CHAPTER 2

ANALYSIS OF AMBIGUOUS ADVENTURE

L'Aventure ambigué/Ambiguous Adventure (1961) written by the Senegalese writer Cheikh

Hamidou Kane is an autobiographical account of a young African alienated from the simple
faith of his childhood and immersed in material French culture.

Cheikh Hamidou Kane was a prominent Senegalese writer politician and education advocate
born on 3 April 1928 in Mater, Senegal Kane was raised in a traditional Muslim family and
received a Western education at a French colonial school. His upbringing inspired his interest
in exploring the themes of cultural identity of the clash between traditional and modern
values, which is prominent in his most famous work Ambiguous Adventure.

Published in 1961 Ambiguous Adventure is a semi biographical novel that follows the story
of Samba Diallo a young Senegalese boy who is sent to a French school to receive a Western
education. As Samba is increasingly torn between his traditional Muslim upbringing and his
desire for a Western education, he is forced to confront the contradictions and complexities of
his own identity.

Ambiguous Adventure set between Africa (Senegal) and France (Paris) is a journey between
two different worlds physical and metaphysical. The explicit theme of the novel is based on
the conflict of cultures of these worlds, a theme developed mainly through characterization
and the philosophical thought of the characters.

The title Ambiguous Adventure suggests a journey or quest that is uncertain or unclear in its
outcome and that may be characterized by conflicting or contradictory elements. This is the
central character’s journey in the novel as he seeks to navigate the tensions between the
traditional Islamic upbringing and the Western education he receives in a French school.
Ambiguous Adventure discusses the duality of man within the context of colonized and post-
colonial societies. The novel splits the colonized and the colonizer into distinct and opposing
entities The former the Diallobe the traditional religion and death while the latter the French
is modern and secular scientific and life-focused French culture.

At the request of his instructor, Samba Diallo was taken to the Qur’anic School's Glowing
Hearth when he was seven years old. Samba quickly gains a particular place in the teacher's
heart and the latter begins to recognize in him the potential of his successor; he is an
exceptionally gifted pupil who not only remembers but also feels God's Word;

The teacher … while his hand was threatening his eager gaze was
full of admiration and his attention drank in the words the little boy
spoke. What purity! What a miracle. Truly this child was a gift
from God … So closely will he live with God, this child…
(Kane,1982:5)

Due to his royal ancestry and position as the heir apparent to the Chief of the Diallobe title,
Samba Diallo was an especially remarkable youngster. To secure Samba's future and his
education, the current chief, his sister, the Most Royal Lady, and the Teacher of the Glowing
Hearth go to considerable lengths. Given the crucial historical period the era of colonialism
that all Diallobe residents are currently living through, this is likewise significant to them all.
It was the time when the French-language European system of secular education was
established. The nation's three leaders realized that the new school, system, and culture were
dangerous alternatives to the traditional Qur’anic school.

They discussed this matter extensively; in this school children ‘would learn all the ways of
joining wood to wood which we do not know. But learning they would also forget. Would
what they would learn be worth as much as what they would forget? (Kane,1982:5). A key
question around which events of Samba's life revolve.

Hence, the Most Royal Lady had her reasons for supporting the new school, believing it
would educate children on how to live better, healthier lives, while the Teacher had his
reasons for being afraid of it. In addition, she saw that the Teacher was teaching her nephew
esoteric ideals, such as a fixation with death, at a time when people were trying to live better,
happier lives, which is why she felt the need to remove Samba Diallo from the Glowing
Hearth. She says; ‘I believe that the time has come to teach our sons to live. I foresee that
they will have to do with a world of the living, in which the values of death will be scoffed at
and bankrupt.’ Kane (1982:2).

The Teacher Theirno, however, is not convinced he defends his educational system; ‘No,
Madame. Those are the ultimate values, which will still have their place on the pillow of the
last human being … I promise you that this child will never wound himself. You will see
from what stature he too will dominate life and death.’ (Kane 1982:2)
The teacher finds Samba's nobility to be quite concerning because nobility is a way of
elevating man. He therefore demands that Samba Diallo lead the austere lifestyle that all of
the disciples do in the Glowing Hearth. Clad in tattered clothing, Samba would accompany
the other kids on a regular errand around the hamlet to retrieve their supper. The instructor is
so adamant about this point that Samba Diallo begins to despise his noble background.

Samba Diallo is sent back to his father in the town of L. to attend the foreign school and learn
how the colonists were able to win without being on the right in this argument, which is won
by the Most Royal Lady. After graduating from high school, he was transferred to France to
continue his education and earn a philosophy degree.

At a French colonial school, Samba Diallo receives a Western education that introduces him
to new concepts, dialects, and morals. Samba Diallo has a sense of cultural displacement and
internal struggle between his African ancestry and the knowledge he acquires from the West
as he immerses himself more and more in the Western educational system.

In Paris Samba Diallo realizes that he is being alienated from both his African and French
cultures. He feels himself living in a state of vacuity and even of loss, since he begins to
forget the Koranic verses and can no longer adequately perform his prayers. About his new
life in Paris, he says Here, now the world is silent and I no longer see anyone. I am like a
broken balafon, like a dead instrument, I feel like nothing touches me any more.

Samba Diallo wrestles with issues of identity, spirituality, and how schooling has shaped his
perspective throughout the entire book. He sets out on a spiritual quest to look for meaning
and a sense of belonging as he grows more and more divided between his secular schooling
and his Muslim upbringing.

The book explores issues of colonialism's effects, cultural alienation, and the difficulties of
juggling various identities. It examines the conflicts between African and Western ideals, the
tension between tradition and modernization, and the difficulties people encounter while
trying to bring these opposing forces together.

For instance, Samba Diallo endures several intellectual and cultural events that upend his
conventional, religious, and death-centric world-view. He studies in Paris at a university, a
French school, and a Koranic school, where he is exposed to a variety of ideologies and
ideals. Torn between his home country and the diaspora, religion, and reason, the past and the
present, he battles to define himself and his role in the world. As he attempts to reconcile the
dualities of his being and his destiny, he faces an uncertain journey.

The Most Royal Lady, the aunt of Samba Diallo and the spiritual head of the Diallobé people
is a symbol of the colonial African religious culture. Through her prayers and ceremonies,
she communicates her belief in a mystical connection between the land, the people, and the
spirits. Because she believes that Western education and French colonization pose a threat to
her people's identity and beliefs, she is against both. She also disagrees with the Greatest
Master, the uncle of Samba Diallo and the political head of the Diallobé people, who supports
a practical and contemporary strategy to deal with the world that is changing.

The companion and tutor of Samba Diallo in Paris, Vincent de Moran, is a symbol of the
Western world's culture of reason. He is a humanist and rationalist who upholds both human
dignity and the authority of science. He makes an effort to support Samba Diallo in
overcoming his existential dilemma and adjusting to French culture. In addition, he criticizes
Samba Diallo's fatalism and faith, viewing them as evidence of capitulation and weakness.
Along with dealing with his uncertainties and struggles, he is demoralized by the brutality
and materialism of contemporary society.

Cultural conflict is a dominant theme in the text. The clash between traditional African
culture and Western ideologies can be seen when Samba Diallo enrolls at a French colonial
school illustrating the conflict between Western-style education and traditional African
schooling. The curriculum emphasizes secular disciplines, logic, and scientific knowledge,
which conflict with the spiritual and mystical parts of traditional African education.

The conflict between French being imposed as the official language of administration and
education and traditional African languages is shown in the novel. The cultural value of
native languages is diminished and a barrier between generations is created by this linguistic
shift.
Samba Diallo's Western education has given rise to secular and sceptical beliefs that contrast
with his traditional Islamic background. He finds it difficult to balance the logical and
scientific ideas he is taught at school with his fervently held religious convictions.

He is overcome by the confusion of Paris which makes him yearn for his early childhood
when he was fully himself. With nostalgia permeated by a sense of search for the ‘me,’ he
looks into the past in order to locate his newly shaped ‘self’ which the Western education
has propelled into a state of ambiguity and negation. Above all, like the African past,
Samba Diallo has already undergone dramatic change. He is faced by two ambivalent and
unreconcilable worlds which are driving him into different and conflicting directions as
Anozie argues Samba Diallo’s ambiguity has been produced specifically by the painful
shock between the European technological ethic and African cosmoythic values he has
been chosen as a temporal and spiritual leader of the Diallobes. Thus, he becomes the
main focus of a pertinent controversy between the inevitable confrontation of the African
spiritual world on one hand, and the materialism of the West on the other. Besides he has
been sent to the European school only to help secure a physical perpetuation of the
Diallobe's tribe, ‘One must go and learn without being right.’

In essence, Samba Diallo has become something else. Both his spiritual vision thought have
undergone tremendous change, He has assimilated a new type of culture which, in turn, has
robbed him of his religious convictions and cultural personality. He has become divided
between two opposite worlds. All in all, he becomes unknown to himself. A feeling of
ambiguity of ‘being’ overwhelms him:
‘I am not a country of the Diallobe facing a distinct West…. I have become both’

When he is heaving the last sigh of life, he declares again: ‘I am made of X simultaneous
voices. One drifts away and the other believes I am alone. The river rises I overflow in
English’. Through his quest and spiritual investigation, Samba Diallo develops a
metaphysical isolation in relation to himself, other people, and, finally, God. However,
this seclusion is the outcome of his adhesion to values different from his own.

Samba Diallo is looking for and focused with establishing some sense of identity and
individuality. It is an interior loneliness characterized by ontological uncertainty and the
dread of losing one's identity. His opposition to French assimilation is unsuccessful. By
the end, he finds himself sleeping in an unpleasant isolation, saddling two cultures:
African and Western. Eventually the tragic loss is attained he ponders only to realize that
he is done for ‘The darkness engulfs me, I do not burn in the hearts of being and things’.

Thus he discovers the incompatibility of these two journeys African and Western on
which he embarked. He perceives that his existence and equilibrium remain at the edge
of them. So where can he find a solution to the burning and baffling problem of which he
is an inseparable part? Lucienne, a French student and friend of Samba Diallo, has
sought to persuade him to communist philosophy, which he grudgingly rejects. ‘I do not
fight for freedom but for God’ in reply she says ‘I now know that your Negritude is dear
to your heart’ Adele a daughter of a self exile African daughter admonishes him to hate
the white man but he rejects but he objects dismissing the solution he says simply ‘One
must hate them’.

After his return to Africa, he is accused of having forgotten too many of the vital
qualities of his African background, and he is killed by a maniac, making his
homecoming tragic, and his death has metaphysical and spiritual importance. It is an
answer for his confused trip and the exiled soul.
Hello, I’m glad to rediscover the taste of breast milk. My brother
resides in the land of shadow and peace. I recognize you as the
harbinger of the end of exile. I salute you!

Moreover Kane has produced a philosophy of the individual hero within the context of
conflict of cultures, thus ‘The story of Samba Diallo’s life is a serious story’.

Some of the characters in the novel adopt Western attire and fashions, which represents how
Western culture is invading traditional African customs. Western fashion deviates from
traditional dress and reflects the impact of Western ideology on identity and self-expression.

The conflict between Western ideals and traditional African values is apparent in the
divergent views on individualism, the family, and community. African traditional
communities place a higher priority on interdependence and communal values than Western
ideals, which frequently highlight individualism, rivalry, and personal achievement.
The conflict between Western views of modernity and progress and traditional African
conceptions of progress is explored in the text. Although Western ideologies place a higher
priority on scientific breakthroughs and material success, traditional African cultures may
view progress differently, placing more value on spiritual development, communal peace, and
the preservation of cultural legacy.

In addition there is spatial conflict between rural and urban zone

However, Samba Diallo is not the only figure that these cross-cultural conflicts revolve
around. The old master Thierno is an advocate of classic conservatism and a rigorous and
inflexible way of thinking. He upholds tradition and is a fervent believer in the sacredness
of the written word. According to him, man ought not to be elevated in this life and ought
to dedicate himself entirely to the worship of God. ‘The master believed that a man has no
reason to exalt himself except in the worship of God’ (p. 33) Thierno, a marabout (saint),
is the spiritual leader of the Diallobes and is the only teacher of their children. Kane
describes him as a man physically weak and frail and who does not indulge himself in any
other activity outside prayer and tiling the field for food:
The man was old, thin, and emaciated, completely dried out from his
austerities. He never laughed... The master was a formidable man with a
lot of authority. Two occupations filled his life: intellectual work and
teaching. ... The rest of his time, he dedicated to study, meditation,
prayer, and the education of the young entrusted to his care. p. 17)

The colonial penetration not only puzzles him but has put him in perplexity and brought him
into direct conflict with Western thought since his values are based upon the spiritual domain
and principles, he feels horrified by, and then rejects the materialistic teaching of the
European institution, because it is not only aimed at doing away with poverty and improving
the human condition economically but also aims at fighting God’s religion. I learned that in
the land of the white people, there is a rebellion against God. p (21)

However, he does not escape the psychological dualism imposed on him by the conflicts
between religious beliefs and the matter of the West thus he says to the Chevalier: ‘We must
build solid dwellings for humans and must save God inside dwellings’ Like his cherished
student Samba Diallo the master is eventually caught between the grips of psychological and
metaphysical ambiguity of thought. He is thus presented as a defeated character and a victim
of the conflicts of cultures between the African and the European crisis of conscience.

The Chevalier Samba Diallo’s father is a man who…he does live he prays …. p. (106), He is
a man of dignity, stability, and deep conviction. Yet, despite his strong spiritual beliefs, he is
trapped in the dilemma between the Muslim African traditional system and education of the
new invading Western conquest symbolized by the school.

‘If I tell them to go to the new school, they will all go in masses. They will learn all the ways
of connecting wood to wood that we do not know. But learning this without forgetting that, is
what we learn worth what we forget? If I do not tell the Diallobe to go to the new school,
they will not go. Their homes will crumble into ruins. Their children will die or be reduced to
slavery.’

The aforementioned quotation makes it clear how African traditionalism and Western
materialism conflict affects African consciousness. As a result, the African is left with an
unclear life and conflicting feelings about their options. The Chevalier like his son Samba
Diallo the master Thierno is assailed by the sweeping invasion of the Western thought I am a
poor thing that trembles and does not know he tragically says to Thierno Kane has made him
a spokesperson he is to some extent parallel to Lacroix who stands for western materialism
and scientific development.

All of Cheikh Hamidou Kane's characters are comprehensible human beings. But rather than
being real individuals, his characters are more often created as types and symbols to represent
philosophical ideas and intellectual study in the context of the battles between African and
European civilizations. This means that his figures are often created with a single educational
purpose in mind.

Thus, instead of becoming embodied individuals, they become kinds and symbols. Islamic
mysticism and African conservatism are embodied by Thierno and Chevalier. the Royale
Grand Samba Diallo is the model of a spiritual and metaphysical investigation of the values
of life and death, while Demba and Lucienne are proponents of change and innovation above
all.
The intellectual clash between cultures is the theme of Ambiguous Adventure, as the plot and
character synopsis above indicate. The book takes the reader on a spiritual trip through
several oppositions in psychology and metaphysics, showing how a revolt or protest develops
within the individual. Samba Diallo's journey extends beyond his encounters but it is a clear
course imposed upon a whole people in essence the ‘adventure’ is a cultural adventure.

In ambiguous adventure, the subject of colonialism is persuasive. In addition, Cheikh

Hamidou Kane has presented an analysis of colonialism which is strictly 'cultural t (rather
than economic or political). The colonial situation is analysed essentially as a cultural
encounter between Africa and Europe. The traditional mode of education conflicts with the
modernism of the Western school. While the former emphasizes the spiritual values and the
fundamental respect of the old customs, the latter preaches the values of life governed by
materialism, In other the materialistic rationalism of the West does not agree with the in
ultive spiritualism of Africa. According to the West, ‘nature’ must be control led for the
benefit of humanity whereas Muslim Africa affirms that man has to obey the natural order
and grandeur, that is, to search fo profound meaning of the world by means of contemplating
the least as ect of 'nature.

However, in Kane t s exposition both ways sean to be replete with the tyranny and alienation,
of which man is the victim, ei her the metaphysical tyranny and the vacuity of the absolutism
of ican spirituality, or the technocratic tyranny of the West. A conversation between the
Chevalier and Lacroix illustrates the contrast: