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7. The Educational Significance of the Cameroon Novel of English Expression: Focus On Four Texts
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141 7 The Educational Significance of the Cameroon Novel of English Expression: Focus On Four Texts Cameroonian creative writers of English expression have adopted an imperial language, English, and the novelistic art form to serve the Cameroonian vision. Like many others, the four novels discussed in this article The Deadly Honey (2002) by Eugene J. Kongnyuy, The Disillusioned African (1995) by Francis B. Nyamnjoh, Across the Mongolo (2004) by John N. Nkengasong, and The Death Certificate (2004) by Alobwed’Epie are exploring, dramatizing and exposing the mores, and critiquing the social ills that plague the Cameroonian/African society. The world of these novels is an imagined real world peopled with characters who criss-cross one another’s path, full-blooded characters caught up in the complex web of daily existence, involving their dilemmas, hopes and frustrations. Through their utterances, thoughts, feelings and emotions, these characters express themselves, and in the process, reveal their outlook and world-view. They articulate their views about certain issues or individuals in their communities or their world. In handling these virtual characters, the Cameroonian novelists artistically guide and shape our attitudes towards them, subtly persuading us to adopt the writers’ point of view or ideological stance. Herein lies their pedagogic intention. Set in Nso in the North West Province of Cameroon, The Deadly Honey1 is the harrowing but eye-opening tale of how an ignorant but sexually active people blissfully invite death and disaster upon themselves. The ‘axis of evil’ involves the movement of young HIV-infected persons (mostly girls) from the city of Douala to the Nso rural community, itself immersed 142 in sexual promiscuity. These ‘young fresh’ things from the city are eagerly and lustfully pounced upon by unwary village lechers; thereupon a wave of sexual scandals and abominations hits the community. Soon afterwards the libertines, one by one, become ill, manifesting various symptoms of an unknown disease; one by one they begin to die at an alarming rate. A plague of an unknown name and origin has struck the population; a curse of some sort has come upon the Nso people. To fight the pandemic the natives turn to their tradition. They consult their Sheys and Fais and carry out acts of atonement; they perform sacrifices and rituals to their ancestors and gods and offer gifts to alienated kindred to pacify them, all in a bid to stem the ravages of the ‘slim disease’. All the medicine men come together to unearth a buried ‘evil’ pot purported to have been the source of the frightful pestilence. But the net effect of these palliatives on the epidemic is nil. In the hands of the novelist the deadly scourge becomes a device for exposing certain aspects of the Nso culture, and also for delivering a moral message to mankind, a means of revealing the best and the worst in human nature at a moment of an existential crisis. Early in the novel, Rev Father Michael in a memorable and prophetic homily had warned his faithful that in the past God’s anger against sinful mankind had come into effect through flood and slaughter; now, against the sexually promiscuous Nso people, it was likely to be effected through the ‘deadly honey’. This sermon has an abiding positive effect on the young and beautiful Kila, the central female subject of the text. With the priest’s powerful voice still resonant in her mind, Kila succeeds to keep away from lustful men until she duly gets married to Tumi, a business man from Douala. But unknown to this innocent and faithful woman, Tumi is infected with the killer disease and determined to spread it to many people before he dies. And he does so, leaving behind [204.236.220.47] Project MUSE (2024-03-29 11:11 GMT) 143 him, when he dies after a humiliating suffering, a long list of 75 women he has infected, top on the list being his wife now pregnant. The best moment in the narrative is the pleasant surprise the author has reserved for the reader on the penultimate page of the novel. It is one of the rare but happy probabilities of science of great moralistic resonance and is this: the faithful, innocent and devoted Kila, despite her marriage to the infected villain, Tumi, is found, upon medical examination, to be sero negative! The message or moral of the narrative is thus clear: while the reckless are swept away by the plague, fidelity to a single spouse can be an...