Of Postcolonial Entanglement and Durée: Reflections on the Francophone African Novel

Comparative Literature, Summer 2004 by Adesanmi, Pius

A major difference between the texts of these two older writers and those of Beyala's generation lies in their approach to the female and male bodies. The pioneering female writers primarily focused on the debilitating social conditions of African women in largely "autobiographical voices," to use Francoise Lionnet's phrase. The cultural strictures surrounding the female body in much of traditional Africa make the female-and the male-anatomy a terra incognita, closed to textual representation. The feminist durée writers opened up this closed zone and transformed it into a viable site of textual inscription. So gripping is the textual engagement of the new feminist writers with the female body that Gallimore has delineated what she calls a "discours du corps" (discourse of the body) with specific reference to Beyala's novels ("Ecriture féminine" 64). For example, Tu t'appelleras Tanga, one of Beyala's most widely critiqued novels, contains riveting references to the genitals of teenage prostitutes as nauseating public places where indolent men unload their burdens. However, it is in Beyala's treatment of the male anatomy that the novel's feminism is most transgressive.

Beyala's strategy for deconstructing the dominant male body is to render it "invisible" and leave the phallus exposed. The average male in Tu t'appelleras Tanga is indolent and hardly thinks; likewise, his phallus, the symbol of his so-called superiority and pride, becomes the greatest impediment to his agency. The first indication of this strategy is the information that Tanga, the novel's heroine, was raped at the age of twelve by her incestuous father. Then follows a quick succession of male characters whose subjectivity is determined entirely by the dictates of their sexual desires. Hassan, Tanga's boyfriend, is one such man, and Beyala emphasizes his enslavement by denying him any tangible anchorage in the sociopolitical fabric of Iningue, the novel's fictional setting. Even his initial meeting with Tanga is structured in a manner that draws attention to his genitals:

J'ai fait la connaissance de Hassan par ses jambes. Je les vois encore gantées dans un pantalon gris fripé à l'endroit du sexe et du ventre. (19)

I met Hassan through his legs. I can see them still, grey trousers fitting them like a glove, crumpled around his penis and his belly. (10)

Once Hassan's penis has fallen within the spectrum of this narrative gaze, it remains there and determines all his actions and utterances in the novel. Tanga, as first-person narrator, serves as the authorial tool for maintaining Hassan in this phallic prison through her perception and description of his every gesture:

II danse de la tête, allume un cigare, fume, toussote avant de monopoliser les mots, il ne parle pas d'amour, il plaide le plaisir distillé par son sexe. Il dit: "Je te ferai renaître sous mes muscles." (27)

His head bobs around, he lights a cigarette, smokes, coughs before taking control of his words. He doesn't speak of love but makes a plea for the pleasure his penis has exuded. He says: "You'll be reborn underneath my muscles." (15)