The Fury and Cries of Women

by Angèle Rawiri

  Thus, far from reinforcing negative stereotypes about Africans, Kuoh-Moukoury and Rawiri are merely pointing out the imperfections of both worlds, the traditional and the so-called modern. Their representations also point to the weight and influence of customary beliefs and traditions in many contemporary societies, demonstrating how individuals may resort to these cultural references especially in times of hopelessness and crisis, seeking a solution to problems from within instead of from outside. Flo and Emilienne are constantly reevaluating the old and the new, trying to extract what is positive, and it is this mentality in particular that makes these protagonists forward-thinking.

  Despite the similarities found in the two novels, Rawiri’s discussion of infertility goes a step further. Initially, Emilienne’s infertility seems as tragic as Flo’s in Rencontres essentielles. In Kuoh-Moukoury’s novel, the conclusion drawn is that motherhood takes precedence over a relationship with a man in the end. However, as The Fury progresses, the reader eventually starts to question if, in an ideal world, Emilienne really would have bothered with children at all. Her desire for children may actually be a longing for power. In this case, especially when visits to the gynecologist reveal no somatic problems to explain Emilienne’s infertility, the reader realizes that it is perhaps Emilienne’s true, subconscious desire not to have children for the sake of others that makes her body rebel, provoking miscarriages and making it difficult for her to conceive. Emilienne gives readers much to consider in her reflection on her own infertility and its true consequences on her marriage with Joseph: “Is it my infertility that is making him run away? Why does he need me to have children to love me? My illness, if that’s what it is, is not contagious and should not rob us of our love. No, I cannot believe that Joseph loved me for the children I was supposed to give him after our wedding. I don’t want to believe that all he saw in me was this woman who was to become the mother of his children. No, that idea is unbearable to me. I am a woman and I will be a woman no matter what happens” (88–89).

  Perhaps the only element of The Fury that might be labeled a possible shortcoming is Rawiri’s handling of the subject of lesbianism as depicted through Emilienne’s relationship with her secretary, Dominique. As the author of one of the first African novels to touch upon this subject, still taboo for many African writers even today, Rawiri had the potential to go well beyond the stereotypes concerning an intimate relationship between two women, and unfortunately, at times, it seems Rawiri’s own moral judgments prevented her from doing so.

  Emilienne’s homoerotic relationship with Dominique is complicated, and even troubling, on many fronts, especially because it is part of an elaborate strategy. Citing Emilienne’s infertility as a primary motivation, Eyang devises a plan in which Dominique—who, the reader discovers later, is not only Emilienne’s secretary but also the mistress of Joseph, with whom she has two children—is to secure Emilienne’s trust so that Eyang’s primary objective to separate the married couple can be realized. However, Eyang is not specific in how Dominique should go about securing her boss’s trust. Eyang says only this: “I’ve found another way to bring about their divorce. We’re going to go after the wife. Do everything you can to become friends with her. Once you see that she trusts you, let me know, and I will put the second phase of my plan into motion. In the meantime, do as I’ve just told you” (53–54). However, in the end, Eyang has very little to do with the homoerotic nature of Emilienne and Dominique’s relationship. In fact, it is uncertain whether Eyang even knows about the specifics of the relationship, as at the end of the novel, Eyang tells her son only that Emilienne is not worthy of his devotion because she spends all her time “with witch doctors” and, in particular, consults “a white witch doctor”—her preferred term for a hypnotist (192). Eyang finally issues an ultimatum to her son, saying she will leave the house if Joseph does not apologize to Dominique for their breakup: “Son, you are casting me out by leaving the mother of your children. If you don’t call her right now and tell her that you’re sorry, I’m warning you, I will not stay one more minute under this roof” (192).

  Dominique is seemingly the one responsible for initiating an intimate relationship with Emilienne. While Emilienne is attracted by Dominique’s physical beauty early on in the novel—the first reference to this being her description of “this young woman whose complexion and body were so nearly perfect” (19)—she never overtly exhibits a hint of interest sexually toward her secretary, nor is she the first to make her desires known. The relationship seems to have an identifiable starting point, however, and this occurs, strangely enough, as the two women witness together the capital punishment of five men just below Emilienne’s office window. Although Emilienne and the reader are both unaware of Dominique’s insincerity at the time, the secretary takes advantage of the horrifying scene to become physically close to Emilienne: “Dominique threw herself on her, grabbing her by the shoulders. The two women embraced. . . . The two women’s bodies intertwined and shuddered” (110). Although there is nothing particularly homoerotic in this first physical interaction between the two, it is nonetheless essential, as Dominique is aware that her boss maintains a strict level of hierarchy with regard to her employees. Dominique needs to break this down if she hopes to win over Emilienne. Although the reader suspects Dominique’s malicious intentions more and more throughout the novel, Dominique’s true motivations are not revealed until her ultimate confrontation with Joseph near the end of the novel: “I had a very carefully devised plan to win you back, a plan that your wife hastened without even knowing it” (187)—a plan she sees as a weapon to blackmail Joseph into leaving his wife so that she will have him exclusively for herself. Dominique asserts, “I demand that you leave your wife in the next twenty-four hours. . . . If you refuse, know that I will tell the world that your wife is a lesbian” (186).

  Emilienne views her relationship with Dominique very differently from the beginning, as she concludes that she has never lived such intimately fulfilling moments with a man. However, the relationship seems less about a sincere love for a woman and more about three things—revolt, a “psycho-sentimental awakening” (162), and narcissism—but not a healthy narcissism that is associated with and essential to romantic love. Although Emilienne may seem more genuine about the relationship than Dominique, realistically, both women are using each other selfishly, and each has little consideration for the feelings of the other in the end. Rawiri writes about Emilienne, “Masturbation was not her thing. She always felt the need for physical contact. And as Dominique’s body was similar to her own, it allowed her not only to rediscover herself, but also to provide her with a certain balance. This forbidden relationship was like a drug, and she knew that its sudden withdrawal would make her completely crazy” (162).

  Indeed, Rawiri’s words, “forbidden relationship,” reflect the taboos associated with homosexuality in African society (taboos that still exist, unfortunately, to a greater or lesser extent in most societies), but considering the fact that Rawiri presents Emilienne as a rebellious and even disobedient protagonist in terms of what society dictates, the reader is left to ask himself or herself at the end why Rawiri did not seize the opportunity here to defy yet another taboo. It is surprising, actually, that Emilienne comes to feel ashamed about her relationship with Dominique, calling it a “dirty chapter in my life” (179) and asking herself, “How could I have fallen so low?” (179). These sentiments seem inconsistent with the character that Rawiri has presented to the reader thus far. At the point where Emilienne decides to break off her relationship with Dominique, the former is still completely unaware of her secretary’s ruse. Yet, Emilienne’s manner of breaking up is far from sensitive. She immediately reinstates the social hierarchy between superior and secretary and gives only minimal, matter-of-fact reasons for the breakup, stating that the relationship is not “appropriate” and that it negatively affects others close to them. “In any case, for those who are dear to us, we can no longer keep our relationship
going” (185). When Dominique protests, Emilienne treats her as an insubordinate employee: “Listen, little girl, this problem is my business. From now on I forbid you to meddle in it. Do you understand?” (185).

  If one looks at other examples of intimate relationships between women in African writing, such as in the Cameroonian author Calixthe Beyala’s earliest works, C’est le soleil qui m’a brûlée (1987; The Sun Hath Looked upon Me, 1996) and Tu t’appelleras Tanga (1988; Your Name Shall Be Tanga, 1996), one finds that Beyala’s style of writing offers a more objective view of these relationships and leaves the freedom of interpretation to the reader without imposing the author’s own moral judgment. This does not imply, however, that Beyala has no strong feelings about the subject. In fact, Beyala has often categorically denied that relationships between Irène and Ateba in C’est le soleil and between Tanga and Anna-Claude in Tu t’appelleras Tanga are examples of lesbianism. In an interview with Eloise Brière and Rangira Gallimore,13 Beyala stated with conviction, “I think that those who see lesbianism in my writings are quite simply perverted, because tenderness between women doesn’t necessarily imply lesbianism. How can one explain to Westerners that in traditional Africa, intimate relationships between people of the same sex are not defined in terms of homosexuality?” (199).

  While there is no shortage of scholars who have spoken about lesbianism in Beyala’s two works (Ndinda; Bjornson),14 others, such as Rangira Gallimore and Nicki Hitchcott,15 have placed Beyala’s writings within Adrienne Rich’s “lesbian continuum,” which, according to Rich, includes a range “of woman-identified experience, not simply the fact that a woman has had or consciously desired genital sexual experience with another woman” (317). Indeed, one can also apply this same analysis to the relationship between Emilienne and Dominique in The Fury. However, unlike Beyala, who never specifically uses the term “lesbianism” in either of her works,16 Rawiri takes away this ambiguity by having her characters state the term unequivocally—to cite just one example, “I will tell the world that your wife is a lesbian” (186). Scholars as well as general readers are thus forced to address Rawiri’s precision in terms in their analyses. Kassa, for example, labels the relationship “circumstantial lesbianism” (139). Clerc and Nzé once again cite the inspiration of radical American feminism that motivates Rawiri to take on the “problem of feminine homosexuality” in The Fury, but they claim that more than anything else, such intimacy is “a way of compensating for a loss of tenderness on the part of the husband” (263). Cazenave also speaks of a “lesbian relationship” between Emilienne and Dominique, stating, “Lesbian love is presented as a dead-end, since the liaison is shown only in its relations to social taboos and mechanisms” (32). However, Annie-Paul Boukandou provides perhaps a multifaceted interpretation of this particular relationship and what it contributes both to The Fury and to the African feminist novel in general. In her essay “Personnages et discours féminin dans le roman gabonais” (Characters and feminine discourse in the Gabonese novel), Boukandou applauds novels like The Fury that are open to change. That is, despite the shortcomings one may find in the way Rawiri chooses to handle the homoerotic relationship between Emilienne and Dominique, such a novel “produces a new type of woman free in her emotions, and free in the way she uses her body” (122). The fact that Rawiri can touch on such a subject in her novel at all proves that open-mindedness is becoming more the norm in a new, modern age. Women, in fact, can and do have loving relationships with each other (Boukandou 122–23). Thus, taboo subjects need to be raised. Although not every reader will be pleased with the end result, the fact that Rawiri has introduced the topic is in itself radical, especially in 1989.

  In addition to the issues mentioned above, Rawiri also briefly touches upon public health issues such as malaria (163–64) and HIV/AIDS, two afflictions that continue to ravage the African continent today. Although HIV/AIDS does not directly affect any of the major characters in The Fury, Rawiri finds a way to present the subject through a frail-looking patient Emilienne observes in her physician’s waiting room (119). Although it is never confirmed whether the young woman Emilienne sees suffers from the disease, the encounter starts a chain of reflections: “AIDS had been ravaging African populations for a dozen years. In point of fact, who had definitive proof of its origin? Whatever it may be, we would no longer attribute all those mysterious deaths to witchcraft” (119). HIV/AIDS is yet another taboo subject that has surfaced in African literature only recently. Perhaps Rawiri’s novel was a precursor to those whose protagonists are specifically victims of this disease, such as in the case of Chantal Magalie Mbazoo Kassa’s 2005 novel Sidonie.

  Finally, Rawiri must be applauded for her detailed commentary on the problem of tribalism in former African colonies. Tribalism is more commonly the domain of male writers, but in this instance, Rawiri has again distinguished herself among female authors along with her compatriot Honorine Ngou, author of the essay “Le tribalisme: Le virus qui tue la paix” (2003; Tribalism: The virus that kills peace). The interethnic marriage of Emilienne and Joseph serves as the backdrop for this serious discussion that takes up the better part of the first chapter in The Fury. Rawiri draws many conclusions throughout, most lauding the richness of multiculturalism and praising those citizens “motivated by the same spirit in the interest of our country” (16).

  The Fury and Cries of Women is a novel that continues to ignite debate and passion. While Rawiri’s work is a true representation of the African novel, it will nonetheless have international appeal as it is reintroduced in English translation to a twenty-first-century audience. On a personal level, readers will relate to its depictions of complicated relationships (heterosexual and same-sex), infidelity, and love triangles affecting everyday lives. Emilienne’s story functions to show that education and career do not necessarily guarantee personal happiness and emphasizes the often superficial interactions of the nouveaux riches. In an increasingly globalized world, government and corporate corruption, interethnic conflict, violence against adults and children, malpractice, and extortion are ever-present, universal realities of which readers are also aware. The novel’s ability to capture the interest of a new generation of readers attests to its originality and versatility. Thanks in part to the publication of Sara Hanaburgh’s new translation as part of the CARAF series of the University of Virginia Press, this novel has certainly reserved itself a place among other essential works in African literature.

  Notes

  1. The mvet and the olendé are both rich oral traditions, from the Fang and Mbédé ethnic groups, respectively, offering some of the most renowned epic poetry in Africa.

  2. Werewere Liking is virtually the only well-known exception to this rule. A resident of Abidjan for more than thirty years, Liking is self-taught in French language, literature, and culture, having received a traditional Bassa education during her childhood and adolescence in her native Cameroon.

  3. El Hadj Omar Bongo Ondimba was Gabon’s president from 1967 until 2009. Gabon’s speaker of the senate at the time of Omar Bongo’s death, Rose Francine Rogombé, was appointed interim president for three months until elections were held. Omar Bongo’s son, Ali Ben Bongo, allegedly won these elections, but the results were disputed in some regions of Gabon, especially in Port-Gentil.

  4. My gratitude to the Gabonese writer Edna Merey Apinda, who translated the meaning of Rawiri’s name, Ntyugwétondo, from the Omyènè into French, “le jour qu’on aime,” which I in turn translated into “the beloved day.”

  5. With the exception of quotations from The Fury and Cries of Women that come from Sara Hanaburgh’s translation, all quotations from the French in this afterword are my own translation, unless otherwise noted.

  6. When asked during the 1988 Amina interview if she encountered any difficulties publishing, Rawiri answered, “No. I must admit that it was rather easy. Friends who were journalists helped me out by putting me in contact with an editor” (10). Rawiri was also asked whether during the writing
of her first novel she was aware that she would become the first novelist of Gabon, to which she replied, “No, I hadn’t thought about that. I was rather taken up by my reflections, my doubts, my worries, my fears. When the novel came out, I found out that I was the first novelist” (10).

  7. In his essay, Mendame actually notes Elonga’s publication date as 1985, and thus I have corrected it here. One finds such mistakes quite commonly because the first printing of Elonga was not well-distributed, and it was not until the novel’s second printing that scholars began to take notice; some were even unaware of the first printing, and thus the confusion over its publication date.

  8. A March 2011 interview in Libreville with the author Sylvie Ntsame, who was at the time the president of the Union des Écrivains Gabonais (UDEG), reported fifty known published authors in Gabon, and half of this number was female.