L'univers familial dans les contes africains: liens de sang, liens d'alliance (review)

L'univers familial dans les contes africains: liens de sang, liens d'alliance, by Veronika Görög-Karady. Paris: L'Harmattan, 1997. 287 pp. ISBN 2-7384-5711 paper.

Veronika Görög-Karady's meticulous analysis of short stories dealing with the family and the web of relationships that binds them together, although narrowly focused on the Bambara-Malinke groups, brilliantly anticipates the type of calls for articles made recently by the electronic journal Mots Pluriels seeking papers that "specifically address the African short story, a genre still little studied in spite of its growing importance in the field of African literature."

In the preface of this collection of essays, most of which had already been published elsewhere, the author defines clearly the objectives of the study and justifies the choice of short story over other genres. The text opens logically with a discussion of a set of stories on marriage and the importance figure in that institution, the father or patriarch whose wide-ranging powers intrude in all the relationships. He is a domineering, authoritarian, ubiquitous figure who maintains tight control over his daughter. More than that, however, he seems literally and figuratively engaged in an incestuous relationship with her. And to eliminate potential rivals, he scrutinizes all his daughter's suitors by having them undergo arduous tests to show ingenuity and intellectual and physical prowess. These and another set of stories in which the father attempts to fixate his son at the pre-oedipal stage of his development for fear of rivalry for the absent mother or any other female figure are symptomatic of the underlying culture of greed manifest today not only in social interactions but, more importantly, in the desire to possess all forms of power. In order to deconstruct that powerful image of the father, the author introduces a judicious selection of stories entitled "la fille rebelle" in which the daughter asserts her individuality and her freedom to choose a husband based on her own criteria rather than on those prescribed by traditions and strongly reinforced by her father.

Empowering herself as such, the rebellious daughter presents a counterimage to the antifeminist sentiments that run through most of the stories and also serves as a transition to a discussion of female identity that, although shaped by many factors, seems to derive mainly from a woman's ability to have children. But when such defining agents are separated from her at birth as in the story of the twins, the mother literally ceases to exist; she becomes simply an object of quest for her sons. Even when she initiates military exploits against her estranged husband, emphasis quickly shifts from her to her son's military prowess as he symbolically kills his father to avenge his mother. Presenting such a dominant figure of a son in a chapter supposedly dealing with the female identity ironically negates that identity by subjecting it to the exploit of a male child. It does also anticipate the next chapter focusing on "les Enfants Terribles." Born under exceptional circumstances, these children, descendants of blacksmiths, represent both the agents of destruction and systematic subversion of traditions as well as symbolize hope for the future in their insatiable quest for knowledge and exceptional powers.

All the stories in the text develop from conflictual relationships that require resolution; hence the rationale for the last and perhaps the best chapter, which explores the various functions of the tree--passive agent, personification of the maternal, place of refuge, sanctuary for the marginalized, link between the celestial, the human, and the underworld. More appropriately, its shade provides the space for legal debates and conflict resolution.

L'univers reveals one of the weaknesses of the thematic approach and of putting together a collection of essays into a book: some of the interpretations remain unconvincing even though forcefully articulated as they seem controlled to fit...