The fallen woman in the Cameroonian Cololnial Literature: a study of Mongo Beti's Mission to Kala.

Abstract

This research investigates the extent to which Mongo Beti emphasises on the concepts of otherness and “fallen woman” through the relationship between the male and female characters in the novel Mission to Kala. Citing Hegel, Nwoalezea (2012), claims that otherness is the act of identifying oneself as `me` and the person besides you as the `other` different from `me`, which sometimes lead to a situation where `me` imposes his superiority over the `other`. Mongo Beti, a critic of the colonial rule, writes in the XX century the novel Mission to Kala published in 1957 in which he portrays the ill-treatment and evils this system causes to the colonised. According to some authors, while sex is a biological consequence, gender is socially defined, meaning it is the society that establishes norms that must be respected by all individuals living in that society (BEAUVOIR, 1989; BUTLER, 1990; FUNK, 2011). Following Barnhill (2005) women who transgressed the norms were called “fallen women” and were viewed as „criminal‟ not suitable for the society. The methodology was based on the rereading of the novel with the intuition of highlighting the analytical categories by bringing out the contributions of authors like Simone de Beauvoir (1989), Butler (1990), Funk (2011), for the discussion about the basic theory on sex, gender and woman. Regarding the concepts of fallen woman and otherness, Barnhill (2005) Swarnakar (1998) and Kain (2005) were considered. The study has revealed that the four characters treated as fallen women in the story suffer discrimination for being women, bold and sexually free since their behavior is considered deviant toward the patriarchal system in which they are inserted. It was concluded that other women in the book also suffer physical and psychological violence. Although the author seems sympathetic toward women by presenting the difficulties they encounter in the society, the fact that the narrator is a male protagonist turns his account less trustworthy.