Discovering One’s Self:
Identity as a Theme Within Of Water and The Spirit by Malidoma Patrice Somé
Malidoma Somé’s memoir, Of Water and the Spirit, details the life and coming of age of a young boy abducted from his Dagara village in Burkina Faso to be immersed in the White man’s Jesuit seminary school. The book explores the dichotomy of two cultures: European and Dagara, which although seemingly contradictory, coexist within Malidoma Somé. Somé struggles endlessly with self-identity in his life, and goes to great lengths to fulfill his destiny as Malidoma: “he who makes friends with the enemy/stranger." The book is by nature very reflective, as modern-day Malidoma is the author, not the young, lost Patrice. Due to this condition of the literature, …show more content…
Language was a recurring tool used to symbolize and convey the shifts within Somé’s identity as he grew up. “On the mission hill, [Somé’s] Dagara language eroded gradually as French painfully took its place.”(92) The reason why Somé views this process as painful, is not only because it was perpetuated through physical violence, but also because it was stripping part of his identity. The replacement of language was shaping part of who he was becoming like a surreptitious assassin. As soon as he returns to his tribe, he wishes he could speak Dagara, and learns it in a matter of months. This was essential to his tribal identity affiliation. He writes that this dual-language capability made him feel as though he “was becoming useful as a conduit, a translator, a kind of conveyor belt between people.” (168) The day that he first greeted his father in Dagara, his father was “profoundly moved…[that] his twenty-year old son was able to speak his mother tongue.”(168) This symbolized Somé’s further alignment with his roots at a fundamental level. Even writing this book for the West’s consumption was “a bumpy road to mediumship, trying to ferry meanings from one language to another, and from one reality to another—a process that denaturalizes and confuses them.”(2) Malidoma struggles with French in the seminary and then Dagara after his …show more content…
The time Somé spent at the seminary represents the part of him that has a European mindset and inquisitiveness. The arduous journey after his escape from the seminary follows his reflection on the purpose behind his actions and his discovery of how the world works outside of the bubble he was brainwashed in. His re-adjustment to village life was a period of self-discovery and inner-conflict. His period at the initiation camp and many realms explored within that space each encompass formative parts of Somé’s identity. It is during Somé’s physical journey between the two identities (the seminary and the village) that he writes “I was lost, sandwiched between a past that had utterly forgotten me and a future that was undecided.”.(145) One can conclude that the location of an impressionable mind has much to do with the formation of identity from this
Identity as a Theme Within Of Water and The Spirit by Malidoma Patrice Somé
Malidoma Somé’s memoir, Of Water and the Spirit, details the life and coming of age of a young boy abducted from his Dagara village in Burkina Faso to be immersed in the White man’s Jesuit seminary school. The book explores the dichotomy of two cultures: European and Dagara, which although seemingly contradictory, coexist within Malidoma Somé. Somé struggles endlessly with self-identity in his life, and goes to great lengths to fulfill his destiny as Malidoma: “he who makes friends with the enemy/stranger." The book is by nature very reflective, as modern-day Malidoma is the author, not the young, lost Patrice. Due to this condition of the literature, …show more content…
Language was a recurring tool used to symbolize and convey the shifts within Somé’s identity as he grew up. “On the mission hill, [Somé’s] Dagara language eroded gradually as French painfully took its place.”(92) The reason why Somé views this process as painful, is not only because it was perpetuated through physical violence, but also because it was stripping part of his identity. The replacement of language was shaping part of who he was becoming like a surreptitious assassin. As soon as he returns to his tribe, he wishes he could speak Dagara, and learns it in a matter of months. This was essential to his tribal identity affiliation. He writes that this dual-language capability made him feel as though he “was becoming useful as a conduit, a translator, a kind of conveyor belt between people.” (168) The day that he first greeted his father in Dagara, his father was “profoundly moved…[that] his twenty-year old son was able to speak his mother tongue.”(168) This symbolized Somé’s further alignment with his roots at a fundamental level. Even writing this book for the West’s consumption was “a bumpy road to mediumship, trying to ferry meanings from one language to another, and from one reality to another—a process that denaturalizes and confuses them.”(2) Malidoma struggles with French in the seminary and then Dagara after his …show more content…
The time Somé spent at the seminary represents the part of him that has a European mindset and inquisitiveness. The arduous journey after his escape from the seminary follows his reflection on the purpose behind his actions and his discovery of how the world works outside of the bubble he was brainwashed in. His re-adjustment to village life was a period of self-discovery and inner-conflict. His period at the initiation camp and many realms explored within that space each encompass formative parts of Somé’s identity. It is during Somé’s physical journey between the two identities (the seminary and the village) that he writes “I was lost, sandwiched between a past that had utterly forgotten me and a future that was undecided.”.(145) One can conclude that the location of an impressionable mind has much to do with the formation of identity from this