Perspectives on Written Cameroon Literature in English

12. Anatomy of a Short Story: An Analysis of Bole Butake’s “The Way of the City”

231 12 Anatomy of a Short Story: An Analysis of Bole Butake’s “The Way of the City” Professor Bole Butake is a prolific writer; so diverse are his creative talents that he has published in nearly all the literary genres. A literary critic in his own right, Butake is today largely known as a prominent Cameroonian theatre arts practioner, i.e. playwright/director. Some of his imaginative works, polemical essays and public pronouncements reveal him as an intrepid and irrepressible social critic, concerned with the Cameroonian commonweal. Varied as his gifts are, few people know that Professor Butake’s first love in creative writing was in the short story, the angle from which I will zoom in on him. Hence my presentation is entitled “Anatomy of a short Story: An Analysis of Bole Butake’s ‘The Way of The City’”. It is the story of how a delinquent debtor, Ngong Tashi, attempts to hide behind the curtain, in the family single room, when his creditor, Tata Makow, arrives to ask for his money. But the hiding debtor is betrayed by his toes peeping rather uneasily from under the curtain separating the bed from the rest of the room. After waiting for about forty minutes and talking with the debtor’s wife, Tata Makow, out of sheer pity for the desperate debtor and his poor family, decides to waive the debt. But before he takes his leave of the family, the creditor stuns Ngong Tashi’s wife and child in the following words: “If he ever returns to collect his toes, which I am seeing under the curtain next to the table, tell him that he should consider whatever he is owing me as having been paid”. A bald statement like this is, indeed inadequate, except for the most minimal appreciation of Butake’s well-crafted story. The brief summary conveys little or nothing of the language, 232 drama and interior thoughts of the characters involved; little or nothing of the compelling single effect, or the high sense of suspense the story so effectively generates; and little or nothing of the intrigue and subtle humour skillfully worked into the story, and revealing the author’s wit. The story possesses the classic elements of a good short story: plot, conflict, suspense, surprise and focus on a single character, in this case, Tata Makow. Like any good short story, ‘The Way of The City’ reveals a lot in its introduction. It begins with the setting: a sloping, disorderly neighbourhood for lowincome city dwellers around the hours of five and six in the evening; it introduces the main characters, Tata Makow and Ngong Tashi; it presents the conflict or the problem: Ngong Tashi unwilling to pay his debt; and establishes the point of view, that of the omniscient narrator, who can unlock people’s hearts and reveal the peculiar nature of their mental landscape. Thus by the end of the first three paragraphs, the reader is aware of the setting, the main characters, the conflict and the narrative point of view. After the introduction the story moves swiftly, involving all the characters, to the climax, when Ngong Tashi, upon being told that his creditor is presently on the way to his house, dashes, only partially dressed, behind the curtain, instructing his wife to play her normal role: “Kongla, the usual thing, eh?” When the creditor comes in, the debtor’s wife, who is busy mixing her paste, lies that her husband has gone out. Tata Makow then sits down and is determined to wait for his return. From here nothing, by way of action, happens to advance the plot of the story. However, there is an occasional conversation between the creditor and the debtor’s wife. But, above all, there is a great deal of internal monologue, on the part of the interlocutors, to fill up the intervals of odd silence between them. At such moments each is absorbed in his or her unique mental universe. The creditor swears to himself and is determined to see how the peeping toes will disappear without 233 their owner giving himself up; the debtor’s wife asks herself whether she has suddenly become the debtor to be so badgered by Tata Makow with his basket full of questions. She equally confides to herself that she would have revealed some better marital truth about the grand deception played on her by her lying husband were...