27 pages • 54 minutes read
Ovo AdaghaThe Plantation
Ovo AdaghaFiction | Short Story | Adult | Published in 2010A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Themes
The Role and Power of Nature
One of the central themes of “The Plantation” is the role and power of nature. The story is set in a natural environment, a rubber tree plantation. Central to the way of life of the village and its people, these farms are so lush that they block out the sun and radiate with life. Even though Adagha calls Namidi’s rubber tree farm a plantation, he connects it to the swamps, and, in so doing, emphasizes the natural qualities of these traditional settings.
Nature is further emphasized by the description of what is not natural. In describing the rise of the oil industry, Adagha writes that men from the city “had dug across the village grounds, through the plantation and the nearby forests; buried the pipes and then left” (77). The men’s appearance and disappearance bring minor changes to the communal and traditional way of life in the village. Indeed, the installation of a pipeline under the plantation affects not only the land but also the people.
Seeing the leak, Namidi is struck first by the impulse to tell the village head about it. But, the narrator says, “such noble thoughts soon evaporated as he turned the matter over in his mind. Yes, it was surely petrol, but of what benefit would this be to him?” (77). Content to think only of himself, and to imagine that his fellow villagers would do the same, Namidi illustrates the range of human nature, noble and negative. As Namidi fills a gourd with gasoline before he leaves the plantation, the reader can see not only the meeting between nature and civilization but also the capacity for good and evil in each person in the village. The gourd is a sign of the natural world, hewn from the rubber trees that populate the plantation. Filled with gasoline, it becomes a symbol of the merging of the natural and unnatural, similar to the plantation with pipelines buried underneath. This gourd is filled with gasoline and could blow up at any moment. Namidi is just as volatile.
This tie between the natural world and human nature is made explicit throughout the narrative in the descriptions of the village and the actions of the villagers at the plantation. While the village is a symbol of human agency and activity, it pales in comparison to the nature that surrounds it—“just a clearing in the jungle” (78). And the human activity that happens there and at the plantation that the villagers overrun in search of gasoline is often given in natural, zoomorphic, or agricultural terms. Namidi finds the life of the village suffocating, with the “rainfall and gossip that ploughed on endlessly without season” (78).
The villagers attempt to escape drudgery by gathering gasoline. Despite their feverous activity at the site of the leak, the narrator says the gasoline “flowed on still, steadily giving in to the ceaseless mania of sucking, the avid thirst of animals long deprived of natural milk” (82). In their relentless pursuit of gasoline, the villagers are likened to animals seeking milk and sustenance. But it is nature that prevails, as the explosion that results destroys much of the village, allowing the ants and rats room and freedom to roam.
The Consequences of Patriarchal Social Structures
Namidi is a fitting symbol for the patriarchal structure of the village. His wife is silent about his misdeeds, and he seems to control not only his children but also Mama Efe. On the way to the plantation to gather gasoline, Namidi and his family are described in a way that makes clear that the men of the village and men of the city are in control. The narrator says that they “carved an old, almost patriarchal procession as they left the house with huge, empty cans” (80). This procession demonstrates the hierarchy based on age and sex that elsewhere characterizes the village.
The only characters in the narrative who are depicted as either having some control or autonomy are the men. From Namidi, who forces his family into danger to escape poverty, to the village head who has the power to fix the leak, to the men from the city who lay the pipeline, men take action in the story. As opposed to the men, the women largely seem to talk and discuss. The women who first encounter Namidi after he discovers the leak ask him questions but have no power to stop his leaving them: “He, who usually lingered over greetings, now wished the women would all disappear and leave him alone” (77). They’re left with their suspicions and gossip.
This patriarchal system can also be seen in Namidi’s marriage to Mama Efe. While she can see the mistakes her husband is making, she has no power to change his actions. The narrator says, “Why, she knew how stubborn her husband could be; how he would never change his mind once it was made up” (81). Tired of fighting losing battles, she retreats, and the male-dominated power structure operates without any restraints and leads to death.
The language of battle and war reinforces the patriarchal structure of the village. It is no surprise that at the end of the story, right before the explosion, Ochuko is playing soldier with his friend. The playacting becomes serious, as Onome, Ochuko’s friend, points his finger at Ochuko and fires an imaginary bullet. The boys of the village associate adult masculinity with violence. Their behavior echoes, on a smaller scale, the aggression and recklessness of some of the adult men in the village.
The narrative suggests that the village would be not only happier but also more successful if women like Mama Efe had more influence. “The Plantation” ends with a return to nature and a realization of the importance of women. Ochuko hides under his mother’s bed, waiting for his family to return. But while it is almost certain that his family is lost, his mother’s strength serves as a final answer to patriarchal structures and their problems.
Poverty, Greed, and Destruction
“The Plantation” dramatizes a pipeline explosion that occurred in Nigeria in the 1990s and serves as a warning about the problems created by the discovery of oil and its attendant corruption. The narrative concentrates on poverty and its ubiquity in the village. On discovering the leak, Namidi thinks to himself, the narrator says, that there “was an opportunity here, if only the meddling of the villagers would let him” (77). Poverty, for Namidi, has fostered greed and selfishness. He won’t share his potential wealth.
Namidi gives voice to the grinding rural poverty elsewhere as he considers how to escape it, especially, the narrator says, the “indescribable weariness and dreariness of” a village covered in dust and filled with idle gossip (78). The escape routes for Namidi and his children are limited. The missionary school haunts Namidi because he can’t afford the tuition: “[F]ees were expensive and he could not afford to send any of his three children there with the meagre earnings from his rubber farm” (79)
Poverty is implied and reinforced as a motivation for Namidi’s actions when he meets the village gossip, Jackson. Smelling gasoline on Namidi, Jackson asks, “Why are you working in Shell now?” (81). On one hand, this question suggests that Jackson is nosy and can smell gasoline. He wants information. On the other hand, Jackson’s question also points out that Namidi is a poor farmer, unlike the men from the city in their khakis who buried the pipelines and disappeared.
Their description—from their home in the city to their khakis—contrasts with Ochuko, who wears worn-out clothes and can’t go to school. His ill-fitting clothes demonstrate the depth of Namidi’s poverty and his shame over it. Namidi is quick to anger, not just because Jackson will share the secret of the gasoline but also because he shames Namidi’s appearance and profession. Poverty is more powerful than gasoline, and the explosion will make the existence of the remaining villagers harder. Ochuko, Namidi’s son, is likely on his own, an orphan in an empty hut.
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