Wednesday, March 16, 2016
Spirits in TFA and Beloved
In Things Fall Apart, spirits are common throughout the novel. For example, everyone thinks Ezinma is "possessed" basically, calling her an Obanje. In Beloved, there are also a multitude of Spirits. Beloved the character, is a human incarnation of a dead person. The reader could view this as a possession, in a sense. Or, the reader could view Beloved as possessing the household or as possessing Sethe (not physically, like the spirits possessed Ezinma, but theoretically. Beloved says she is "only [t]here for Sethe" - that is, to torment her.) Whichever way you look at it, both TFA and Beloved have a multitude of spiritual encounters, though they vary widely.
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I didn't really think of beloved as obanje until we pointed it out in class today, but it makes a lot of sense now that I think about it since beloved comes back again to make sethe love her. She has many similarities to Enzima in that way, and they both have a tendency to get into the soft spots of those who care about them and have the ability to heal them or tear them apart
Along the lines of comparing spirits in books we have read, I thought of several comparisons in class the other day between Remedios the Beauty from "One Hundred Years of Solitude", and the Obanje children. Ms. Quinet mentioned that Obanje often were describes as beautiful, but also "not all there" and "unearthly". This is almost a perfect description of Remedios the Beauty because not only is she considered one of the most beautiful girls in Macondo, but she is not really entirely there throughout the novel. She is described as different from the other girls in her actions and personality. In the end she floats up to heaven, and Ms. Quinet also mentioned that "floating" or "flying" was often associated with the Obanje children. She also "dies"or floats away young. To me, the similarities she has to the description of the Obanje children is almost shocking. I wonder if Gabriel Marquez had that cultural idea in mind or if it is just coincidence?
In class one day this week, Mrs. Quinet talked about the obanje in Beloved. She brought up the comparison between the two books. I think it is interesting that the idea of a possessed child is in both of the previous novels we have read. Both of the books are from an African's point of view and I think it is interesting that, though from different parts, the two authors have the same beliefs. The further into the book we read the more similarities I see between TFA and Beloved. I just enjoy that even though the books were written in different times and by different authors we can find so many similarities.
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