Morton 1

Claire Morton

Ms. Lee

8th Grade English

23 October, 2017

Themes of European Superiority in Children of the Sea and Minutes of Glory

Writer and philosopher Frantz Fanon once said, The oppressed will always believe the

worst about themselves. This quote conveys the common themes in Minutes of Glory by

Ngugi wa Thiongo, a short story about beauty ideals in postcolonial Kenya, and in Children of

the Sea by Edwidge Danticat, another short story told in first person by a young couple

separated by an unstable, postcolonial government in Haiti. In Minutes of Glory and Children

of the Sea the authors convey the theme that imperialism humiliates and takes away a countrys

sense of self, and enforces the idea of Western European superiority.

In Minutes of Glory the author uses symbolism to convey the humiliation of the

colonized country, while in Children on the Sea the author directly states how the postcolonial

government humiliates and tortures its citizens. Here, the author of Minutes of Glory is

describing the main characters struggle with her workplace, a bar where women (the barmaids)

sell beer and their bodies in exchange for very little money, seemingly endless shifts, and

minimal housing. He writes, Nobody seemed to notice her (Thiongo 71). ...they [the other

customers] would resume their drinking , their ribald jokes, their laughter and play with the other

serving girls (Thiongo 71). Sometimes it was because an irate proprietor found she was not
 Morton 2

attracting enough customers and sack her without notice and without a salary (Thiongo 71). In

these quotes and in the story in general, the author symbolizes European colonists using the men

in the story, and colonized Kenya is represented by the main character, Beatrice, and her fellow

barmaids. Like how the men mistreat the barmaids, Europe mistreated Kenyans when Kenya was

under their rule. In Children of the Sea the author openly states how the unstable government

humiliates its citizens. In this quote, the female character is describing how the government-hired

Tonton Macoutes tortured families during this time period. She writes they have this thing now

that they do. if they come into a house and there is a son and a mother there, they hold a gun to

their heads. they make the son sleep with the mother. if there is a daughter and father, they do the

same thing (Danticat 12).. This is one of many real examples of how a previously oppressed

government treats its citizens. Both of these quotes reflect one of the themes shared by the two

stories, which is that a colonized country is repeatedly humiliated and shamed by the imperialists

in charge.

Many imperial regimes seek to erase a countrys sense of self by reducing its defining

features, especially language. In Minutes of Glory, Beatrice has to listen to the life story of one

of her clients almost every day. When she finally gets the courage to tell him hers, she finds

that he has fallen asleep. This angers her because it shows that he has only used her for her body,

and has greatly disrespected her. Thiongo writes, She felt a strange hollowness. Then a bile of

bitterness split inside her. She wanted to cry at her new failure. She had met many men who had

treated her cruelly, who had laughed at her scruples, at what they thought was an ill-disguised

attempt at innocence. She had accepted. But not this, Lord, not this (Thiongo 80). The narrator
 Morton 3

describes how men undervalue Beatrices personality and what she had to say in this quote, like

how Europe disrespected Kenyas language- including its art and other aspects of its culture.

However, in Children of the Sea, Danticat gives a direct example of how language was

impacted in Haiti. In this quote, the female character is writing a journal entry about how the

government is trying to hurt everyone who has spoken out against them, including the

characters boyfriend and his radio show. She says, the radio six. you have a name. you have a

reputation. a lot of people think you are dead like the others. they want the bodies turned over to

the families. this afternoon, the army did give some bodies back. they told the families to go

collect them at the rooms for indigents at the morgue (Danticat 7). The use of shocking and

stark language here suggests the feelings of the millions of families affected by imperialism or its

aftershocks, and the injustice of a system with no freedom of speech or expression. These quotes

shed light on the horrific ways that a post-colonial government or an imperialist power will treat

its citizens in order to limit or take away their language (in its many forms) and, ultimately, their

sense of self.

Both an imperial power (like the one symbolized in Minutes of Glory) and a

government affected by imperialism (like in Children of the Sea) enforce the idea of western

or European superiority. The author of Minutes of Glory portrays how his characters and

real-life people were/are influenced by this idea, using the example of western beauty being

preferred to that of Kenyans. These quotes describe one of the measures the barmaids take to

appear more beautiful in the eyes of men, which is the use of skin lightening creams. By that

time, Ambi had reached Ilmorog, and Beatrice thought that this would be the answer. Had she

not, in Limuru, seen girls blacker than herself transformed overnight from ugly sins into white
 Morton 4

stars by a touch of skin lightening creams? And men would oogle them, would even talk with

exaggerated pride of their newborn girl friends (Thiongo 73). Beatrice never tried to find the

cause of this black self-hatred, she simply accepted the contradiction and applied herself to Ambi

with a vengeance. The womens mindset of self hatred, which was undoubtedly caused by the

men, Beatrice still believes in, even though she knows its wrong. In Children of the Sea,

though, Danticat gives a multitude of examples of enforced western (and in this case,

government) superiority, one of which, surprisingly, uses symbolism. This example

symbolizes the European imperial powers with the female characters father, who displays an

authoritarian and machismo attitude towards his family. This is primarily shown when he has an

outburst of anger towards his daughter. he called me selfish, and he asked if i hadnt seen or

heard what was happening to crazy man-whores like me. i shouted that i wasnt a whore. he had

no business calling me that. he pushed me against the wall for disrespecting him. he spat in my

face (Danticat 11). he slapped me and kept slapping me really hard until manman came and

grabbed me away from him. i wish one of those bullets would hit me (Danticat 11). In these

quotes, the fathers actions are clearly meant to scare his daughter into compliance, a common

tactic of imperialist governments. Not only that, but the daughter starts feeling suicidal, which is

similar to how a colonized country starts to hate itself after being abused by its colonizer. Both

stories have common themes of female characters (usually associated with a mother country)

being hurt by males, and ending up believing that the males (representing imperial powers) are

superior.
 Morton 5

In conclusion, both of the short stories Minutes of Glory and Children of the Sea

express how imperialist powers humiliate and take away a countrys sense of self, ultimately

resulting in an atmosphere of western or European superiority. Danticat shows how they do

this through symbolism, comparing Beatrice to a colonized country and the men in her life to

colonists. To do this he uses the examples of the awful conditions at her work, encounters with

men who devalue her personality, and that men prefer the appearance of women with lighter

skin. Thiongo writes about how the Tonton Macoutes torture innocent citizens, take away their

freedom of speech and expression, and how the female characters father behaves similarly to an

imperialist government. There have been many cases of this behavior throughout history, and it

can be vaguely recognized in the behavior of people in all of our lives