Summary of the short story "What the Tapster Saw” by Ben

Okri.

The story revolves around the character of a tapster who is an expert in tapping the

trunks of palm trees to get the wine. One day he dreams that during his work he

falls from a pine tree and dies. The next morning he gets up and goes to his friend

Tabasco who is a herbalist-cum-fortune teller. His friend remains busy chewing

bundles of alligator pepper seeds and dousing his mouth with palm wine. The

herbalist takes the tapster easy because he is much too harassed by the demands of

his many wives.

When the tapster is about to leave, the herbalist draws him aside and tells him a

story of a hunter who sees a strange antelope that turns into a woman. The herbalist

asks the tapster to bring him three turtles and a big lobe of kola nut the following

day and he then would think of his dream. Disappointed with his friend’s behavior

the tapster comes home.

The next morning he collects his paraphernalia and goes to his work on his bicycle.

When he rides out into the forest, he sees a signboard that reads: 

“Delta Oil Company: Tliix area is being drilled. Trespassers in danger.” 

He stares at the board but cannot comprehend anything. Further, he notices a grove

of palm trees. He reaches there and climbs one of the trees. The shining rays of the

sun strike his eyes, he falls down. He falls first time in thirty years of his career as

a tapster.

He wakes in a dream and is surprised that he feels no pain. He finds himself light

and airy. In his dream he walks for a long time then he sees another signboard that

goes as:

“Delta Oil Company: Trespassers will be persecuted.” 

He passes through many strange experiences. He sees earth mounds, gravestones,

and a single palm tree. He makes a mark on the trunk of the tree that becomes a

chafed wound.

He goes on walking and reaches a river. There is a borehole near the river. On the

edge of the borehole, he sees three turtles one of them has Tabasco’s face. He also

sees a multicolored snake there which glides into the river. When the snake enters

the river, the color of the water turns transparent and luminous. Here he hears a

voice that says,” Don’t turn round.”

The three turtles present there looked at the tapster and the turtle with Tabasco’s

face urinates in his direction. It seems as if the turtle were enjoying this act. The

tapster laughs and a heavy object hits him from behind. He turns around abruptly
but finds nothing. The tapster laughs again and this time receives even a harder

blow. The snake comes out of the river and while passing by the tapster spits at

him. After spitting at the tapster the snake enters into the borehole. He tries to sleep

but could not do it. He hears various voices talking about him as if he was not

present there.

He cannot shut his eyes. He sees women going to the distant marketplaces

followed by the voices which they don’t hear. Very strange things happen.

Whenever he feels hungry or thirsty he is given a mess of pulped chameleons and

millipedes to eat and leaking calabash of liquid green to drink. The worst of it is

that a creature smelling of agapanthus comes and creeps above him, copulated with

him, and leaves him the grotesque eggs.

One day he hears a voice that says:

 “Everything in your world has endless counterparts in other worlds. There is no

shape, no madness, no ecstasy or revolution which does not have its shadow

somewhere else. I couldn’t tell you stories that would drive you mad. You,

humans, are so slow- you walk two thousand years behind yourselves.”

Just after a while, another voice says to him. “You have been dead for two days.

Wake up.”  Another creature comes and stuffs his eyes with cobwebs. He sees that
wars are not over yet. The hidden bombs explode and the people who thought that

the war was over got killed in their self-deception. He sees the collapse of bridges

that are being repaired. He sees that the mouths of the roads are lined up with

human skeletons. He sees people busy in futile efforts to level the forests and drill

for oil. There are witch doctors who called for driving away from the spirits from

the forest. The people are also trying to prevent the rain from falling and the sun

from rising. When all these efforts end in smoke, the company hires an expatriate

who flies in with explosives left from the last war. The dynamite is planted around

the forest area and after the explosion, the tapster sees thick green smoke

everywhere. He also notices a large-scale massacre there. People are being killed

and those who die have their names on the bullets.

One day the tapster goes into the borehole. He sees there the multi-colored snake

sitting twisted round the capstone image. There he also sees a man who has died in

a sitting position while reading a bible upside-down. Everything in the borehole is

on fire but there is no smoke. He hears a noise behind him and sees the creature

with a plate containing a messy substance of food. The creature indicates that he

should eat. When he eats, the snake starts telling him bad jokes. The snake laughs

and the tapster laughs as well but the latter is thrashed so heavily with whacks that

he swoons.
After recovering he comes out of the borehole. He starts counting everything that

he sees. Whenever he counts, he is awarded a severe knock. Once again he hears

another voice that says: “You have been dead for three days”. The voice tells him

if he wants to leave, he will be beaten out of the place. When he asks the reason,

“why”? He is answered, “Because you humans only understand pain.” Ultimately

after having a dialogue with the tapster the voice leaves and he sleeps.

When he wakes up, he sees the three turtles lazing against the edge of the borehole.

The snake too comes out of the borehole. There happens a quarrel between the

snake and the turtles over the issue of the number of moons. While fighting the

snake and the turtle with Tabasco’s face roll over and fall into the borehole. After a

while, the turtle with Tabasco’s face emerges but without his glasses and

stethoscope. He takes his place. They break a kola nut. Tabasco the turtle lights his

pipe. He motions to the tapster to come closer. He blows black ticklish smoke into

the tapster’s face and says: “You have been dead for six days.” After it, the tapster

starts resuming his senses and comes to the real world. In the last paragraph of the

story, Tabasco tells the tapster that he has been dead for seven days. He says, “You

fell from a palm tree and you have been dead for seven days. We were going to

bury you in the morning. I have been trying to reach you all this time……”

Related Ar
critical analysis of the short story "What the Tapster Saw”
by Ben Okri.
The story "What the Tapster Saw” has the excess that anything is possible: A

tapster’s dream, ignored by a healer, will become reality, then takes the story

through surreal moments, at once magical, unbelievable but entertaining. The

readers get to a point of not being able to determine what’s a dream and what’s not,

but the images are aligned in such a way that the best way to interpret the story is

by symbolic association. The tapster has been dead for seven days after he fell

from the palm tree he had dreamed about?

There are hints about war as well in this story; large issues like the destruction

caused to forests by oil companies. These stories were written in the 80s and the

problems they deal with are still evident in Nigeria and other parts of Africa. The

creatures in the story have gone riot: a snake spits at the tapster in disgust; three

turtles mock and befriend him at the same time.

The tapster dreams that he falls from a palm tree and dies; the next day, he falls

from a palm tree and, presumably blacked out, has dreams in which he hears a

voice repeatedly informing him that he is dead. Because of the situation, Okri has

created, it’s difficult to tell whether or not the voice is telling the truth or simply

playing on the tapster’s worst fears. The uncertainty builds as "You have been dead
for two days” keeps increasing until it reaches "You have been dead for six days”;

meanwhile the tapster sees and hears aspects of war, and of a nightmare, and of his

own past.

Sense of Ambiguity

Okri leaves a strong sense of ambiguity as to whether or not the protagonist is

alive. This is painted with hysterical visions of disease and poverty, where

“malarial swamps… and human skeletons” make up the cityscape which teems

with rampant decay. If the death has energy, then the streets of Okri’s Lagos

project multi-sensual impressions of it, from massive mounds of garbage floating

along the gutters, to endless dust, to streets scattered with entrails where even the

citizens cannot distinguish them, soldiers inadvertently grabbing chicken guts to

use as weapons. Manifesting itself in the faux medications which send stomach

worms on a growing frenzy, leaving children even more helpless and bloated, and

the horrific daymares which come out to taunt both rich and poor, death is an entity

that revels in suffering.

Worlds with Dreams, Yet without Hope

At other times, the protagonists take an almost Camus-like, existential indifference

to their personal and social demise. Too jaded from exhaustion and disappointment

in them and in the lustful and avaricious politicians who claim to love them, the
men of Okri’s world fail “to see” and to reawaken to the horror around them.

Apathy is like a drug, excelled by the drink in which so many males lose

themselves. The women of the world, who would be strong, compassionate, and

empowered, are like lights being quenched by the misery of the men who mistreat

them – a tragic end for what would have been their world’s best salvation.

Evil Legacy Left by Colonialism

Though Okri clearly points to the evil legacy left by colonialism, his poignant

critique of corruption and politics – fused together like demon twins – remains an

over-arching theme where class division is drastic. Citizens will turn on

themselves, conning their neighbors, destroying not only their brothers and sisters

but the land of their ancestors. Okri’s forests are nightmarish, oozing with gaping

wounds and furious spirits which provide little salvation for those who always end

up fleeing the city, realizing that a return to their roots has been usurped by

industry invading their sacred land. Even artists, once the flag-bearers of social

consciousness, lose themselves in vice and wanton glory, while deceitful drug

sellers twist their bizarre profession into a theatrical performance. It is inevitable

where those who try and try again are eternally suppressed, like the myth of

Sisyphus – only each time, the mountain grows steeper.