📚 Need a custom study guide on any literary text? Get the best study guide money can buy from us at Literature PADI! Detailed, insightful, and crafted by literature experts to give you maximum value for your money.
[See Pricing & Details!]
Overview
Xala by Ousmane Sembène is a social realism novel set in the early 1970’s in Dakar, Senegal. The novel was first published in French in 1973 and later translated into English in 1976.
The major characters in the novel include:
- El Hadji Abdou Kader Beye, a businessman
- Adja Awa Astou, his first wife
- Oumi N’Doye, his second wife
- N’Gone, his third wife
- Rama, his daughter
- Modu, his chauffeur
- Yay Bineta, N’Gone’s aunt
- Sereen Mada, a marabout, or holy man
- The Beggar
Plot Summary of Xala
Xala begins with the celebration of the appointment of an African as president of the Chamber of Commerce and Industry. The characters celebrated and congratulated one another on the appointment. With an African presiding over the chamber, El Hadji Abdou Kader Beye and his fellow businessmen felt they could acquire greater economic control in Senegal, now that the last vestige of foreign rule had been removed. Seated at the right of the newly appointed president, El Hadji rose amid the jubilation inspired by this propitious moment and reminded his colleagues that, while they had been celebrating, his third marriage “had been sealed” at the mosque. He had become a captain according to traditional standards of nobility. Together, they all left the chamber to accompany El Hadji to his third wife’s home, where the wedding festivities were in full progress.
Yay Bineta officiated proudly over the bustling crowd of guests which had already gathered for N’Gone’s postnuptial celebration. She watched as the women examined enviously the numerous wedding gifts El Hadji had presented to his new young wife as tokens of love. El Hadji had not disappointed her expectations.
Sadly, Adja Awa Astou and Oumi N’Doye observed this grand reception held in honor of their new co-wife. After having made a sufficient show of acceptance of this third marriage, Adja departed. Back at her villa, she reflected on her own unhappiness provoked by renewed feelings of abandonment. Her daughter, Rama, who was vehemently opposed to the marriage and to polygamy, tried in vain to console her mother.
At N’Gone’s villa, El Hadji’s arrival with his entourage of businessmen caused an even greater stir of excitement among the guests. In the middle of the peals of laughter, loud music, and dancing, the lights went out, and the newly wedded couple slipped away to their bedroom, where El Hadji prepared himself to “deflower” his bride.
The next morning, Yay Bineta returned to N’Gone’s villa in the company of an old woman. She entered the couple’s room and observed El Hadji seated on the edge of the bed, while N’Gone sat gazing with a blank stare. El Hadji revealed that nothing had happened during the night. Struck with dismay at the announcement of this unwanted turn of events in her social victory, Yay Bineta blamed El Hadji, who had refused, beforehand, to take traditional precautions. Yay Bineta insisted that El Hadji go see a marabout to help rid himself of xala, the spell of impotency.
El Hadji could not believe that he had been inflicted with xala. He thought about his wives, Adja and Oumi. He wondered if one of them could have been the author of his affliction. Desirous to become potent again, El Hadji confided in the president of the chamber and, later, in his father-in-law Baboucar. On their advice, El Hadji sought out a number of reputed marabouts, healers and diviners, all of whom provided him with ineffective cures and useless clues for discovering the author of his xala.
While in pursuit of a cure, El Hadji increasingly neglected his business affairs, especially avoiding contact with the other businessmen. Burdened with the expense of the three villas and the financial demands of his wives and children, he continued to spend extravagantly, paying no attention to the declining state of his finances. He suffered immensely, convinced that his colleagues talked secretly about his xala. Previously overcome by his desire to possess the young N’Gone, El Hadji now saw her as a bitter reminder of his own seduction into the third marriage and his present miserable condition. His driver, Modu, also knew about El Hadji’s xala. Moved by his employer’s profound look of sadness, the chauffeur finally told him about the renowned marabout, Sereen Mada.
Sereen Mada lived in a small village outside the bustling capital of Dakar. Accustomed to the amenities of life in the capital, El Hadji resigned himself to make the painstaking journey. Sereen Mada did not disappoint his guest. As the holy man murmured prayerful incantations over his body, El Hadji felt the return of those pleasurable sensations which had previously deserted him. Modu’s boss paid the marabout by check. Happy that he was no longer impotent, El Hadji returned to Dakar. With his virility restored, El Hadji felt he could now consummate his new marriage. He arrived at N’Gone’s villa and was greeted by Yay Bineta with the announcement that N’Gone was having her menstrual period and was, therefore, unavailable. Filled with a sense of defeat, he dismissed the idea of wasting his passion on Adja, who fulfilled her conjugal duty with indifference. To her supreme delight, Oumi enjoyed a passionate night with El Hadji.
El Hadji returned to work and discovered that his financial affairs were in great jeopardy. Distraught over the disintegration of his life, El Hadji failed to recognize Sereen Mada, who had come to return his worthless check. Angered by El Hadji’s display of disrespect, Sereen Mada quickly restored his xala.
El Hadji suffered the loss of his business, expulsion from the chamber, and the breakup of his marriages to N’Gone and Oumi. In the depths of his despair, he sought refuge with Adja.
Days later, followed by a throng of cripples, blind persons, and others inflicted with all sorts of maladies, the beggar approached Adja’s villa. In the presence of everyone, the beggar recounted how El Hadji had taken his clan’s land by fraudulent means. The beggar, the real author of El Hadji’s xala, declared that he could restore his potency. At the mercy of the beggar, El Hadji submitted to the scourge of humiliation inflicted upon him by the beggar’s followers, who spat in turn upon his naked body.
Analysis of Xala
Summary: The themes in Xala are impotency (both societal and personal), economic exploitation of the poor, polygamy, emotional distance, paranoia, neocolonialism, and religious profiteering.
An internationally acclaimed writer and filmmaker, Ousmane Sembène (1923 – 2007), a self-taught man, was considered one of the most prolific authors of his time. In search of employment, Sembène went to France, where he wrote and published his first work, Le docker noir (1956; The Black Docker), which launched his literary career. Over the next thirty years, he wrote six major novels, published several short stories, and directed and produced five films based on his own literary works.
Often referred to as a modern-day griot, a term designating the traditional African storyteller, Sembène dramatized the sociopolitical issues that affect the African people and their society. Apart from his first work, Sembène’s novels are set primarily in Senegal.
Placing less emphasis on his former preoccupation with the effects of French influence on African society, the author then concentrated largely on the issues of corruption, poverty, illiteracy, and other social ills perpetuated by the African elite at the expense of the poorer classes. Preceding Le Dernier de 1’empire (1981; The Last of the Empire), Xala focuses, in particular, on the leadership of post-independence Senegal.
The forcefulness of Sembène’s criticism is intensely conveyed through the symbolic connection established between xala and the impotency of the Senegalese leadership. A profoundly powerful work, Xala illustrates the use of traditional elements, a technique frequently used by the author in his works, to create a unique narrative style. The sense of a parable is effectively developed through the unanticipated decline of El Hadji’s business affairs. The introductory scene evokes a false sense of optimism by the new African masters. The move from the national context to the personal situation of El Hadji serves to confront the hero with the true reality of life in Senegal.
The majority of the story focuses on El Hadji’s unhappy married life. The occasional flashbacks interspersed throughout the story recall the familiar stylistic use of the historical past as a means to illuminate events of the present. The symbolic representation of the three wives underscores the relevance of the past to the present. Adja abandons Catholicism and converts to Islam to marry El Hadji. Her return to the old ways and her aspirations to be a model Muslim wife represent, in part, a retrogressive Africa which refuses to confront the changes of modern times. Oumi’s exaggerated imitation of French values exposes the excessive materialism adopted by members of the middle class. Representative of the younger generation, N’Gone becomes a pawn in the hands of her elders and, consequently, forfeits the opportunity to act as a progressive agent of change within society.
El Hadji’s distant relationship with his three wives focuses special attention on the problem of polygamy. Adja and Oumi feel emotionally and physically abandoned. Rama, the oldest child, attempts to express her dissatisfaction openly. Her small protest is squelched with a slap in the face by her father, who states that she “can be a revolutionary at the university or in the street but not in [his] house.” Rama realizes, eventually, that she is powerless to improve her mother’s moral plight.
The author proceeds to expose El Hadji and the other businessmen, who are only middlemen dependent on foreign enterprises to survive. The religious leadership is subject to similar criticism in the guise of Sereen Mada, who “only worked for bosses.” The assistance that the marabout provides El Hadji serves only to promote the limited self-interest of the latter. Sembène thereby reveals how the state of impotency permeates society.
The inconspicuous presence of the beggar is skillfully intertwined in the web of intrigue. He first appears in the story on the day when El Hadji’s xala is revealed. It is only in the final pages of the story that the beggar comes to the forefront as a major character, revealing himself as the author of the xala. The novel’s main theme is expressed through the beggar’s personal indictment of El Hadji: “You and your colleagues build on the misfortunes of honest, ordinary people.” Typically, it is the common people who rise up as a potential force of change and re-vindicate their dignity and rightful place in society.
Related:
Join Our Social Media Channels:
- WhatsApp: Literature PADI
- Telegram: Literature PADI
- YouTube: @literaturepadi
- Facebook: Literature PADI
We also have two WhatsApp chatrooms with a little above 1,300 like-minded members. You can join any of them for further literary discussions:
Ensure you join one at a time to allow others to be part of our wonderful community.
