Ambiguous Adventure

“The teacher thought that man had no reason to exalt himself, save definitely in the adoration of God. Now it was true—though he fought against the feeling—that he loved Samba Diallo as he had never loved any disciple. His harshness toward the boy was in ratio to his impatience to rid him of all his moral weaknesses, and to make him the masterpiece of his own long career. He had educated and developed numerous generations of adolescents, and he knew that he was now near death. But, at the same time as himself, he felt that the country of the Diallobé was dying from the assault of strangers come from beyond the sea. Before departing this life, the teacher would try to leave to the Diallobé such a man as the country’s great past had produced.”

Thierno realizes that he does prefer Samba to his other students, and in accepting this realization, he understands that he must push him further to save the Diallobé people. Thierno’s realization depicts the Diallobé culture as a dying way of life—one directly opposed to that of the “strangers,” or colonizers, who are coming to the Diallobé region.

“Paradoxically, all this suffering, and this rebellion of his body, aroused in the teacher’s mood a gayety which left him perplexed. Although he was bent in two with pain, he had trouble in remaining serious, as if the grotesque figure he was watching were not his own.”

Thierno experiences the duality of physical pain and spiritual pleasure. Despite the pain that he experiences, he prostrates himself for his daily prayers and will continue to do so until his final days.

“‘Master,’ the chief asked, ‘am I a landmark sufficiently fixed, a recourse sufficiently stable?’

‘You are.’

‘Just so. I am the authority. Where I establish myself, the earth yields and is furrowed under my weight. I dig myself in, and men come to me. Master, they believe me to be a mountain.’

‘You are that.’

‘I am a poor thing, who trembles, and who does not know...’

‘It is true, you are that also.’”

This conversation between the chief and Thierno further speaks to the duality of man. In a conversation with Thierno, the chief speaks of himself in metaphors, first as a mountain (i.e., indicating strength) and second as a trembling object. Thierno acknowledges the presence of both within the chief, noting the paradoxical and contrasting natures that live within each person.

“The foreign school is the new form of the war which those who have come here are waging, and we must send our élite there, expecting that all the country will follow them. It is well that once more the élite should lead the way. If there is a risk, they are the best prepared to cope successfully with it, because they are the most firmly attached to what they are. If there is good to be drawn from it, they should also be the first to acquire that.”

The Most Royal Lady advocates for sending the community’s elite to the foreign school. She ultimately suggests sending Samba to the school as an example to others. The “risk” she identifies—that those who attend the school might forget or forgo their culture—is one that Samba ultimately does succumb to, as he stops praying.

“‘But, people of the Diallobé,’ she continued after a pause, ‘remember our fields when the rainy season is approaching. We love our fields very much, but what do we do then? We plough them up and burn them: we kill them. In the same way, recall this: what do we do with our reserves of seed when the rain has fallen? We would like to eat them, but we bury them in the earth.’”

The Most Royal Lady addresses the Diallobé regarding the foreign school and its likely effects on their way of life. She compares their treatment of their lands to their treatment of their children, ultimately advocating for growth and longevity over short-term preservation. In the end, choosing death now will bring new life later, whereas choosing life now will only bring death.

“The cannon compels the body, the school bewitches the soul.”

Personifying both a cannon (a stand-in for conquest) and a school (a stand-in for cultural imperialism), this quote centers on the effects of colonization on the colonized. Although colonialism first manifested in violence, the Most Royal Lady and other characters fear that the presence of the school could ruin the traditions of their community—a potentially worse blow. Nevertheless, the Most Royal Lady continues to advocate sending Samba there.

“Samba Diallo snipped off a flower and began to look closely at it. After a short time he held it out to Jean. ‘See, Jean, how beautiful this flower is,’ he said. ‘It smells good.” He was silent for an instant, then he added, unexpectedly, ‘But it is going to die.’”

The immediate reference to death is an example of what the Most Royal Lady spoke about earlier in her concern to the teacher: that Samba’s thoughts instinctively revolve around death. Here the duality of life and death is quite stark. The beauty lies in the life of the flower, along with its ability to awaken the senses. Death is its antithesis, and with it comes a sense of sadness. However, unlike the Diallobé mentality that one should look forward to death with happiness, Samba associates the end of the flower’s life with sadness.

“Jean did not know how long he remained there, held fascinated by Samba Diallo weeping under the sky. He never knew how much time was consumed by this pathetic and beautiful death of the day. He only regained consciousness of his surroundings when he heard the sound of footsteps not far away. He raised his head and saw the knight of the dalmatic, who came toward him, smiling, and held out his hand to help him get up. Samba Diallo was crouched on the ground, his head lowered, his body still trembling. The knight knelt down, took his son by the shoulders, set him on his feet, and smiled at him. Through his tears Samba Diallo smiled back, a bright smile. With a fold of his boubou the knight wiped the boy’s face, very tenderly.”

While watching Samba pray, Jean connects the ending prayer to the “death” of the day. However, the day is “saved” by the knight, who comforts his son and brings him from his Western companion back into the safety of his Diallobé family.

“The teacher, Samba Diallo was thinking, has a body so fragile that already it seemed to be scarcely there. But, in addition, he has the Word, which is made of nothing corporeal, but which endures...which endures. He has the fire which runs like fame through the disciples and sets the hearth aglow. He has that restless concern which had more force than his body has weight. The disappearance of this body—could it negate all that? Dead love leaves a memory—and dead fervor? And restless concern? The teacher, who was richer than Old Rella, would die less completely than she. Samba Diallo knew that.”

Samba’s inner monologue reveals the groundlessness of the fears expressed by the Most Royal Lady, Thierno, and the chief regarding forgetting and memory. For Samba, death does not lead to forgetting: Thierno’s passion and love for “the Word” permeate the community.

“Civilization is an architecture of responses. Its perfection, like that of any dwelling house, is measured by the comfort man feels in it, by the added portion of liberty it procures for him.”

This quote comes from Samba’s father’s inner monologue upon hearing the news that Samba will attend the foreign school. The metaphor highlights the constructedness of civilization, its purpose being to answer humanity’s questions or resolve its problems. Here, he notes how civilization is only perfect when people are both comfortable and free. Applying this metaphor to the Diallobé, he notes that they are not free.

“For a long time, in the night, his voice was that of the voiceless phantoms of his ancestors, whom he had raised up. With them, he wept their death; but also, in long cadence, they sang his birth.”

The duality of death and life coexist in Samba’s recitation of the Koran. He feels connected to his ancestors, who celebrate his life, while he mourns their death.

“The truth which they do not now possess, which they are incapable of conquering, they hope for in the end. It is so in the case of justice, also. All they want and do not have—instead of trying to conquer it, they await it at the end....”

In the conversation between Paul and Samba’s father, Paul reflects on the Diallobé’s religious faith. The use of the word “conquer” harkens back to the discussion of colonization, a reminder of the differences between the colonizer and the colonized. Paul does not applaud this waiting but rather sees it as a sign of the community’s backwardness; instead of “conquering” the truth through science, they await divine revelation.

“At this moment Lacroix had to fight against the strong temptation to push the electric light switch which was within reach of his hand. He would have liked to scrutinize the shadowed face of this motionless man who sat opposite him. In his voice he perceived a tonality which intrigued him, and which he would have liked to relate to the expression of his face. But, No, he thought, if I turn on the light this man may stop talking. It is not to me that he is talking, it is to himself. He listened.”

In his discussion with Samba’s father regarding science and truth, Paul is tempted to use electricity (i.e., science/modern technology) to perceive the true feelings and nature of Samba’s father (who in this moment is speaking in a meditative state). Paul’s decision to let him continue “in the dark” suggests that he has decided to leave Samba’s father in (what Paul has previously described as) ignorance.

“M. Lacroix, this future—I accept it […] My son is the pledge of that. He will contribute to its building. It is my wish that he contribute, not as a stranger come from distant regions, but as an artisan responsible for the destinies of the citadel.”

Samba’s father speaks of his son in a prophetic and Christ-like tone. The reference to the citadel (i.e., medieval imagery) emphasizes his son’s role in learning how to create a new world out of Western modernity. As the quote continues, he makes a direct contrast between the opening of the citadel and the people in the abyss—those who, like Paul, have lost touch with what makes people human.

“There is no antagonism between the discipline of faith and the discipline of work. The death of God is not a necessary condition to the survival of man.”

At the end of the discussion with his father, Samba concludes that man is able to modernize and industrialize with the presence of God; the two are not mutually exclusive.

“You know, the fate of us Negro students is a little like that of a courier: at the moment of leaving home we do not know whether we shall ever return.”

This simile reveals Samba’s perspective on migration, but it speaks to the broader experience of migrants from colonized regions who leave their homelands in order to study or work in the colonizing metropole. Although Samba physically returns to his community, he has changed significantly by the time he does so.

“‘Why did it happen that I let him go?’ the chief of the Diallobé asked himself. ‘He is of the same age as this young man who has just been made teacher of the Diallobé. I would have made him chief of the Diallobé in my place, unless the teacher had chosen him to wear his turban. He would have kept the movement of the Diallobé within the confines of the narrow track that winds between their past and those new fields where they want to pasture and gambol and be lost. Instead, here am I today, faced by this young man, alone with him, abandoned by my old companion and master.’”

The chief of the Diallobé shares his concerns about letting Samba leave the community many years prior. This is a concern that his counterparts share; although it has been some time, the community leaders recognize the influence Samba would have had if he stayed in the Diallobé community.

“He got up, undressed himself, and prepared for bed. Late in the night he realized that he had forgotten to make his evening prayer, and he had to disturb his rest to get up again and pray.”

Samba’s transformation continues. While he lived in the Diallobé community, daily prayer was as natural and effortless as breathing, but his immersion in Western culture has influenced his traditions. This moment is an important transition that his refusal to pray altogether in Part 2, Chapter 9 will solidify.

“It seems to me, for example, that in the country of the Diallobé man is closer to death. He lives on more familiar terms with it. His existence acquires from it something like an aftermath of authenticity. Down there, there existed between death and myself an intimacy, made up at the same time of my terror and my expectation. Whereas here death has become a stranger to me. Everything combats it, drives it back from men’s bodies and minds. I forget about it. When I search for it in my thought, I see only a dried-up sentiment, an abstract eventuality, scarcely more disagreeable for me than for my insurance company.”

Samba recounts to Pierre-Louis’s party guests how the Western concept of death differs from the Diallobé’s. Death very much fits within the Diallobé community as a part of their traditions and religious focus.

“It is not the material absence of your native soil that keeps you in a state of suspended animation, it is its spiritual absence. The West passes you by, you are ignored, you are useless—and that at a time when you yourself can no longer pass by the West. Then you succumb to the complex of the Unloved. You feel that your position is precarious.”

Pierre-Louis’s response to Samba’s loneliness indicates his similar background to Samba. As a migrant to the colonizing metropole, he can empathize with the distance Samba feels from both his native and adopted communities.

“I am not a distinct country of the Diallobé facing a distinct Occident, and appreciating with a cool head what I must take from it and what I must leave with it by way of counter-balance. I have become the two. There is not a clear mind deciding between the two factors of a choice. There is a strange nature, in distress over not being two.”

Samba admits to the guests at the dinner party his existence between Western and Diallobé culture. This admission is a crucial moment in his growth, as it reveals the inner turmoil he faces until his death in the last chapter.

“‘I have come from the country of the white men,’ he said to him. ‘It seems that you have been there. Then how was it?’

There was an impassioned gleam in the fool’s eyes.

‘Truly? You want me to tell you?’

‘Yes, tell me.’

‘Master, they have no more bodies, they have no more flesh. They have been eaten up by objects. In order that they may move, their bodies are shod with large rapid objects. To nourish themselves, they put iron objects between their hands and their mouths. That is true!’ he added, abruptly, turning with an aggressive air toward those present, as if he had been contradicted.

‘It is indeed true,’ said Samba Diallo, thoughtfully.

The fool, calmed, looked at him, smiling.”

The fool recounts his experience living in “the country of white men” to Samba. The fool uses the phrase “objects” as a negative attribute of society, with a particular focus on the use of utensils as opposed to the use of flesh. Samba agrees with this sterile characterization of Western society and materialism.

“‘People are not obliged to pray. Do not tell me to pray, do not tell me any more, ever,’ Samba Diallo said.”

Samba addresses the fool’s repeated demands to pray with this sentence. This starkly contrasts with Samba’s previous life in Diallobé, where he was noted for his religious fervor. The fool equates Samba with the teacher and prayer with religion—equations that Samba denies. In regards to the latter, Samba now considers religion and spirituality to be a personal relationship; however, the fool does not agree and ultimately kills Samba for not praying.