobeimportant?
Ifeyinwa has been betrayed quite early by a cruel and arbitraryfate.Shehashadtoleaveschoolearlybecauseofherfather'saccidental shooting dead of a little girl, which ultimately drives him tocommit suicide. Then her older brother had followed with his ownsuicide. She had let her mother persuade her to accept the arrangedmarriage with Takpo in the manner of taking a chance with life: therewasnoknowingwhatmaychance,butitmightchangetobeingkindto her.
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Thechanceshehastakenbringsnorelief,noranypositivechange whatever. As she tells Omovo, 'Something … has been stolenfrom all of us' (38). Because of her high sensitiveness, she is sharplyaware of the oppositeness of Takpo, whom she finds utterly revolting.The physical context of her everyday existence is no less opposite andrevolting; for example, the vermin-infested bathroom, which had lostits original concrete floor, and reeked with an accumulated pool ofsoapy,slimy bathwater.Butthat was farfromall:
She was revolted also by the gradual decay of life about her. Thelocal women aged so quickly. She did not want to become likethem—old-looking,flabby-breasted,weary,prematurelywrinkled,absent-minded, grossandservile (104).
What we see here is a vision of the abyss in the outer world. ForIfeyinwa,remainingwithTakpowouldleadinevitablytoherbecoming drawn into this movement of destruction to which so manyshe cansee around herarealreadydoomed.
InTheLandscapesWithin,boththeyoungandtheoldareequally invested by the abyss and guttered inwardly by the void. Oneof the psychologically defining moments for Omovo is the quarrelbetween his father and his two older brothers, which ends in the latterbeingthrownoutofthehouse.Boththefatherandtheyoungmenhave known for some time of their own failures. What the quarrelunveilsisthefatherknowingthatthesonsknowofhissecretawareness of his own futility. He for his part blames them for theirfailuretomakesomethingoftheirlives,buttheylaytheblameforthat failuresquarely onhisshoulders.
Thequestionisnotwherelaythetruth,buttheterribleconsequences of knowing the truth and confronting it in the open. Thefiction of afiliative network based on fixedroles, with culturallysanctioned obligations and entitlements could not apparently survive aclose and critical scrutiny, if one is prepared to make an honest andpublic acknowledgement of the result. Now that this taboo on whichthe oedipal family depends to hold together has been violated by thesons,thefatherundertakestocrythescandalforthewholeneighbourhoodto hear:
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'Icannottolerateyouinthishouseanymore,youhear?Thetime has come when you go your way and I go mine. Abi, I havebeen a bad father, I did not do anything for you, I did not helpyou get into a school, I have failed you, I have failed you as afather… and you have the mouth to wake me up and tell me that.You are not ashamed, you are not afraid, you do not respect me,your father, you do not fight my battles with me. If I died todayyou would not care. All the hardship I am undergoing in theofficeyouknownothingof,mydebts,myfailures,myproblems, my enemies. All the money I spent educating you, allthe suffering I have gone through to provide for you when youwere small.Allyouthankme withisbyaccusingme'(82).
Up until now, the man has sought to avoid confronting the failure ofhis older sons to make good, though the fact is well known to all theneighbours. The belated acknowledgement becomes cathartic but onlythe sons are purged out of the scene, and out of the life of the father.The last they are heard from, they are trying to work their 'way on aship,' and not making any headway. They seem broken in body andspirit,andtheyare without'a homeand nodestination'(68).
Two characters who attempt to bluff their way out of 'Reality'(164), are both friends of the protagonist. Dele, the son of a wealthy,illiterate, and doting father, will leave his God-forsaken country inexchangefor'God'sowncountryAmerica.'Butdespitehavingeverythingreadyandistoleaveinafewdays,heis'afraid',unaccountably. The other is Okoro, who may have assumed an off-hand manner and an attitude of noisy exuberance and the unthinkingpursuit of pleasure and amusement as a way to keep at bay the horrorshehadexperienced asachild-soldierduring thecivilwar, whichwould otherwise press themselves upon his consciousness, demandingtobeaddressed, and if possible laidto rest.
WhatDelethinksheisescapingfromisa'God-forsakencountry.' But the problem is deep within. In the case of Okoro, heknows where the problem is. But he is to learn that it can no more becovered over or shut out by noise, than Dele get rid of his by flight.Therefore,heisbroughtupshorteverysooften,whenhisfalse
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laughter turns out for him to be something like self-mockery. We seesuch an occasion in the incident of the sad old man bumping into himona crowdedstreet. Heroundlyabuses theman. But:
The old man who was being abused continued with the exodus.He stopped for a moment, turned and made a most ridiculousfaceatOkorowhoburstoutlaughing.Theman'sfeaturescrumpled and shrivelled and became very sad. The wrinkles andgrooves on his face formed very deep and sharp etchings of age.He dragged up his voluminous trousers and went trudging on.Okoro stared at the old man and never took his eyes off him tillthecrowd completelyblocked off hisvision (181).
Clearly, neither of the two strategies of evasion, Dele's and Okoro's,works; for the two are constantly brought up shortby a sense ofsomethingmissing,somethingtheydonotcomprehend,thoughitseems to hold the key to the essential in life: its absence is felt, itsidentity indeterminable. We do not see them confront this enigma,either in search of understanding, or to try and dissolve and reduce it.They do not attempt even the first move entailed in a reduction, theassigning of a name. The narrator himself follows the characters in theexerciseoftheawe,whichlooksaway,liketheeldersofTheConcubine, at the site of a ritual event. For these, wisdom consists ofavoidingwhatevermighttemptwithforbiddenknowledge,andforestallingitbylooking away.
In The Landscapes Within, the characters are faced, not with anobjectified divine form as in The Concubine, but the enigma of aninner void, that is, the enigma of that which does not let itself be seen,which does not appear. It is a radical absence. For this reason, theoccasional stirrings of hope for the overcoming of chaos, or of thepossibility of life beyond the abyss never really converts to a hard andsolid ground to attempt to build on. The stirrings of hope never gobeyondthemoment,norgeneratetheirkind,soastoelongateeventuallyintoanoptimistictrend.Inevitably,hopegutters,anddissolvesto nothingness. Hereis an instance:
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Omovo smiled to himself and he thought of Okur's poem andthen a silent, dynamic determination rose within him. He walkedwith alilt, in thatcrack ofa momentwhenhis soultrembledwithaloveoflife,itwasasthoughalltheanswerswerecontained within him. Then the moment folded away and thepeace,theinnertremble,thecontainedanswers,allslunksomewhere inside him and a quiet, vibrant emptiness was all thatwasleft(161).
Similarly,theannouncingoftheneedfor'courageandtalentand
somethingelse'(180),tomakeanewstart withseemsplatitudinous.
For Miki and Jordana in Dibia Humphrey'sA Drop of Mercy,the abyss is first of all a physical place, namely the urban slum. Mikihad been born and raised in such a slum. Home for him had been the'overcrowded stuffy room in the rotting old home at Malu Road. Thefoul breeze. The space in front of the house where household refuse,human and animal excreta, as well as other gutter dwellers, competedfor the right of occupancy' (41). 'Malu Road' is to bear the accent ofthis aspect of the abyss throughout the narrative. For Jordana, Miki'sgirlfriend,whomovesintoMaluRoadtolivewithhim,itisaparticularly downward slide to do so, as she has had to give up acomfortableand well-appointed home tocometo him.
But if Malu Road is home to the protagonist, it is a place whereone is fundamentally a stranger. One is here by constraint, and onecannot be one's proper and free self, until one breaks out. Here is Mikiasa universityundergraduatestudentthinking ofsuchan escape:
Once he was through with his studies, his first assignment wouldbetotake[hissixsiblings]andhismotherawayfromthecrumbling old house in which they all lived at Malu Road inAjegunle(11).
For Miki, however, escape is by gaining access into another kind ofabyss;thisisnotapprehendedbyhimunderthataspect,butasparadiseitself.The wayforhim, fromoneabyssintoanother, islong.
Miki has known some comfort in the university, as he had drawnsimultaneouslyfromabursaryawardandastudentloanscheme,
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contrarytotheregulations.Theyouthservicehadfollowedaftergraduation, andhis responsibilities had been few.Buttheconditionshe has to cope with as a civil servant are radically different. Not onlydo his dreams about self-improvement seem utterly meaningless, hecannot even afford the rent for a small apartment. In the very low-incomeareashehadnotthoughttoassociatehimselfwith,hefindsthatrent alonewould take upthegreaterpart of his monthly salary.Hewouldhavehadtopayforthefirsttwoyearsasalumpsum,before he would be allowed to move in. So he drifts back to MaluRoad, to be joined there by Jordana, after she had been thrown out byher father for refusing to marry the man of his choice. They touch thebottom of the physical abyss, when the place is flooded, soaking thebedrightunderthem.
The man's humiliation is capped by Jordana walking out on himfor the bright lights. When they meet again in this environment whereJordana is trying to settle her existence more or less as a kept woman,their lives take a new turn. Henceforth the abyss is a moral conditionwhere they wallow, followingits rituals of power andpomp, andsubmitting wholly to its corrupting influence. This is how Miki andJordana get rid of a born-again Christian, who considers it his moralduty to denounce them to the police as dealers in hard drugs andnarcotics:
Mikihad...donewhatwasnecessarytostoptheChristianzealot. There was no other choice left to him. He left a generouswrapof Indianhemp in theyoung man'spocket asJordanapretendedtocaresshimoutofhismadenterprise.Hethenplacedacallto the police.
The police arrested the Born-Again Christian with marijuanainhispossession.Theywentontosearchhisone-roomshackand discovered more, to the victim's consternation (A Drop ofMercy 117).
This young man's one-room shack recalls Miki's background at MaluRoad. It is Malu Road by similitude to Miki's old habitat which bearstheaccentofthesymbolismoftheabyss.Itisbothatrapandaplacetotry and escapefrom.
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In Dibia Humphrey's The End of Dark Street, Alhaji Salami'scareer is also like that of Miki of A Drop of Mercy. Both have movedfrom a situation of poverty and degradation to one of great wealth. Asthe chairman of the Board of International Trade in Begania, AlhajiSalami's change of status also involves access to great power. In theend, he finds that he has never left his station at the abyss. Only themode of investment of the abyss changes. But his young executiveofficer,Bello,isstillmorelikeMiki,inthatheisrecruitedandcorruptedbypersonswhomakeupanunderworldheprobablywouldn'thaveknowntoexist,onlythatthecircumstancesofhispoverty, in spite of being educated and talented, have exposed him toit.
Bello, the highly principled and efficient executive officer of theBoard of International Trade, has a taste of the abyss of poverty, andthe humiliation of want when Salami gets him dismissed from office.That this is equally for him entry into a moral abyss is signalled by hissuddenlybecominglustfulinthepresenceofabeautifulwoman(57).
His ideas also change. Money is no longer a useful thing, forexample, to help keep his children in school (54). No sooner does hebegin to entertain lustfulness than money becomes for him a means ofpurchasing pleasure, and moreover, something of which the prodigalexpenditureisa pleasureinitself. We read:
Yet resigned as he was to her unattainability, he couldn't helpdaydreaming of Czarina like an adolescent schoolboy. 'Oceancruises for two in a love boat, secluded holidays in a retirementmecca for the very rich, climaxing in a befitting, wave-makingmarriageceremony'(64).
Astheladyofthisfantasycallsit,theconditionofbeinginthisworld
of'theveryrich'is'lifewithoutrestraint'(65).
Thoughtheyoungborn-againChristianofADrop ofMercydoes not aspire to the world of the very rich, nevertheless, he bearssurprising resemblances to Miki and Bello. Not only is the point oforigin the same in all the cases, but also the desire for escape, exceptthat whereas this is something known and consciously intended byMikiandBello,itisoccultedintheyoungman'sborn-again
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Christianity, as he becomes a crusader for repentance and salvation, areligious lunatic 'who spoil[s] the daily bus rides of honest citizenswith [his] gospel of armageddon' (17). Miki and his agent, WalkingDead, will catch so many others striving to escape from the abyssbefore their desire is sublimated into religious evangelism, and sendthemasinnocent carriers of marijuana into Spain. All they get inreturn is a free ticket into Europe. Once there, they are to make theirway as best they can. Over one hundred innocent carriers on behalf ofMiki never make it past the airport customs counters, before captureandimprisonmentfor drugtrafficking.
Whereas the born-again Christian looks to heaven for his 'lifewithout restraint,' Miki and others follow a worldly career, seekingtheir kingdom in riches. Within a few months, Miki and Jordana havemore money than they could ever use up. They announce their arrivalin the world of 'the very rich' by holding 'an orgasmic jolt in the formof a party' (144). This party is a ritual event: in itself, it is meaningful.Itisthecelebrationoflifefortherich(193),asJordanaobservesofher anticipated marriage party. Besides that one announces by thismeanswhatonehasachieved,the'orgasmicjolt'isagatheringtogetherofallthemoneyedmenandwomenofthecity,allthemagnates and tycoons. These are people who regard themselves as thelords of the land. In honour of this gathering, all the adjoining streetsare closed off to vehicular traffic. At all key road intersections, trafficpolice officers are on duty, routing traffic away from the gatheringplace. It is in the context of another gathering of these great ones notmany months before— indoors in Bimpe's boudoir—that the unhappyand timid Miki is first introduced to the world of the rich, whichhehad sensed to exist, without knowing that its pleasures far exceed hiswildestimaginings.
Miki's party, however, is the occasion of the unveiling of theterrors of the deep. Miki's agent, Walking Dead; is sighted at the partyby an alhaja he has married for one week, then robbed of all hermoney and jewellery, and having made her daughter pregnant, hadwalked out on her. She sends a team of ruffians after him for thesettling of scores. They batter him to their hearts' content in his flat,rape, and then kill him, locking the door behind them. It is as thoughnothingwhateverisamissthere,untildayslatertheneighboursare
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alertedbythestenchissuingfromtheflat.BimpetakesSenatorZamanhometoblackmailhimintoshippingmarijuanaintoSpainunderdiplomaticprotection.Frightenedbythequantityofdamagingmaterialshehasonhim,heagreestoherproposal,onlytosendagainst her the same murder squad that had dispatched Walking Dead.Jordanaarrangesameetingwithherformerlover,SenatorDarlingtonBristol,forasimilarpurposeasBimpehaddonewithZaman.Bristolfindsheiscaught,andsuccumbs,threateningthatthenextlaughwillbehis.Wedonotseehimdirectlytakehisrevenge.ButMikiandJordanaarereceivingthreateninglettersfromsomeyoungmentheyhaveusedandabandonedtobejailedinSpain.Theseyoungmentaketheirtime.Buttheyhavetheirrevengeinfullmeasure,onlymomentsbeforeMikiandJordanacatchtheplanethatwastotakethemoutofthecountry,wheretheywouldbeimmunefromharassmentandrevenge,andinsecurepossessionoftheirdrug,
and even blood,money.
Other outrages involve close relatives, friends, lovers robbingone another and clearing them out; there are betrayals and revenge,punishment rape, bodily mutilation, and murder. The rule, as the chiefexecutive of the Club Bourgeois Organization he is shortly to succeedenunciates it to Bello, is that it is foolish to think 'that you could justexist unarmed and hope to survive in this world [.] To survive Bello,you must literally learn to kick groins, gouge eyes and crack ribs'(TheEndof Dark Street61).
It is not a simple matter to have surrendered oneself to the abyss.Onehastocontendwithitsshiftinggrounds.Therefore,themaintainingofone'sfootingandsecuringoneselfbecometheoverridingneed.Thecharactersfindthattheyarecollidingfatallywith one another: in the upshot, one has to do away with the otherperceived as a potential threat, or in the alternative let oneself bedestroyed.
This pattern we see in high relief in A Drop of Mercy equallygoverns the discursive practice of The End of Dark Street, down to theparty event as the announcing of arrival in the world of the very rich,which simultaneously opens the underworld, letting out its terrors. Inthis case of The End of Dark Street, the party is a 'wave-makingmarriageceremony.'Themainfactorofcomplicationwherebythis
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sequence differs from A Drop of Mercy is that the principal characters,especially Bello and Rocky, have antagonized the state by supportingand providing arms for a group of insurgents. They are proclaimedenemies of the state and put on the most wanted list. This is all themorereasonwhytheireliminationbytheirrivalsinthebusinessunderworld passes as a non-event. In both Humphrey's works, themovement is from the precarious existence of the notoriously deprivedand victimized to the even more precarious existence of the followersand devotees of riches, who exploit, victimize, and sacrifice otherpeoplefor their ownends.
There is no middle ground, especially in The End of Dark Street,where one is either not victimized or the victimizer of others. For themain characters, the choice is in terms of one or the other, which is nochoice at all. For, given a taste ofpoverty in the urban slum inTheEnd of Dark Street, Bello contemplates and mentally accepts suicide.On the other hand, entry into the other abyss is frequently by reason ofexcessivelyheavyinducementsand pressure.
For these characters, therefore, to choose and to act is to do soundercompulsion.ThisishowBello,whoismaliciouslythrownoutof the secure employment of an honest and incorruptible senior civilservant into the misery and humiliation of the slum, is recruited andinductedasaseniorexecutiveoftheClubBourgeoisieOrganization:
'Once you are in, there is ... no going back. I have known somepeople who came into this organization and became victims ofconscience at one point or the other. Some developed cold feetandwantedoutaftertheyhadavailedthemselvesofinsideknowledgeofthewayweoperate.Suchpeopleendupusuallyas snacks for various forms of marine life. Do I make myselfclearMrBello?'(66).
Mr Bello's options are either to remain where he is, and proceed withthe suicide he has mentally accepted because there is no money for hisfamily to live on—it is no longer a question of maintaining their livingstandard; or to take his chance with an organization that says it needshis considerable talents, and is prepared to pay him very well. It is achoicebetweenonekindofabyssandanother.Hecanseenospace
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between to try and settle his existence to enable him stand free of theabyss. The Hunter in Tutuola's The Witch Herbalist of the RemoteTown is the only character we have seen, who accepts to settle in thebetween. He takes this course because it has been shown him that thealternativeoneitherhandistheabyss,theplaceofdeathanddisintegration. Even then, he accepts the between provisionally, untilpublicopinion is ascertained.