In the Shadow of War Period 5
That afternoon three soldiers came to the village. They scattered the goats and chickens. They went to the palm-frond bar and ordered a calabash of palm-wine. They drank amidst the flies.
Omovo watched them from the window as he waited for his father to go out. Theyboth listened to the radio. His father had bought the old Grundig cheaply from a family that had to escape the city when the war broke out. He had covered the radio with a white cloth and made it look like a household fetish. They listened to the news of bombings and air raids in the interior of the country. His father combed his hair, parted it carefully, and slapped some aftershave on his unshaven face. Then he struggled into the overcoat that he had long outgrown.
Omovo stared out of the window, irritated with his father. At that hour, for the past seven days, a strange woman with a black veil over her head had been going past the house. She went up the village paths, crossed the Express road, and disappeared into the forest. Omovo waited for her to appear.
The main news was over. The radio announcer said an eclipse of the moon was expected that night. Omovo's father wiped the sweat off his face with his palm and said, with some bitterness:
"As if an eclipse will stop this war." "What is an eclipse?" Omovo asked.
"That's when the world goes dark and strange things happen." "Like what?"
His father lit a cigarette .
"The dead start to walk about and sing. So don't stay out late, eh." Omovo nodded.
"Heclipses hate children. They eat them."
Omovo didn't believe him. His father smiled, gave Om ovo his ten kobo allowance, and said:
"Tum off the radio. It 's bad for a child to listen to news of war."
Omovo turned it off. His father poured a libation at the doorway and then prayed to his ancestors. When he had finished he picked up his briefcase and strutted out briskly. Omovo watched him as he threaded his way up the path to the bus-stop at the main road. When a danfo bus came, and.his father went with it, Omovo turned the radio back on. He sat on the window-sill and waited for the woman. The last time he saw her she had glided past with agitated flutters of her yellow smock. The children stopped what they were doing and stared at her. They had said that she had no shadow. They had said that her feet never touched the ground. As she went past, the children began to throw things at her. She didn't flinch, didn't quicken her pace, and didn't look back.
The heat was stupefying. Noises dimmed and lost their edges. The villagers stumbled about their various tasks as if they were sleep-walking. The three soldiers drank palm-wine and played draughts beneath the sun's oppressive glare. Omovo noticed that whenever children went past the bar the soldiers called them, talked to them, and gave them some money. Omovo ran down the stairs and slowly walked past the bar. The soldiers stared at him. On his way back one of them called him.
"What's your name?" he asked.
Omovo hesitated, smiled mischievously, and said:
"Heclipse."
The soldier laughed, spraying Omovo's face with spit. He had a face crowded with vein s. His companions seemed uninterested. They swiped flies and concentrated on their game. Their guns were on the table. Omovo noticed that they had numbers o n them. The man said:
"Did your father give you that name because you have big lips?" His companions looked at Omovo and laughed. Omovo nodded.
"You are a good boy," the man said . He paused. Then he asked, in a different voice: "Have you seen that woman who covers her face with a black clo_th ?"
"No."
The man gave Omovo ten kobo and said:
"She is a spy. She helps our enemies. If you see her come and tell us at once, you hear ?"
Omovo refused the money and went back upstairs. He re-positioned himself on the window-sill. The soldiers occasionally looked at him. The heat got to him and soon he fell asleep in a sitting position. The cocks, crowing dispiritedly, woke him up. He could feel the afternoon softening into evening. The soldiers dozed in the bar. The hourly news came on. Omovo listened without comprehension to the day's casual ties. The announcer succumbed to the stupor, yawned, apologized, and gave further details of the fighting.
Omovo looked up and saw that the woman had already gone past. The men had left the bar. He saw them weaving between the eaves of the thatch houses, stumbling through the heat-mists. The woman was further up the path. Omovo ran down stairs and followed the men. One of them had taken off his uniform top. The soldier behind had buttocks so big they had begun to split his pants. Omovo followed them across the Express road. When they got into the forest the men stopped following the woman, and took a different route. They seemed to know what they were doing. Omovo hurried to keep the woman in view.
He followed her through the dense vegetation. She wore faded wrappers and a grey shawl, with the black veil covering her face. She had a red basket on her head. He completely forgot to determine if she had a shadow, or whether her feet touched the ground.
He passed unfinished estates, with their flaking ostentatious signboards a_nd theircollapsing fences. He passed an empty cement factory: blocks lay crumbled m heaps and the workers' sheds were deserted. He passed a baobab tree, under which was the intact skeleton of a large animal. A snake dropped from a branch and slithered through the undergrowth. In the distance, over the cliff edge, he heard loud music and people singing war slogans above the noise.
He followed the woman till they came to a rough camp on the plain below. Shadowy figures moved about in the half-light of the Cave. The woman went to them . The figures surrounded her and touched her and led her into the cave. He heard their weary voices thanking her. When the woman reappeared she was without the basket. Children with kwashiorkor stomachs and women wearing rags led her half-way up the hill. Then, reluctantly, touching her as if they might not see her again, they went back. He followed her till they came to a muddied river. She moved as if an invisible force were trying to blow her away. Omovo saw capsized canoes and trailing water -logged clothes on the dark water. He saw floating items of sacrifice: loaves of bread m Polythene wrappings, gourds of food, Coca-Cola cans. When he looked at the canoes again they had changed into the shapes of swollen dead animals. He saw outdated currencies on the riverbank. He noticed the terrible smell in the air. Then he heard the sound of heavy breathing from behind him, then someone coughing and spitting. He recognized the voice of one of the soldiers urging the others to move faster. Omovo crouched in the shadow of a tree. The soldiers strode past. Not long afterwards he heard a scream. The men had caught up with the woman. They crowded round her.
Where are the others?" shouted one of them. The woman was silent.
"You dis witch! You want to die, eh? Where are they?"
She stayed silent. Her head was bowed. One of the soldiers coughed and spat towards the river .
"Talk! Talk!" he said, slapping her.
The fat soldier tore off her veil and threw it to the ground. She bent down to pick it up and stopped in the attitude of kneeling, her head still bowed. Her head was bald, and disfigured with a deep corrugation. There was a livid gash along thes idea of her face. The bare-chested soldier pushed her. She fell on her face and lay still. The lights changed over the forest and for the first time O movo saw that the eda d animals on the river were in fact the corpses of grown men. Their bodies were tangled with river-weed and their eyes were bloated. Before he could react, he heard another scream. The woman was getting up, with the veil in her hand. She turned to the far soldier, drew herself to her fullest height, and spat in his face. Waving the veil in the air, she began to howl dementedly. The two other soldiers backed away. The fat soldier wiped his face and lifted the gun to the level of her stomach. A moment before Omovo heard the shot a violent beating of wings just above him scared him from his hiding place. He ran through the forest screaming. The soldiers tramped after him. He ran through a mist which seemed to have risen from the rocks. As he ran he saw an owl staring at him from a canopy of leaves. He tripped over the roots of a tree and blacked out when his head hit the ground.
When he woke up it was very dark. He waved his fingers in front of his face and saw nothing. Mistaking the darkness for blindness he screamed, thrashed around, and ran into a door. When he recovered from his shock he heard voices outside and the radio crackling on about the war. He found his way to the balcony, full of wonder that his sight had returned. But when he got there he was surprised to find his father sitting on the sunken cane chair, drinking palm-wine with the three soldiers. Omovo rushed to his father and pointed frantically at the three men.
"You must thank them," his father said. "They brought you back from the forest."
Omovo, overcome with delirium, began to tell his father what he had seen. But his father, smiling apologetically at the soldiers, picked up his son and carried him off to bed.
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The words such as unshaven and shabby show that the father is of a lower income as he is still wearing the same coat that is now too small for him.
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The words such as unshaven and shabby show that the father is of a lower income as he is still wearing the same coat that is now too small for him.
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“[His father] believes that there is something inherently bad about war, and he does not want his son listening to the news of it on the radio. In the end, Omovo finds his father drinking palm wine with the soldiers… The fathers presence with the soliders demonstrates either the allegiance to the national war effort or his way of protecting his son” (100).
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“Omovo seems equally displeased with his father and the soldiers throughout the story…Further, with both the soldiers and his father, Omovo demonstrates disobedience”(Robeson 107).
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“In that a veil and an eclipse are associated with darkness, or the opposite of white, Both Omovo and the veiled woman can be symbolically linked to the concept of disunity…At the same time, if light can be read as a symbol of truth. Just as Omovo is not always honest, the veiled woman’s actions can be associated with the obstruction of truth” (Robeson 108).
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This quote starts off another motif of dishonesty that can be seen throughout the rest of the story.
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The author uses this personification to convey that the man’s son does not want him out when it is late when the eclipse hits while there is a war going on. He wants his son to be safe so he uses the words “They eat them” to keep him away and out of harm.
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“It is inconsequential to Omovo whether the woman is a spy- or a witch, for that matter. For him, her murder is wrong because it is a crime against another human being. Having seen the women give her basket of goods to starving children and obviously needy women, Omovo likely feels even more strongly that the soliders actions are wrong. Omovo’s youthful perspective confirms Okri’s belief that, in war, morality and ethical behavior are not the norm” (100).
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The “stupefying heat” “stumbled around” gives us an image of how the heat especially during the hard time of war really affects people and how it makes them lethargic and gloomy about everything they do. “Lost their edges” also tells us how they are really struggling during this time.
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The simile is comparing the villagers doing their everyday tasks with the same enthusiasm as someone who is sleepwalking explaining that the villagers do not want to be their most likely due to the heat.
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The author connects the villagers to if they were sleepwalking for it was scorching and stupefying hot for the villagers to be working in those weather conditions. He can connect to his past events to when he grew up in the midst of the Nigerian Civil War.
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“The veiled woman is a mysterious character who is figured as a spy, as a witch, and as a humanitarian” (100).
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“The soldiers are not portrayed as admirable, hardworking men. They spend their day in the village bar, drinking and playing draughts while they bribe the children to help them find the veiled woman” (100).
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“In representing the boys limited understanding of what he sees in war-torn world around him, Okri refrains from explaining to the reader the broader meaning or context of Omovo’s observations and perceptions” (Brent 109).
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This quote reinforces the motif of sleeping and tiredness that can be seen throughout the story.
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The contrast between the descriptions of how many people had died that day and the announcer listing it off with a yawn. It demonstrates the causal life that war invites to those uninvolved, but not unaffected.
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“As someone who may be too young to have strong political affiliations, Omovo cannot necessarily be said to be a Biafran supporter. Nevertheless, Okri writes Omovo as sympathetic to and seemingly aligned with the veiled woman” (Robeson 107-108)
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This is describing what the “spy” looks like. The gray shawl, black veil and faded wrappers. It also makes the audience question why there is a red basket on her head.
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“In the beginning of the story, Omovo’s father tells him that during eclipses “strange things happen.” Okri suggests that the same can be said of war, by naming the story “In the Shadow of War,” thus creating a parallel between an eclipse, during which “the world goes dark,” and shadows.” (Robeson 106)
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“Omovo’s dishonesty suggests that their are some aspects of war that are not lost on him. He seems to understand that telling the soilders about the women would place her in danger“(101).
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This simile shows that the woman was moving quickly in an attempt to get far away from that place.
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This simile compares the “spys” movements to an invisible force dragging someone away. Through this line we can see her moving and struggling to get away.
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“Okri reveals how, in the shadow of war, individuals may sometimes place their own safety above their moral convictions about violence” (Robeson 106).
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Even though she is scarred and disfigured, she still shows extreme kindness to the group of people living outside of town, and even because she is being beaten by soldiers.
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“The veiled woman is a mysterious character who is figured as a spy, as a witch, and as a humanitarian. The soliders beleive she is a spy for the Biafrans and ultimatley kill her…By aiding the non-national side of the war the woman exposes herself to the danger of being caught by the nigerian soliders who are monitering her efforts…She gives a basket of goods to a village of malnourished children and impoverished women” (100).
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This imagery describes what she looks like underneath the clothes described in the last passage. Her “bald disfigured” head with the “livid gash” indirectly describes why she wears all the layers that she does. The word livid describing the gash gives us a clear image of the slash in her face.
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The description of the bodies near the woman foreshadows her death, and the addition of one more body to the pile. It also is a bit of juxtaposition of the moralities of the soldiers and the woman.
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“Yet, in an ironic twist, Okri suggests that perhaps such lack of morality is in fact the very basis of that freedom. In the context of war, siding with murderers and being dishonest proves to have moral currency.” (Robeson 108)
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“Omovos dishonesty is one way that Okri points out that a normally immoral act can be moral in wartime. Omovo disobeys his father by turning the radio back on after his father leaves for work. Under normal circumstances, such behavior would demonstrate willfull disobedience, however, to the extent of what he learns on the radio informs his decision to lie to the soldiers and reject their bribe. His disobedience can be seen as a path to rightful living and informed decisions when it comes to protecting the veiled woman” (101).
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The imagery here conducts a vivid picture in the readers’ minds of what the dead bodies behind the canoes looked like. The author gives a clear and disturbing picture of what war can look like and the victims lost by describing how the dead are treated. This also can relate to the theme and how the boy has to grow up quickly during the war to stay alive and safe
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“Okri complicates the character of the veiled woman by creating questions around whether she is a witch; however, although her identity is less than clear readers never have any doubts about where she focuses her compassion and loyalty” (Robeson 107).
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The imagery the author used here is very graphic and puts a real-life picture into the readers’ minds of what that passage would look like. Again this relates to war and how scary it can be in the moments of war before someone dies. This again relates to the theme and how the boy has to grow up quickly during the time of war.
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“”In the Shadow of War” is set during the Nigerian civil war. Using this backdrop. Okri explores morality and the ways in which war breaks down the usually clear distinctions between what constitutes moral behavior and what does not”(101).
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The dramatic irony can be seen by the readers because the boy wakes up confused for he cannot see his fingers and thinks he is blind but the readers know he is not. He was in a dark room since he was knocked out and in an unsafe environment. This can relate back to the theme because before he was knocked out he saw many things people don’t usually see and cannot unsee what he has experienced.
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“Omovo’s adventure, as related in “In the Shadow of War,” takes him through an allegorical journey from a level of ignorance and incomprehension of realities of war to a moment of revelation in which he perceives the true nature of war with a new level of clarity.” (Brent 110)
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“Omovo’s youthful perspective confirms Okri’s belief that, in war, morality and ethical behavior are not the norm” (100).
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“Read in one way, this scene suggests that the father’s loyalty lies with the soldiers and that he somewhat hushes his son’s excited tale of the day’s events”. (100).
“Read in another way, however, Omovo’s father can be seen protecting him from the harm the soldiers might do to him if Omovo appears to defend the veiled woman’s actions in anyway” (100).
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