Rac(e)ing Questions III

21      Although one might argue that Greene's presentation of Phuong is not in line with his anti-imperial sentiments and third world sympathies, it is more likely that he is representing a situation as he views it, not as he wants it to be. Greene's support of Kikuyu in Kenya and his sympathetic presentation of the French position in this novel reveal an attitude that is tinged with the very "paternalism of empire" that he criticized in the government and settler.[4]See Miller 99-101. Also see Adamson 138. Maria Couto explains that Greene's novel addresses the context of national liberation emerging from the "death-throes of the old imperialism" as well as the issue of "new and more insidious imperialism of the superpowers" (166). Greene may wish to awaken his audience to his own county's hesitancy to put down its imperial and patriarchal image with his portrayal of Fowler; this author also implies through Pyle that the masculine political structures that once fostered imperialism are being reincorporated by America as the next emergent superpower. Greene's depiction of a patriarchal struggle through the love triangle may be his attempt to address the ways in which the new superpower is recycling the age old imperial image based on masculinity.

22      This same focus on political reality might also explain why Achebe would use a triangulated model of desire in a novel about the political situation in Nigeria. Similar to Greene's love triangle, Achebe's love triangle can also be viewed in a political framework. Achebe presents Nanga as an extension of the former colonizer with his deference to European power structures, while Odili becomes part of the emerging nationalist elite. The homosocial bonds between these two men serve as evidence for a reincorporation of masculinity in the new leadership of the nation at the expense of the continued oppression of the indigenous native people, represented by the violence and degradation of Edna. Achebe's love triangle speaks to a new nation recycling gender oppression and patriarchal power to assert its emerging strength.

23      Similar to Greene's first person narrator who reveals doubts as to his own power in relation to his nation's power, Achebe's narrator conveys an anxiety about his masculine ego and his stance as a postcolonial subject (Gikandi 120-121).[5]In this chapter, Gikandi explores the anxiety behind Odili's narration through detailed description of his language, even at the syntactic and linguistic level. The deep feelings of masculine inadequacy that Odili's feels from his father who "had too many other wives and children to take any special notice of [him]" intensify after he feels the threat from men such as Nanga (28). Odili's obsession with image shines through in the following passage, as Odili claims after meeting Max's friends:

I was anxious not to appear to Max and his friends as the easily impressed type. I suppose I wanted to erase whatever impression was left of Max's unfortunate if unintentional presentation of me as a kind of pitiable jellyfish. (79)

Throughout the novel, Odili repeatedly voices insecurity about the way others interpret his strength. In addition, the overwhelming examples of degradation to women in the text reinforce the notion that political power feeds off the continued domination of women. For example, Elsie is used as a sexual pawn in this work, as is Jean, who Odili only desires for her body. Edna is also presented as a woman unable to utilize her education and who is "sold" from her male relatives to her husband. Scholar Chioma Opara, in her article "From Stereotype to Individuality: Womanhood in Chinua Achebe's Novels" agrees with my recognition of Edna's self effacement, and Opara suggests that Edna's engagement to the Chief "allows her selfhood to be bought by Nanga" (117). While Nanga is more aggressively demeaning to women in the text, Odili's more idealistic approach to politics is nevertheless intertwined with the notion of female oppression. Odili tells the reader that he has "twin hopes of a beautiful life with Edna and of a new era of cleanliness in the politics of our country" (131). With his admittance, it is clear that possessing the woman unfortunately becomes synonymous with the patriarchal view of power presented in this novel.

24      However, I do not wish to argue that this presentation of political power through objectification of women is necessarily reflective of sexism on the part of the author. Although Achebe is quite cognizant of structures which oppressed his nation, he may present a picture of masculine, patriarchal power like Greene because he sees it as linked to the current corruption of leadership following Nigerian Independence. Raisa Simola, in World Views in Chinua Achebe's Works, explains that Achebe is one of the first generation of African writers who lived during colonial times but then felt disillusioned after independence (204). While Achebe states in early essays that the African writer must be an educator to reassert the past and uplift the African population, he is noted in later interviews, such as that in Africa Report, as stating "The most meaningful work that African writers can do today will take into account our whole history…what it is today" (Simola 268). The triangulated plot of this novel may then represent Achebe's warning about the current use of power in the Nigerian state. Achebe's use of the love triangle in colonial terms may not be a promotion of leadership using subordination of women and maintenance of patriarchy, but rather a literary "photograph" of Nigerian politics at this confusing time. Gikandi agrees with my reading and even claims that Achebe's novel reveals how postcolonial subjects are caught in a great ironic moment, when "independence was expected to be a break with the colonial past, but ha[d] become, instead, the apotheosis of colonialist ideology and rhetoric" (110). Regardless of Greene's or Achebe's ultimate political desires, both authors use their novels to display the reality of masculinity within power structures in both fading and emerging nation states.

25      In light of this study, it appears that the postwar, postcolonial novel is inevitably forced to employ desire along the triangulated model because decolonization and revolution work upon the axis of masculine control. Both novels in this analysis link the wellbeing of the state with masculine domination and simultaneous female oppression. In The Quiet American and A Man of the People, both female objects are in fact "won" by one of the male rivals by the end of the work. The placement of Phuong into Fowler's care and Edna into Odili's has little notion of romance; the conquering of the rival power and the superiority of the narrator over the rival is the last image in both of these different texts. While each novel does voice concern with colonialism and imperialism, (through Greene's portrayal of Pyle's politics and Achebe's portrayal of Nanga's ethics), both authors end their works stressing that patriarchy and masculine control is intertwined with political structures. Although Pyle is destroyed in The Quiet American, the presence that he left behind haunts Fowler's imagination; in the same way, political revolution in A Man of the People implies Nanga's downfall, but the reader is left doubtful that the same methods of patriarchy will not reassert themselves under new leadership. And most importantly, both works conclude by reinforcing the weak condition of the female body and great strides that would need to be taken to reverse a dominant male ideology. Graham Greene and Chinua Achebe promote the inevitable tie of patriarchal, masculine power to political and revolutionary power.