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Plot Summary of The Old Man and the Medal
The Old Man and the Medal by Ferdinand Oyono is a satirical critique of French colonialism and the Catholic Church in Africa. The story begins with Meka, an elderly and devout African man living in the village of Doum, waking up to a summons from the colonial Commandant. Meka is highly respected by the Catholic mission because he “given” his ancestral lands to the church, and he is seen as a loyal subject who lost his only two sons fighting for France in the war. The Commandant informs Meka that the “Chief of all the white men” (the High Commissioner) is coming to Doum on Bastille Day, July 14th, to personally award him a medal for his sacrifices and loyalty.
The news of the medal spreads quickly. In the neighbouring village of Zourian, Meka’s brother-in-law Engamba hears the news and decides to travel on foot to Doum with his wife Amalia and a goat named Ebogo to celebrate the occasion. Meanwhile, Meka prepares for the ceremony by purchasing an absurdly long “zazou” jacket from a local tailor and a pair of tan leather shoes that are far too tight for his deformed, wide feet.
On the day of the ceremony, the cruelty and absurdity of the colonial system become physically manifest. Meka is placed alone inside a whitewashed circle in the courtyard to wait for the white officials. He waits for over an hour in the blistering sun, enduring excruciating physical torture from his tight leather shoes, the heat, and a desperate need to urinate. Yet, he forces himself to stand stoically so as not to shame his ancestors. Eventually, the High Commissioner arrives, delivers a speech declaring that the whites and Africans are “more than friends” and “like brothers,” and pins the medal on Meka’s chest.
The utter hypocrisy of this “friendship” is exposed later that evening. Meka attends a reception at the African Community Centre, where he gets completely drunk on champagne and whisky. Emboldened by the alcohol and the speeches of “friendship,” he invites the High Commissioner to come eat his goat with him. The High Commissioner politely declines and promptly leaves with the other Europeans. Shortly after, the colonial police chief, Gullet, arrives and rudely drives the Africans out of the hall. In the chaos, Meka is pushed under a bench and falls into a deep, drunken sleep, forgotten by everyone.
He is violently awakened by a massive, apocalyptic storm that causes the Community Centre’s tin roof and walls to collapse. Meka barely escapes the wreckage and wades into the flooded, pitch-black streets. In the dark, he realises to his horror that he has lost his newly awarded medal.
Lost in the storm, Meka is suddenly blinded by a flashlight and brutally assaulted by colonial constables for loitering without a light or identification. He pleads with them. He even explains to them that he is an elder and the “friend of the Governor,” but the police mock him, kick him, and throw him into a bare, freezing, dark cell for the night.
The next morning, Meka is dragged before the police chief, Gullet, who whips him repeatedly across the shoulders before realising who he is. Gullet tries to smooth things over by offering Meka a cigarette and telling him he can go home. Meka is profoundly disillusioned. He refuses to speak to Gullet. He tells the interpreter: “I am a very great fool, who yesterday still believed in the white man’s friendship.” When Gullet tries to shake his hand, Meka refuses, pointedly showing his dirty hands and saying he doesn’t want to “dirty the white man.” In other words, he rejects the white man’s superficial friendship, having realised the total emptiness of colonial promises.
Meka walks back to his village, which has been largely destroyed by the storm. He finds his wife Kelara weeping hysterically in the dirt, bitterly lamenting that Meka essentially “sold” the lives of their two children for a worthless medal. The villagers gather in Meka’s ruined hut, and their awe of the white men turns to mockery and anger at the colonial hypocrisy. Stripped of his illusions and his pride, Meka has nothing left to say. He concludes wearily, “I’m just an old man now.”
Background of The Old Man and the Medal
Ferdinand Oyono authored the novel, which was originally published in France in 1956 under the title Le Vieux Nègre et la Médaille. It was translated into English by John Reed and published by Heinemann in 1967. Oyono is also the author of another novel, Houseboy.
The contextual background of the story is firmly rooted in French colonial Africa, specifically in the village of Doum and its neighbouring colonial town. The narrative backdrop is defined by the strict hierarchy and racial tension between the native African tribes like the Mvema and Yemvams and the French colonial administration, represented by the Commandant, the High Commissioner, and the Catholic missionaries.
The historical events shaping the world of the novel include the World Wars, as the local population remembers fighting the Germans, and Meka is specifically recognised for having lost his two sons who fought and died for France. Furthermore, the daily background of the characters’ lives is heavily dictated by colonial exploitation which include forced labour levies, the economic control of African cocoa farmers by European and Greek merchants, and strict regulations against native customs like the brewing of local alcohol.
Oyono wrote the novel against the backdrop of French colonial policy of assimilation in French Cameroon. This policy in theory aimed to turn colonised people into culturally French citizens. They are taught the French language, history, and values to be effectively absorbed into the republic. In practice, assimilation was a gatekept hierarchy. Only a tiny fraction of educated Africans achieved the status of évolués (those who had “evolved”). For the majority, like the protagonist Meka, assimilation was an illusion. They were expected to give up their lands, cultures, and lives for France, but they were never viewed or treated as equals.
The Christian missionary enterprise is inseparable from the political background of the novel. The Catholic Church in French West and Central Africa was categorically the ideological arm of the colonial state. Missionaries convinced local populations to abandon traditional ancestral beliefs, clear communal lands for parish buildings, and embrace submissive, Eurocentric Christian piety. Meka’s total devotion to the church, in particular, mirrors how religious indoctrination softened indigenous resistance before the state stripped them of their dignity. The man literally gives his ancestral land to the white priests!
Setting of The Old Man and the Medal
The Old Man and the Medal is set in a French African colony during the mid-20th century, specifically unfolding over a few days leading up to and including the French national holiday, Bastille Day (July 14th). The setting is characterised by a starkly divided physical, social, and cultural landscape.
The primary action takes place in and around Doum. Doum is divided between a rural African village where Meka lives in a wretched, leaky, raffia-thatched hut and the neighbouring colonial town. The town itself is strictly segregated into an African location and a European quarter, which dominates the area from the top of an adjacent hill. Other native villages are also featured, such as Zourian, where Meka’s brother-in-law Engamba lives, described as being “two streams, four villages, three forests and three rivers away from Doum.” Mention of soldiers from Gabon and specific African tribes (like the Mvema and Yemvams), situate the narrative firmly in Equatorial Africa.
The story is set in the post-World War II era of French colonialism. This is evidenced by the presence of a five-year-old child named “De Gaulle,” born right after the war when the general’s name was fashionable, Meka’s recognition for losing his two sons in the war, and the older villagers’ recollections of fighting the Germans.
The social setting is defined by oppressive colonial rule and economic exploitation. European administrators (like Commandant Fouconi) and Greek merchants (like Angelopoulos and Pipiniakis) control the town’s commerce and administrative power. The native Africans are primarily cocoa farmers, who face harsh realities such as forced labour levies and strict policing against local practices like the brewing and selling of native alcohol (arki).
The Catholic Mission exerts a massive influence over the physical and spiritual setting of Doum. Meka’s own village sits at the foot of the Christian cemetery, built on ancestral land he “gave” to the white missionaries. The narrative shows the tension between the imported Catholic doctrine, enforced by figures like Father Vandermayer and native catechists, and traditional African customs like polygamy and ancestor veneration.
The physical environment is deeply tropical and equatorial. The characters navigate winding paths through damp, stunted bush, dense forests, and rivers. The climate plays a pivotal role in the plot, particularly when the stifling, oppressive heat of the “dogdays at the end of the dry season” gives way to a violent, apocalyptic storm that collapses the corrugated iron African Community Centre and floods the town.
About the Author
Ferdinand Léopold Oyono was a Cameroonian writer born on September 14, 1929, in Ngoulemakong, near Ebolowa, Cameroon. He had his primary education in Cameroon before moving to France in the late 1940s to study law and political science at the University of Paris. While he is globally celebrated for his brilliant, brief literary career in the 1950s, he spent the bulk of his later life as a high-profile diplomat and politician. He served as Cameroon’s ambassador to various countries like France and the United States. He represented his country at the United Nations, and later served as a government minister, notably as the Minister of State for Culture. He passed away on June 10, 2010, in Yaoundé, Cameroon.
Oyono is a cornerstone figure of the Anti-Colonial African Literature movement of the 20th century. Writing primarily in French during the pre-independence era of the 1950s, his work directly intersects with the intellectual awakening of Francophone African intellectuals, though his style differed from the abstract poetry of the Négritude movement. Oyono’s writing is characterised by biting satire, realism, and dark humour. Instead of romanticising the African past, he chose to vividly depict the immediate, grinding hypocrisy and psychological damage of the colonial system using sharp, direct prose.
Ferdinand Oyono’s literary fame rests almost entirely on three groundbreaking novels published within a short four-year window before Cameroon achieved independence in 1960. Une vie de boy (1956), translated as Houseboy, is his debut and most famous novel. It uses a diary format to detail the life of Toundi Ondoua, a young Cameroonian who runs away from his traditional home to work for white colonial masters, only to be crushed by their moral decay and systemic violence. Le Vieux Nègre et la médaille (1956), translated as The Old Man and the Medal, was published the same year as his debut. This brilliant satire follows Meka, an elderly religious villager who has given his land to the Catholic mission and his sons to the French army. In return, the colonial administration awards him a medal of honour. The novel hilariously, and tragically, details the hollow farce of the award ceremony and the detention episode that succeeds it. It exposes the complete lack of genuine human connection or equality between the colonisers and the colonised. Chemin d’Europe (1959), translated as Road to Europe, is his final novel. It focuses on Barnabas, a young, disillusioned Cameroonian intellectual who has been expelled from a seminary. Stranded between two worlds, Barnabas becomes obsessed with escaping the stagnation of his colonial reality by finding a way to travel to Europe. The novel explores themes of alienation, cultural uprooting, and the desperate search for identity.
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