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Writing the Journey: June 1999

"Recasting the Pilgrimage: Evolution of a Divine Persona in the African Memoirs of Isak Dinesen"


Suzanne E. Guiod
University of New Hampshire
suzanne.guiod@unh.edu

Although she chose to omit significant details about her personal life, Isak Dinesen created in her African memoirs a powerful and vivid narrative about colonial Kenya at the turn of the century. While much critical attention has been paid to the autobiographical integrity of these works, and to the nostalgic feudal metaphor within the fabric of the narrative, the constructed religious hierarchy therein has been largely overlooked. Dinesen's socio-political philosophy was ambiguous, as she was both a great advocate of the African native and at the same time an imperialistic elitist. She perceived her role in her African setting--the role of the true aristocrat--as omnipotent, and as both benefactor and judge.

Dinesen's morally stringent upbringing, her mother's rejection of Christ's divinity, her father's suicide and her resulting idealization of his memory, added to her growing preoccupation with the concept of the incarnation of the human spirit, paved the way for her to comfortably assign a divine persona to the narrator of her memoirs. The incarnation theme, in particular, is recycled throughout Out of Africa, as throughout much of her shorter fiction. In the African memoirs, Dinesen reveals the divine quality of her narrator's persona through liberal use of Christian imagery, her narrator's celestial perspective, the creative power of the narrator's gaze, her inspired talent for wise and right judgment, her role as priest and healer, and her assumption of guilt and responsibility for matters that had no causal relationship to her. In particular, I focus on the chapter "A Shooting Accident on the Farm," the structure of which bears a striking resemblance to that of the Christian mass. I also examine her use of the "characters" of her servant, Kamante, and the Gikuyu chief, Kinanjui, to enhance the religious hierarchy. Ultimately, it is this quality of her narrator's persona that unifies the otherwise disparate accounts of her life on the African farm.

If Dinesen took liberties with the recreation of her African experience, it was because she was an instinctive and gifted storyteller, and as such, placed aesthetic concerns at the forefront. My reading reveals that more sophisticated forces were driving the decisions she made in crafting the memoirs than an attempt at constructing a feudal metaphor as a framing mechanism; the omissions, the casting of characters, and the emergence of her unique narrative voice result from a combination of psychological, spiritual, and aesthetic concerns.


Suzanne E. Guiod
University of New Hampshire
suzanne.guiod@unh.edu

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Updated May 23, 1999