Xala

Fiction | Novel | Adult | Published in 1973

A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.

Download PDF

Summary

Character Analysis

Section Summaries & Analyses

Sections 1-4

Sections 5-8

Sections 9-12

Sections 13-16

Sections 17-20

Sections 21-24

Sections 25-27

Themes

Symbols & Motifs

Important Quotes

Essay Topics

Tools

Beta

Discussion Questions

Symbols & Motifs

Xala

Xala refers to the curse of impotence that El Hadji, the protagonist, suffers through for most of the novel. His inability to perform sexually renders him unable to consummate his marriage to his third wife, N’Gone, whom he married only for his sexual attraction to her. The curse also brings him trouble with his second wife, Oumi N’Doye. Figuratively, the xala refers to the powerlessness of El Hadji and the other pretentious African businessmen in his circle in bringing forth any true change to Senegal. He is aware of their positions as middlemen and mere peddlers in their country, who are awarded exceptional privileges by their European providers as long as they comply with the neo-colonial order.

However, the curse also addresses the reliance of El Hadji and other Senegalese men on codes of masculinity that reduce them to their sexual functions. This, though the novel never directly addresses it, correlates with European stereotypes about Africans as purely carnal beings. Thus, El Hadji’s obsession with his impotence is yet another way in which he has internalized colonialist ideas about his identity: He feels like less of a man due to his lack of virility and believes that exceptional virility is what makes him a man. His obsession with this notion causes him to neglect both his business affairs and his family. Though, ironically, his personal and libidinal failures will bring him back in touch with his true humanity.

The Tailor’s Dummy

The tailor’s dummy occupies the bridal chamber where El Hadji and N’Gone never properly consummate their marriage. It first appears when N’Gone and Yay Bineta, N’Gone’s godmother, are alone in the bridal chamber. Yay Bineta advises the young woman on how to submit to her husband during the consummation of the marriage. As she speaks, she places a white crown on the head of the tailor’s dummy. The crown reappears at the end of the novel, when the beggars who converge on Adja Awa Astou’s villa place it on El Hadji’s head while spitting on him in revenge for his cruelties. Whenever El Hadji goes to visit N’Gone in the villa that he purchased her, he observes the tailor’s dummy, as well as the made bed and its crisp white sheets. Later in the novel, the dummy wears N’Gone’s wedding dress.

The dummy, which remains dressed, serves as a reminder of El Hadji’s inability to consummate his marriage and his inadequacy as a man. This point is solidified when Yay Bineta, now aware of El Hadji’s bankruptcy, picks up the tailor’s dummy and thrusts it into El Hadji’s lap before he rides away in his Mercedes. The translator’s use of the verb “thrust” is a nod to the sexual act between El Hadji and N’Gone that never takes place. Shortly after Yay Bineta forces the dummy back onto El Hadji, N’Gone is spotted in the company of a much younger man, signaling the end of her marriage not by divorce but by replacement. El Hadji, who spends the novel obsessed with his virility, and who marries a younger woman to prove himself young and virile, is easily replaced by someone younger and more virile. This underscores the futility of his obsession and the absurdity of what he believes defines him as a man.

The Mercedes

Both a symbol of El Hadji’s relatively immense economic privilege and his admiration for European manufacturing, the black Mercedes-Benz in which his chauffeur, Modu, drives him around Dakar and its surrounds is also symbolic of El Hadji’s mobility. This mobility is contrasted with the rather stationary lives of his three wives, who spend most of their time in their respective villas waiting for El Hadji’s arrival. When El Hadji’s finances collapse, the Mercedes is repossessed along with the two other cars in his name—the minibus, driven by Alassane, which is used to take his children to school, and N’Gone’s new car.

Cars figure prominently throughout the novel as an important status symbol. El Hadji’s second wife, Oumi N’Doye, complains about being the only one of his wives without a car, though Adja Awa Astou is also never said to have a car of her own. Oumi’s children, however, agree that this is a sign of disfavor. The fact that Rama—the most independent and modern of all the women in El Hadji’s family—is the only one left with a car, her Fiat, is significant. Her retention of it, due to the vehicle being in her name and not her father’s, is a sign of her social mobility. Sembène suggests that her lack of concern with materialism and her interest in uplifting all of her people give her a social agility and relevance that her father, mother, and his co-wives do not have. On the other hand, at the end of the novel, she is shown to be someone who is interested in revolutionary causes as long as she does not have to sacrifice her personal comforts. In this regard, she is not much different from her father, in both her reliance on foreign goods as signs of her social privilege and her belief in social change that does not result in much inconvenience.