GREEN VALLEY COLLEGE FOUNDATION, INC.

Km. 2, GenSan Drive, City of Koronadal

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GREEN VALLEY COLLEGE FOUNDATION, INC.
Km. 2, GenSan Drive, City of Koronadal

CRITICAL ANALYSIS

LET’S TELL THIS STORY PROPERLY

By
DAISY A. DENIAL

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Background of the Short Story

How far does one have to travel to find home elsewhere? The stories in Jennifer
Nansubuga Makumbi’s collection attempt to measure that distance. Centered around
the lives of Ugandans in Britain, Let’s Tell This Story Properly features characters both
hyper-visible and unseen―they take on jobs at airport security, care for the elderly, and
work in hospitals, while remaining excluded from white, British life. As they try to find
their place, they drift from a home that feels further and further away. In an ambitious
collection by the critically acclaimed author of Kintu, Let's Tell This Story
Properly explores what happens to those who leave.

Men behave badly in these stories, women suffer or negotiate for power, families bicker
and try to cooperate. There is Uganda, and there is Britain, and then all the miles in
between. The genius of the book . . . is the same as the argument for its more universal
power: the way Makumbi can take two countries and still make their intersections feel
like exactly the stories we all need."

The anthology is a collection of 12 short stories, divided into two parts – Departing and
Returning. Departing tells the stories of Ugandans, newly arrived and/or trying to
navigate this new land. Through these stories we see how hope can quickly turn to
despair, how this new land that does not make room for your culture can affect your
personality, how you cling on to who you were even though you can see yourself
changing a little every day, how relationships with those who welcome you can take a
turn for the best or worst, the lengths you will go to, to stay even when it’s clear you are
not welcome and how the community can offer solace and grounding.

Returning focuses on those who return to their homeland to discover things are not as
they hoped. The condescending attitude of the populace towards the returnees, the new
culture shock, the impatience with this developing world that never seems to be get off
its feet. The confliction with wanting to belong, knowing the foreign land took something
of you and that you may never fully reintegrate.

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Biography of the Author

Jennifer Nansubuga Makumbi was born and grew up in Kampala, Uganda. She is the
eldest child of Anthony Kizito Makumbi and the third of Evelyn Nnakalembe. Her
parents separated when she was two years old and for two years she lived with her
grandfather Elieza Makumbi. During Idi Amin's regime, her father, a banker, was
arrested and brutalised. While he was saved from being killed, he suffered from mental
health issues for the rest of his life. Makumbi was brought up by her aunt, Catherine
Makumbi-Kulubya. She lived with her family first at Nakasero, then later at Kololo.

She went to Trinity College Nabbingo for O-levels and to King's College Budo for A-
levels. She did a B.A. degree in Education, majoring in teaching English and Literature
in English at the Islamic University in Uganda, where she edited the university
magazine, The IUIU Mirror. Makumbi first taught at Nakasero High, an A-level school,
then for eight years taught at Hillside High School, an international school in Uganda.

At that time she wrote a play, Sitaani Teyebase, in Luganda for an inter-zone
competition. This play won the competition and toured many of the SDA churches within
Kampala.

In September 2001 she joined Manchester Metropolitan University to do an MA in

Creative Writing. She completed a PhD in Creative writing at Lancaster University.
Makumbi has taught at various universities in the UK teaching both English and
Creative Writing as an Associate Lecturer.

Her writing relies heavily on Ganda oral traditions, especially myths, legends, folktales
and sayings.

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Characters

Nname- a lawyer.a worthy perspective, showcasing the terror and confusion so well,

along with some class and gender politics to boot. A woman with soft hearted.

Kayita- a janitor.a secret bigamist, picking up upon his death, showing the aftermath of

his decisions.

Nname's Father- a father who always support his or her child no matter what. He

sometimes works in hidden ways. He represents someone who is our loved ones or God

which guide us.

Lumumba- eldest son of Kayita and Nnam’s, the heir

Sankara- next to Lumumba, 2nd son

Lesego- from Manchester Royal infirmary, a nurse who intertain Nnam

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Summary

If you go inside Nnam’s house right now the smell of paint will choke you but she enjoys
it. She enjoys it the way her mother loved the smell of the outside toilet, a pit latrine,
when she was pregnant. Her mother would sit a little distance away from the toilet doing
her chores, or eating, and disgusting everyone until the baby was born. But Nnam is not
pregnant. She enjoys the smell of paint because her husband Kayita died a year ago,
but his scent lingered, his image stayed on objects and his voice was absorbed in the
bedroom walls: every time Nnam lay down to sleep, the walls played back his voice like
a record. This past week, the paint has drowned Kayita’s odour and the bedroom walls
have been quiet. Today, Nnam plans to wipe his image off the objects.

A week ago Nnam took a month off work and sent her sons, Lumumba and San kara, to
her parents in Uganda for Kayita’s last funeral rites. That is why she is naked. Being
naked, alone with silence in the house, is therapy. Now Nnam understands why when
people lose their minds the first impulse is to strip naked. Clothes are constricting but
you don’t realize until you have walked naked in your house all day, every day for a
week.

Kayita died in the bathroom with his pants down. He was forty-five years old and should
have pulled up his pants before he collapsed. The more shame because it was Easter.
Who dies naked on Easter?

Nnam did not scream. Perhaps she feared that Lumumba wou ld come in and see his
father naked. Perhaps it was because Kayita’s eyes were closed like he had only
fainted. She closed the door and calling his name, pulled his briefs up. She took the
towel out of the toilet bowl and threw it in the bath tub. Then she shouted,

She uses the handle to dig at the bag. After a while of breaking glass and the frames,
the bin-bag falls through. When she comes back to the house, the smell of paint is
overwhelming. She takes the mop to the kitchen and washes her hands. Then she
opens all the windows and the wind blows the curtain s wildly. She takes off the gown
and the cool wind blows on her bare skin. She closes her eyes and raises her arms.
The sensation of wind on her skin, of being naked, of the silence in a clean house is so
overwhelming, but she does not cry.

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Critical Analysis

Feminist criticism is concerned with "the ways in which literature (and other cultural
productions) reinforce or undermine the economic, political, social, and psychological
oppression of women"
I choose feminist criticism because, after reading this story, I came to realize that even
how good you are, how smart you are, as a woman, the society we live in is sometimes
cruel and deprive us from the rights and things we should have.

Jennifer Makumbi reminds us that woman are soft hearted, they can easily fall in love
with man, woman is dependent to man, Nnam who was a lawyer, a dignified and smart
woman was being fooled by Kayita a street sweeper, to survive and fed his left family in
Uganda. Kayita need to sacrifice himself and marry Nnam and become rich, he wants to
alleviate himself from poverty. He is tired of being street sweeper, he also wants his
family in Uganda feel being rich, to live in a fancy house, as what he has done, the
tenant who take care of their house in Nsangi is his wife from Uganda, he manipulated
Nnam until the day he died. Jennifer wrote a short story that simple, and the text is
easily readable and understood by the readers, although it’s just a fiction it can also
happened in real life. Kayita symbolizes a greed man, a man who will do anything to
become rich, he is also dependent to Nnam in terms of finances.

Women are easy to get, they’re innocent. Nnam is a brave woman in this story
because she easily forgives Kayita for what he did. For Nnam material things can easily
gained but respect, trust, loyalty and love cannot, it’s like a paper once it crumpled it will
never be the same again.
Jennifer Makumbi won a commonwealth price for this short and she deserves it, for me
it’s a simple story that portrays a man who wants to alleviate his family from poverty by
using love, unfaithful love.
Kayita left Uganda to look for a work, a good fortune maybe, based on the story there is
discrimination between poor and rich, since Kayita have no degree in education, his job
is based on his status in life, he is janitor, street sweeper. If I were in Kayita position, I
must admit that my salary is not enough to feed my family. What he needs to do to help
his family who left Uganda, of course he met Nnam, a woman who can change his life.
Nnam is like “Jesus a sacrificial lamb”.

When Nnam travels to Uganda for the funeral, she finds that things are not what they
seemed. Different people greet her at the airport than she’d expected, boys claimin g to
be Kayita’s sons but are not the boys she’s seen pictures of. As she’s escorted to the
retirement property, she finds out several truths. The boys from the airport are also

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Kayita’s sons, sons he never told her about, sons he had after he moved to the UK and
married her. The family “renting” the retirement property? Kayita’s Ugandan family, of
course, including his not ex-wife, who is still his wife, his legal wife. Nnam is the usurper
in this situation, albeit one who has paid for this other family, u nwittingly, for years.
Nnam is still getting a lot of dirty looks, as everyone’s wondering why Kayita’s side
hustle is suddenly in Uganda, in their home, their husband and father dead, this woman
adding insult to their injury.

The story uses a literary device called flashback.

Flashback is an essential aspect of plot which allows the chronological narrative to be

interrupted by information and memories from the past. It can provide stories with
background information, characters with personality development, and plots with more
complicated structures. Flashback reveals the importance of the past and its ongoing
effect on the present.
"She enjoys the smell of paint because her husband Kayita died a year ago, but his
scent lingered, his image stayed on objects and his voice was absorbed in the bedroom
walls: every time Nnam lay down to sleep, the walls played back his voice like a record."

“Every time she looked at his wife, it was not jealousy that wrung her heart: it was the
whisper of you were not good enough”.
This line quoted that man is unfaithful, even how smart, good, beautiful a woman is, she
is still not enough to be love, to be respected, to be treated equally, woman is still not
enough. Woman deserves to be treated equally same as man, but the world is cruel and
man’s perspective in life are different.
The smell inside Nnams house and music and voices represents Kayita, he died without
asking forgiveness to Nnam, I think he cannot go to heaven because he has still a
mission to accomplish, according to bible if man dies his family needs to pray and ask
forgiveness so that the soul will go to heaven not in hell. And according to myth, if our
loved ones died his spirit remain in our life, like what Kayita did his spirit are still inside
Nnam house. Nnam believes that by throwing Kayita belongings the spirit will go.

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Conclusion

"Then she opens all the windows, and the wind blows the curtains wildly. She takes off

the gown and the cool wind blows on her bare skin. She closes her eyes and raises her

arms. The sensation of wind on her skin, of being naked, of the silence in a clean house

is so overwhelming, but she does not cry."

In this quoted line, it shows how a person feels when he or she is free to be who he wants

to be with the freedom and equal rights. Thus, it makes him more human.

This story reminds me that “truth always set us free”. After knowing that Kayita betrayed

Nnam after he died, at first Nnam was so angry, but she realized that forgive and forget

to live a harmoniously life. The moral lesson of this story is before you enter into married

you must think not just twice but hundred times. Always put God as the center of your

relationship. Greed people always loss like Kayita did to Nnam, he died in unexpected

ways. A people who humbles themselves always blessed by God and forgive people who

had done us wrong. In the end Nnam have nothing to lose because Ugandan people was

in favor of her, they know how she loved Kayita till the end of Kayita’s life.

This simple short story can be happy in real, I admire the character of Nnam in this story

because he choose to forgive his husband and live a happy and harmoniously life together

with two sons.

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