Politics through Three Prisms
A Final Essay by Erin Krebs
American Literature in the World
Professor Wai Chee Dimock
Yale College Spring 2015
Politics through Three Prisms
As light travels through a prism, it is refracted and dispersed into different streams of
colors. The journey and the framework determine the colored perspective it offers. Through
literature, authors construct prisms that reintroduce us to the functions of the world around us,
including that of politics. Authors, through the ways that they choose to reveal geopolitical
context, reveal the characters’ relationships with their cultural identities and the implications of
citizenship. Dave Eggers and Valentino Achak Deng’s What is the What, Barbara Kingsolver’s
The Poisonwood Bible, and Junot Díaz’ The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao present
narratives that unveil geopolitical conflict through extremely different tactics. Deng partners with
author Dave Eggers to craft a novel with Deng as the narrator and delves into his life as a
refugee. As Eggers’ narrator reminisces and delivers mini-lectures on Sudanese politics to
apathetic bystanders and Kingsolver uses mainly naive narrators to paint the Congolese
independence as the backdrop of a new life, Diaz’s explanation of politics is presented through
the ever-present, timeless dictator of Trujillo.
As the story of a refugee, Dave Egger’s What is the What: The Autobiography of
Valentino Achak Deng is laced with feelings of rejection, of being ignored. The ethnic conflict
between the Dinka, the black African peoples of the Southern Sudan, and the Arab militia, the
murahaleen (Arabic for travel), is a specifically Sudanese conflicts and determined his status as
refugee. The two ways the politics of the Second Sudanese Civil War (1983- 2005), are
gradually given to the audience is similar to the novel’s flashback structure. As the novel flips
between Deng’s story in the refugee camps of Africa and his life as a refugee in Georgia, the
revelation of politics shifts from that of a childhood naivete to a justification for his need to be
Deng initially experiences the conflict at this micro-level of ethnic conflict. He
reconstructs his childhood understanding of the conflict in a particularly symbolic scene in which
his father’s Arabic trading partner Sadiq forces him to get on a horse and to praise Allah, though
Deng is not Muslim. The horse, an animal integral to the Arabic culture, bites him, which leaves
him feeling embittered. The ethnic tension is largely foreshadowed, but it is palpable for the
reader in the unnerving, childhood experience of Deng.
When Deng’s apartment is robbed by a couple, they leave a boy named Michael to keep
watch and through his interactions with Michael, a young, tough black male, Deng begins to
vocalize the context of his story in a didactic way to a boy who sits watch for the two robbers.
Deng feels frustrated by the boy’s willingful ignorance, though the boy embodies a somewhat
comparable experience of a rough childhood. First, he brings up the initial presence of Arabic
influence. He earnestly counters the basic explanation of this conflict that he admits that the Lost
Boys themselves have perpetuated, the narrative that oversimplifies the abrupt presence of Arabs
“ Yes, sharia had been imposed, in a sweeping series of laws called the September Laws.
But the new order had not reached our town, and there was doubt that it would. More
crucial was the government’s tearing up of the 1972 Addis Ababa agreement, which gave
the south a degree of self-rule. In its place the south was divided into three regions, which
effectively pitted each of them against the others, with no region left with any significant
government power at all” ( Eggers 34).
It is unclear whether the isolated and repressed Deng is actually completely vocalizing this
history to Michael or he is only thinking this. This summary is “delivered” to Michael until the
narrator realizes that Michael is blatantly ignoring him and silences him. Dut’s, a leader of the
“Lost” boys, delivers a mini-lecture about the British to Deng as a young boy, which blends
Eggers’ two modes of revealing context.
Dut lectures to the boys about the British and Egyptian desire to control the Sudan for the
Nile River. When introducing the British, Dut frames them as almighty in the global political
sphere. The narrator retains this knowledge, reconstructs his childhood ignorance and compares
the British to powerful Arab militiamen, “thinking of the murahaleen, but larger versions of
them” (108). Dut speaks of the British as a positive influence on the South Sudan, for they bring
education to the Sudan. Ultimately, however, the British end up relinquishing their power to
focus on other global conflicts at the time. Dut describes to the young Valentino by decreeing,
“Your fate, all of our fates, were sealed fifty years ago by a small group of people from England.
They had every ability to draw a line between north and south, but they were convinced by the
Arabs not to” (109). The British presence is ultimately characterized supreme and yet
simultaneously as irresponsible and easily tricked by the conniving Arabs. In a retrospective
sense, the global players of this novel are often condemned as fools, despite their massive
Eggers continues to set the political stage by telling his story to those who seem to be
rejecting his struggles as he begins discussing the presence of oil in the Sudanese narrative. It is
clear that he attempts to attach weight to his tales by adding the international element. While at
the hospital, he tries to secure the attention of Julian, a friendly but busy nurse. Deng recounts
the importance of George H W Bush, whom he speaks about as a well-known American figure,
and his involvement in the discovery of oil deposits in the Sudan. He reveals that when the
deposits were found, their presence challenged the north-south division of the Sudan and the
ownership of resources. This leads to the removal of the Nuer people in the areas of oil to avoid
interference, which includes the family of the protagonist’s friend Lino. Achak is aware of the
significance of oil retrospectively and reflects on this time period with a reclamatory sense of
what was occurring him as his childhood world began to fall apart. Retrospective knowledge
allows him to no longer be a powerless child. The Poisonwood Bible depicts encounters with a
similarly controversial natural resource, diamond, and colonialism and their holds on the lives of
The Poisonwood Bible is told from the perspective of outsiders, and thus the conflict of
the Congo is initially relegated to an inferior importance in their personal narratives. As a white,
Christian family from the American South, the Price’s know very little of the country they come
to change. This unawareness is integral to the novel’s exploration of geopolitical conflict because
it allows the learning to manifest differently and gradually within each of the narrators, the
Price’s young daughters. The Congolese struggle for independence is woven as a plot point of
added conflict into the domestic interactions and contentious relationships of this novel.
The novel’s first chapter is a regretful introduction by the Price mother, Orleanna.
Orleanna reveals retrospectively her sense of the African nation as colored by her own guilt. The
post-colonial status of Africa is revealed through her own admission of shame regarding her and
her family’s actions; for example, she considers what an uncolonized Africa could have been
like. Orleanna continues to emotionally describe the Congo’s importance in the 1960s, as a
territory being fought for behind locked doors (Kingsolver 8), but she distinctly claims her own
presence in these moments. Notably, Orleanna’s retrospective connection to geopolitical conflict
is laced with extreme accountability.
“You’ll say I walked across Africa with my wrists unshackled and now I am one more
soul walking free in a white skin, wearing some thread of the stolen goods: cotton or
diamonds, freedom at the very least, prosperity. Some of us know how we came by our
fortune, and some of us don’t, but we wear it all the same. There’s only one question
worth asking now: How do we aim to live with it?” (9).
The goods of the African continent symbolize this extreme burden of culpability that the self-
criminalizing Orleanna continues to hold for feeling as though she attempted to conquer the
The youthful, Christian lens of Leah is the first lens of the daughters the reader sees the
Congo through. For their domineering Baptist missionary father, Nathan Price, the austerity of
the small Congolese town that the family would be working in, Kilanga, is an alluring quality.
Ironically, Nathan asserts that there “will be no buyers and sellers at all” (13), which is soon
directly refuted by the immediate, macro-scale presence of the diamonds being smuggled on
their plane. This excites his devout daughter and reveals that Nathan price’s initial understanding
of the Congo is a selfish one, as a fulfillment of his Christian desires. Leah’s idealized
relationship with her Father and Christianity skews her expectation of the Congo; for example,
she finds herself shocked by the guns adorned by the airport police (16). Leah’s commentaries
confirm her impendingly unachievable Congolese fantasy when interacting with the
missionaries. The missionaries describe the challenges of a stagnated village, the lack of proper
medical attention and sufficient education system, which deeply distresses her, who “expected
everything: jungle flowers, wild roaring beasts. God’s Kingdom in its pure, unenlightened glory”
The author does not initially describe the Congolese context with much specificity,
reflecting the youthful narrators’ probable awareness. Ruth May, the youngest of the Price
sister’s, reveals in her description that she had realized that the plane they were traveling in
carried diamonds, which is the first allusion to the African diamond industry. Mr. Eeben
Axelroot, and immoral pilot, told Nathan Price that within the bags was commercially used gold,
but Ruth identifies the “rocks” as diamonds. The author does not proceed to describe to the
audience the significance of the diamond industry in the Belgian Congo. The audience can only
infer based upon former knowledge of the trade and the severity of the situation implied by
Axelroot’s threat. Axelroot assures that if Ruth May tells, “why then God would make Mama get
sick and die” (119) and binds her to silence. The author constructs a clear significance for these
diamonds, but without larger context, the reader only assumes its importance to Axelroot. Ruth
May’s naive perspective continues to deliver us the next references to the Congolese context.
The next time the colonialist presence and the Congolese diamond industry is confronted
in this novel, it is revealed through heated dialogue shared by Nathan Price and a Belgian. The
physician is not being instructive, but he does quite candidly criticize Belgian’s role in the
Congo. This conversation begins with an unexplained reference to political figure Patrice
Lumumba, who would become the first prime minister of the Democratic Republic of the Congo.
From this quick exchange, it can be gleaned that Lumumba seems to be causing a social uprising
of some sort in the nation, to be growing in popularity, and to be a dangerous force in the eyes of
Price and the Belgian doctor. The doctor’s response to the mention of Lumumba is, “Lord help
us” (120), which both supports the notion of a remaining Belgian antipathy towards the chaotic
nature of an emerging Congolese sovereignty as well as propels Price and the doctor towards a
Nathan Price asserts that his purpose in the Congo is of a higher, spiritual importance, but
the Belgian doctor quite casually refutes this vainglorious mentality. He incorporates the Belgian
rubber industry, which was established during the reign of King Leopold II of Belgium, who
owned the Congo as a “personal concession” after the Berlin West Africa Conference. The
Belgians utilized the Congo’s rubber tree resource and enslaved the Congolese people to sustain
the growing industrial economies of America and Europe. He comments
“We Belgians made slaves of them and cut off their hands in the rubber plantations. Now
you Americans have them for a slave wage in the mines and let them cut off their own
hands. And you, my friend, are stuck with the job of trying to make amens” (121).
Here, Kingsolver reveals a thinker who is extremely frank regarding colonial inequities. This
speaker does not attempt to palliate the Belgian history. For example, the Belgian mutilation of
the Congolese hands refers to the tactic of King Leopold’s armies to cut off the hands of the
rubber slaves to enforce production quotas. It is a stark contrast from the apologetic and
remorseful tone of Orleanna Price’s introductory passage, the first time this situation is
mentioned and furthermore characterized as exploitative. The Belgian perspective it that the
American presence in the Congo is not morally superior, and that Nathan Price is a merely there
to make the apologies. Interestingly, it is to be inferred that Ruth May misunderstands the last
sentiment that the Doctor communicates because she reports the use of the religious word she
would probably have understand as “amens”, which would more likely and ironically be a
utilization of the word “amends” (121), or reparations for wrongdoings.
Nathan Price takes offense to this flagrant reduction of his holy purpose and retorts that
American influence was the force behind Congolese “civilization”, which he later awkwardly
constitutes as the railroads. The doctor responds, “I do not like to contradict, but in seventy-five
years the only roads the Belgians ever built are the one they use to haul out diamonds and
rubber” (122). The acceptance of sociopolitical accountability Orleanna addresses earlier is seen
once more; the doctor confirms the Belgian self-serving role in the Congo and goes on to
furthermore unveil the Belgian policies of restricting education from the public. Notably, the
doctor alludes to the impending violent nature of this change of power by a very pragmatic
statement that the people of the Congo so appreciate Lumumba’s nonviolent approach to
independence that they rioted and ultimately killed twelve people. Kingsolver, once again,
utilizes “reported dialogue” which has been crafted to foreshadow larger political strife.
As Dave Eggers uses protagonist’s Valentino’s status as direct victim of the Sudanese
crisis, Kingsolver employs the character Anatole Ngemba, a former child slave on a rubber
plantation and then in a diamond mine to further comment on the geopolitical nature of the
industry. As Anatole grows closer to the daughters, the emerging interactions force the
Congolese politics to be of greater significance to the girls. Rachel, the personification of
American material culture and the oldest of the daughters, introduces the reader to the
multilingual town tutor and political activist. Rachel communicates to the audience a familiar
shame, and thinks of Marilyn Monroe crooning “Diamonds Are a Girl’s Best Friend” when
Anatole shares his biography, stating that he toiled in Katanga, where one-fourth of the global
supply of diamonds is sourced from. Upon realization of the gruesome nature of the manual
labor Anatole endured, Rachel decides to repress her awareness of the situation. She rejects the
political as personal and her actions contribute to a larger culture of consumerism.
As the first concern of the girls become that of their own safety, Kingsolver continues to
subtly weave in major geopolitical events through reported dialogue, but it seems the girls begin
to pay more attention to the issues surrounding them. The second half of the section of the novel
entitled “The Revelation” is focused almost entirely on the unraveling turbulent Independence of
Congo of May 1960; it takes place over a casual dinner conversation, a similarly routine
interaction like the doctor’s visit. Firstly, with Rachel as narrator, the Underdowns reveal to the
Prices the anticipation that the Congo will have an election in May and declare their
independence in June. The Underdowns also denounce the USSR as a global player with the
potential for takeover, and state that the great worry concerns Africans taking over Africa.
Though Rachel goes initially unscathed by this news, her parents reaction is deeply felt. Rachel
describes, “… she just blanched out and kind of stopped breathing. She put her hand on her throat
like she’d swallowed a shot of Mr. Clean, and that look scared me. I started paying attention”
(162). The dialogue reveals the shaky plan for granting independence, and Orleanna becomes the
voice of commentary as she uncontrollably condemns the abusive Belgian-Congolese relations
and the lack of a political interim period or a safe shift in power. The power does indeed change
ownership, and though Lumumba wins, Nathan Price does not allow his family to leave.
For Leah, the effect of the newfound independence is a concern for finances because the
Prices become extremely impoverished. The character of Anatole continues to serve as a didactic
tool for the reader as he communicates the succession of the Katanga province under the
leadership of Moise Tshombe and the controversial possibility of aid from Nikita Kruschev and
the USSR. Once again, the growing closeness of Anatole and a daughter’s relationship also
personalizes the political, as he and Leah heatedly discuss the role that the trade plays in the lives
of the Congolese. Anatole poignantly communicates the Congolese desire for self-definition,
proclaiming in reference to neighbors “That is Congo. Not minerals and glittering rocks with no
hearts, these things that are traded behind our backs. The Congo is us. (231). If The Poisonwood
Bible reminds its readers that people’s livers are more important than the geopolitical players at
large, The Brief and Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao paints a different society in which one
dictator’s dominance is larger than life itself.
The personalized significance of the omnipresent figure of dictator Rafael Trujillo
cannot be overstated in Junot Díaz’ novel The Brief and Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao. The
political and personal is almost indistinguishable and this fusion is a clear goal of Díaz. Though
almost all political context is channeled through Trujillo, he is not characterized as a government
figure in the realm of the novel, but rather an antagonistic character marked by his extreme,
authoritative libido and his spiritual connection to “fuku”, the destructive curse he has brought
upon the Dominican Republic. Almost initially, narrator Yunior emphatically states,
“ For those of you who missed your mandatory two seconds of Dominican history:
Trujillo, one of the twentieth century’s most infamous dictators, ruled the Dominican
Republic between 1930 and 1961 with an implacable ruthless brutality. A portly, sadistic,
pig-eyed mulato who bleached his skin, wore platform shoes, and had a fondness for
Napoleon-era haberdashery, Trujillo (also known as El Jefe [The Boss], the Failed Cattle
Thief, and Fuckface) came to control nearly every aspect of the DR’s political, social, and
economic life through a potent (and familiar) mixture of violence, intimidation, massacre,
rape, co-optation, and terror ( Díaz 3).
This clarification that comes in the form of a much lengthier footnote allows the reader to glean
two things about this narrator. Firstly, Yunior feels as though this story cannot be told
completely without the reader’s sense of Trujillo’s identity. Secondly, the narrator relates to
Trujillo in an unconstrained, direct manner despite the cosmic proportions that he attributes to
Trujillo’s presence is felt directly as a constant threat to the lives of all characters, even
posthumously, because of this supernatural embodiment. Yunior describes “It was believed, even
in educated circles, that anyone who plotted against Trujillo would incur a fukú most powerful,
down to the seventh generation, and beyond (3). The de Leon family demonstrates this sentiment
by choosing the origin of their family history to be the moment of vocalized dissidence against
Trujillo ( 213). This foreshadows the omniscience of the colloquial discussion of “fuku” which
leads the author to his first discussion of the global political context of Trujillo’s reign,
specifically the nature of American-Dominican interactions. President John F. Kennedy is
lambasted for having orchestrated the assassination of Trujillo in 1961. The narrator continues to
assert that the “Curse of the Kennedys” as well as the American loss in the Vietnam War can be
attributed to American aggression against the Dominican Republic, against the spirit of Trujillo.
The construction of a strong sentiment of other-worldly power continues to grow, as Section II of
the novel begins with a quote from “La Nación”, a Dominican newspaper and source of
propaganda stating “Men are not indispensable. But Trujillo is irreplaceable. For Trujillo is not a
man. He is… a cosmic force…” (204).
In conjunction with the supernatural elements of Trujillo, the worldly interactions with
Trujillo and his regime establish the framework of this plot, which differs greatly from the
removed nature of the “political figure” status in What is the What. The Poisonwood Bible does
include reference to Lumumba, but more as a symbol of rising hope for Africa and not as a
character. Trujillo appears in a series of vignettes that traverse time, depicting multiple
generations of Oscar’s family in connection to Trujillo. Oscar’s grandfather, Abelard Cabral, is a
dissident of Trujillo’s and lives in perpetual fear of Trujillo’s sexual proclivity for his beautiful,
physically mature daughter Jacquelyn. Díaz reflects that Trujillo “… had hundreds of spies whose
entire job was to scour the provinces for his next piece of ass…” (217); his political power
endows him with the ability to have sex with whomever he so desires. Trujillo requests
Jacquelyn’s presence at a social function, but Abelard fears for his daughter and shields her from
this. The author distinctly characterizes their relationship as one-on-one. He fears “Trujillo and
Company” (218), not a local police force or his cronies. Abelard is ultimately imprisoned for
dissidence against Trujillo. Belicia, Oscar’s mother, also experiences a very close interaction
with the dictator through her relationship with “The Gangster”, a wealthy, connected but
mysterious man who helps to execute assassinations. Belicia becomes pregnant by him, but “The
Gangster” turns out to be the husband of Trujillo’s sister, who employs gangsters to violently
assault Belicia as representatives of the Trujillo family.
It is no coincidence that the three novels examined all heavily deal with the concept of
fate as well, for the powerlessness. In The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao, it is an extremely
supernatural depiction and the Trujillo possesses a deliberate connection to the lives of these
civilians. However, through What is the What’s utilization of a reconstructive and reclamatory
perspective, the narrator allows us the reader to truly understand the powerlessness he felt as a
refugee and the knowledge he has gained of the world since fleeing. The Poisonwood Bible
immerses the reader into the world of the Congo through reported dialogue and quick references,
and like the daughters of the Price family, the reader learns to make sense of the conflict for
themselves. Still, global power in these novels is ultimately juxtaposed as the background for
everyday life, for the human experience. The triumph of the thoughts of the distinctive, maturing
Price daughters or of Oscar Wao falling in love repeatedly as the plots of these novels, rather
than descriptions of their sociopolitical contexts reminds their readers that the human spirit is not
crushed. The experiences of conflict are not homogenized, they are, in fact, immortalized and
restored with the power which was once taken from these individuals. As narrator Yunior
recalls, “Nothing ever ends” (331).
Works Cited
Diaz, Junot. The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao. New York: Riverhead, 2007. Print.
Eggers, Dave and Valentino Achak Deng. What is the What: The Autobiography of Valentino
Achak Deng. San Francisco: McSweeney’s, 2006. www.125books.com. Web. 15 April 2015.
Kingsolver, Barbara. The Poisonwood Bible: A Novel. New York : HarperPerennial, 1999,