For a paper I’d like to discuss how Africa, or at least the town the story is set in, is perpetually enduring cycles of death and rebirth and how this idea is echoed through the natural world, the political climate, the cycles of economic boom and bust, and that of the more abstracted idea of characters (focusing on Salim – and I guess touching on his relationships with other characters) not being able to outpace or sidestep this endless cycle, except for one, or so it appears. I’d then conclude that the cycle continues because (at least within the novel) Africans (and African) are seen as “history-less” or ahistorical so they are something that can be controlled and manipulated for the gain of one group or another (which stems from the idea that people have control over their own circumstances), which is ultimately an illusion.
Pg. 27 – discusses the city as a perpetual ruin
Pg. 211-12 – discusses the liberation army’s intend to fight off oppressors
Pg. 260 – shows how the Domain has been repurposed and become a kind of African settlement where crops are grown.
Pg. 24 – the “businessman isn’t a mathematician” quote to show the idea of becoming trapped within one’s fate, and not knowing when to get out, particularly when this option is available and not made use of.
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