Kane and Badiane: The Search for the Self

Abstract

The myth of the quest in Black Literature of French Expression becomes the leit-motif which like a golden thread embroiders the texts of two contemporary Senegalese writers Cheikh Hamidou Kane (born in Matam in 1928) and Cheikh Badiane (born in Bambey in 1940). Both writers create characters who wander through a psychological labyrinth which leads them to the "prise de conscience."' Published in 1983, eleven years after Kane's L'Aventure ambigue, Badiane's Les Longs soupirs de la nuit creates a character, Kancila, who shares with Kane's Samba Diallo the preoccupation with delving deeper into his own self, only to realize at the end that "ce qui etait hier n'est plus aujourd'hui" (45). Badiane's novel is set in 1914, two generations after the presence of France in Senegal.2 On the other hand, Kane's novel deals with the waning years of colonial times just a decade before Senegal gains its independence. Les Longs soupirs de la nuit in fact deals with the awakening of Africans, who since 1914 have become aware that times have changed. Badiane places his characters in a long night which is superseded by another night colonialism: "L'Etranger decide a notre place." A new nightmare replaces the previous one and "personne ne pense plus a extirper ce cancer qu'est le colonialisme" (182). To view Badiane's novel as a reflection of the present world would be a useless effort, for Kancila, the main protagonist, joins hands with Samba Diallo in their common effort to find themselves within the realm of their ancestry. It is my intention, therefore, in this paper, to study both Badiane's and Kane's novels within the quest of the self. The orphic descent into the abyss of the self translates symbolically the principal preoccupation of the modern hero. Everything comes back to the individual and to his internal quest. As Joseph Campbell states: "today no meaning is in the group . . . in the world; all is in the individual" (388). Samba Diallo, the main protagonist of Kane's L'Aventure ambigue,exists totally in a mythopoeic context. He has embarked on a long journey, a voyage through his subjective world. Structurally, Samba Diallo's drama follows closely the plan of the archetypal hero. As Harry Slochower suggests, every hero must go through these stages: (1) birth and voyage; (2) return; and (3) epilogue (tragic transcendance) (22-24). In L'Aventure ambigue, the first stage is equated with the formation of Samba Diallo's spirit in the white school and his trip to France. His "prise de conscience" follows his return to his native country in that he sees both worlds as an integral part of his assimilated soul. Through his death, Samba Diallo