A Discovery Page on
ELS 124: Amos Tutuola’s ‘The Palm-Drinkard’
For my fellow grammarians and literati studying this course
For my fellow grammarians and literati studying this course


The novel, 'the palm wine drinkard and his dead palm
wine tapster in dead’s town' is a textual compass by which one of the oraloric
genetics of culture-as found within the shores of African artistic aesthetics-is
dissected. In this view, African culture is seen as a creative mechanism
found/birthed through the explorative adventurisms of presocratic sages, saws
who-at the beginning of the ages- were moulded from the dark fires of the black
hills. Gods became men. Men became gods. There were legends, whose
minds-crafted from fresh steels of wisdom-would hanker, soft and hard, to read
the paradigmatic recipes which form the incredible realities of the Nature that
we see. The powers in men's tongue were wielded, for death and life. They sang,
shouted, wailed and praised. They discovered propriety, beauty and life in what
they spoke. They learnt the mysteries of the gods locked within their hands and
legs. And at last, the songs they sang could be tendered by their hand, either in
accompaniment/in interpretations. These were the things that their god-like
nature produced. Legends became kings, chiefs and warriors. And with such
powers as discovered, a society wreathed with an incomparable je ne sais quoi of art and craft is
borne. When these great men died, they left for the mountains. Though they were
not seen, they never were too far away. Never were they too deeply out, from
beyond the firmaments. But they lurked in some places where only men powerful
as they could foot. Some so much loved their homes that they still preferred to
hide/live in trees, clouds, seas, rocks, stones, animals, wind, air etc. But as
for the ways of ordinary men, they led to a dome meant for the ordinary 'The land of the dead', while, the path
of the gods was to the depthless and bottomless.
As the times went by, the
cunning ones among the gods- the merciful and fiendish inclusive- would play on
forms meant only for the recent men, in order to mock humankind's vices-a
catalogue of vendetta unshackled! From this point, however, it should be
established that, 'the palm-wine drinkard
and his dead Palm wine-tapster in Dead’s town’ is 'that' master-piece which carries much of the supernatural in and
out of it. Its fantastic-cum-horrendous weight has been a daring attempt to exhume,
the actual picture of the mythic, and the incredible. In fact, the very acreage
that bears the construction of whatever literature you may think of, to be rootly African (extravagantly from the
core) is just this exemplum 'the palm
wine drinkard' (though there are several others which fall into its
aetiological phylum and which can be given the same paean which it presently
receives). Hence, if we attest to the fact that African literature primarily
sets on the oral tradition, which is the first, finest, purest, ancestral, and
supreme, then 'palm-wine drinkard…', having
identified with these groups of 'oral traditions' (albeit written)', is
incontrovertibly a Cadillac of sheer Africanness (a conscious erectus of a wee Yorubaic Nigerianism). I have so much consummated
in me to introduce the work with this exordium-because it is with this that the
work confines itself in originality and verisimilitude-before moving further
into uncovering the discoveries
In
my recent study, I discovered that, some theoretical forms extrinsic to the
oraloric chrome of the text could be used to decode it.
1. The sociological factor: This
deals with theories of criticisms by which social realisms-reformist,
revolutionist, reactionary, blanquist- can be analysed. These theories include Marxism,
feminism etc. Hence, for ‘the palm-wine drinkard…’
we are going to apply Marxism:
Key-points:
1. The relationship between the palm-wine drinkard
and his tapster is like one between a capitalist and his worker. In this sense,
the tapster is slaved to work indefatigably. This pleases the capitalist-drinkard who only sits somewhere
to eat from the enormous efforts of his tapster, without even commending his
effort by any tangible or sensible means. In order words, the tapster is explored
and oppressed.
2. The society pictured here is anti-Maxian/dystopian:
'Dystopia', in this sense, exhibits all forms of inequalities and social-cum-economic
imbalance. This sort of imbalance or disequilibrium is defined in the sense of
class-stratification. In a class-conscious society, there is a wide gap between
the exploitative rich as well as the slaving poor: the bourgeoisie and the
proletariats. This is a society wherein the individualism, ego-centrism of the
exploiters is characterized by utter embezzlement, malfeasance,
maladministration, avarice and less regards for the welfare of the lower-class
(the exploited). Hence, the society pictured in the beginning of the novel is
anti-Maxian. The palm-wine drinkard and his friends are such errant caucuses of
exploiters, while the tapster is a generic symbolism of the exploited poor.
3. The death of the tapster is a very powerful
motif. In many African literatures, (mostly colonial, and post-colonial) death
symbolizes 'freedom'. The freedom intended here is knitted together with its
metaphysical correspondent. For example, in Apartheid south-Africa, the voice
of 'death' as echoed by the hoi-polloi is a vatic fragment which some writers
like Arthol Fugard, picture(s) in their works. A big reference is made in
Fugard’s 'Sizwe Bansi is Dead', where he advocates that the black man can be
free of his troubles only when he dies. Hence, the grave is seen, as a place
where true liberty is absorbed. Though the blacks may be given freedom or
independence-grant by the white, they are bound to fall into self-enslavement.
Sometimes I imagine the African freedom fighters tell it to the white overlords
that, 'we want to rule by our-'self''. ‘We want to run the affairs of our country
by our-self. This country is 'ours''. Self-enslavement creeps in especially when
the society still becomes anti-Marxian despite the independence-grant given. In
other words, the death of the palm-wine tapster signifies freedom.
3. The palm-wine drinkard's vigorous
attempt to find his palm-wine tapster can have several interpretations:
1). The palm-wine drinkard might have
been purged of his over-exaggerated selfishness. For example, in the tapster's
life time, the drinkard never cared about how he used the tapster. In fact, he
saw the tapster as an immortal human-machine that keeps satiating his excitement
and bacchic urges.
2). On the flip side, he might have been driven by his impulsive urges, ‘the death/life principle/Id’. Though this sounds Freudian, we are compelled to judge his will of getting the tapster back to his quondam post of slave-working, as a damnable curse of cupidity and fear which drives him into a frantic fit. So this time he his only trying to get the tapster back so that he can further be ‘exploited’. Or simply put, he is going after the tapster because of his own selfish interests.
2). On the flip side, he might have been driven by his impulsive urges, ‘the death/life principle/Id’. Though this sounds Freudian, we are compelled to judge his will of getting the tapster back to his quondam post of slave-working, as a damnable curse of cupidity and fear which drives him into a frantic fit. So this time he his only trying to get the tapster back so that he can further be ‘exploited’. Or simply put, he is going after the tapster because of his own selfish interests.
Also, I will like to draw
our attention to something new and very important. This is actually the story
of the beautiful ‘lady’ and the 'gentle man'. The 'gentle-man' symbolizes the
horrors of modernism and acculturation. In the story, it is clear that the
gentleman is alien to the market were the lady sees him. There is actually a
big line of demarcation drawn between where the gentle man stands, and where the
lady, the marketers stand. No transaction between the two. So from this point,
her palfrey (feminine) identity is greatly a symbolic encapsulation of what
Africa is. She is no doubt a symbolism of our ideological ‘Mother Africa’, who
has now been drawn by this 'newness’. The newness in question is a broadcast of
the gentle-man’s presence. More upon, from the story, we are able to note how
she rejects those who are originally hers,
to embrace that strange man. She
is constantly enticed by his outward beauty and now she is being taken away. Very
soon, she discovers what cruel
strangeness lies in this man: Almost all the parts of his body are borrowed
or formed by the amalgamation of several parts coming together from the
different spheres of his world. England was not formed by one. Hence, I deeply
believe that, this gentleman is an indirect allegory of England, by which a
supernumerary part of Africa was alienated and acculturated, while the sphere
from which all these parts are borrowed is simply Europe. More so, the consequent
lost and captivity of the lady results into what I call a 'Tutuolanian Ecclesiastes',
a code which implies that Africa will never be redeemed of the new culture that
has so dominated her. In fact, every attempt made to bring her back to her
original form will be proved futile.
The road to the market
is the road back to our cultural realties (i.e., the market being the root of
our cultural extent). It is hardly traceable. In fact since this generation is
the offspring of the alienated lady, all it would have is a mere reading of the
road’s geography. To walk this road may be impossible for some; difficult or
easy for others, yet that market can
never be found. In addition, the market is a reality of what we were before the
white-men’s culture transformed us. So, unlike some Asian countries like, china,
Japan, where their cultural ethos is more boldly daring, highly defiant, and
repellent and where only 20% of Eurocentrism is apparent in their daily
transactions, Africa is but condemned to a superfluity of Eurocentric
cacoethes.
I think with some of
the unprecedented facts laid in this little discovery, you would be creatively
smart enough to spice up your examination questions- especially the one
particular to ‘the Palm-Wine Drinkard…’ with
the appropriate answers. It all deals with how highly imaginative you are in textual
relativisms and concept-fixing. Good luck!!!