The Things We Took Away Orleanna simply said it best: “We can only speak of the things we carried with us, and the things we took away. “(10) The five Price woman enter the Congo with certain things, materialistic mindsets, Betty Crocker cake mixes, white privilege, ivory hand mirrors, and American ignorance, to name a few. The things that they left with were significantly different. They took away experience, enlightenment, balance, guilt, and shame from Africa, and, most importantly, they lost Ruth May. The Congo molded the Price women, it shaped their souls.
Orleanna, Rachel, Leah, Adah, and Ruth May were all affected by their time in the Congo, and they vary greatly in their philosophical perceptions of it- they lie on a spectrum of apathy to deliberating guilt, with cynicism, realism, and true balance speckled throughout the layers. Rachel remains the most stagnant throughout the novel-– she begins as a self-absorbed, materialistic, typical teenage girl, and the Rachel at the end of the novel still feels very much like the materialistic teen we were introduced to.
As Adah describes it, Rachel “is, herself, her own brand of goddess. (442) This self-centered attitude is a reflection of her personal maxim: “You stick out your elbows, and hold yourself up. “(517) Her escape to Johannesburg via Axelroot also shows her self sufficient nature, as she strived to learn and adapt to life in South Africa, and worked her way up the social latter. Since her way of life centers around her self-presevation, her family’s involvement in Kilanga and the gradual decent of the Congo don’t mean much to her at all.
She maintains a type of “chosen” ignorance toward issues of whiteness and imperialism- a strong contrast to Leah’s struggle for reparations. She bought in to the institutional racism in South Africa during the later years of her youth, and has maintained that worldview throughout her life. This viewpoint captures an almost “stereotypical” American’s view of the events in Africa; Rachel ignores the people and the political turmoil that takes place right in front of her, in favor of believing communist allegations and believing Karl Marx to be the current leader of Russia.
This type of behavior allows her to continue with her self-centered mindset, because, if she knows nothing about the happenings outside her own little world, than what is there for er to care about, other than her sheltered little existence? “I TROD ON AFRICA WITHOUT a thought, straight from our family’s divinely inspired beginning to our terrible end. “(9) From the very first chapter of the novel, it is evident that Orleanna is struck with guilt from her family’s rendezvous in Africa. As the plot progresses, it is clear that Orelanna struggles with her Complicity-in Ruth May’s death, and in the pillage of the African people by her own kind.
Ruth May’s ultimate demise was most likely the trigger for Orleanna’s self-examination and paralyzing regret. She wonders “what trivial thing was I doing hile they divided the map beneath my feet? ” (320), showing her complex feelings of her own role in the events of the Congo, and examining her own ignorance and mistakes. She speaks of her ventures in Africa with a heavy and regretful tone, almost blaming herself for the robbing of Africa’s metaphorical womb. Orleanna and Leah both share common feelings of “white guilt”; however, the ways they handle these emotions are distinctively different.
Orleanna deals with her feelings of complicity by becoming an active member of her local Civil Rights movement, something that Adah calls her “new religion. ” She seeks to mend her supposed errors and ignorant mistakes in the Congo by aiding a cause for the advancement of human rights. Ruth May’s omnipresent snake fursona, however, suggests that forgiveness has been given, and it is time for Orleanna to walk forward into the light, and focus on her future happiness, rather Akin to her Mother’s sense of complicity, errors of the past.
Leah also struggles with a burden of white guilt. As Leah makes an effort to understand the native peoples, she learns of the horrors of forced colonization and imperialism that Africa has endured at the hands of the europeans. She despises the urder and plight that her home country continues to force down the Congos throat. She comes to realize that “Everything you’re sure is right can be wrong in another place. “(505)Because of this, she suffers from immense guilt being related to the institutions that committed these atrocities.
Leah creates a sense of her own responsibility, and combined with the respect she develops for the culture around her, she develops a new way of religion, “Forgive me, Africa, according to the multitudes of thy mercies. “Adah even points this out, saying that (on religions) “Leah has one; her religion is the suffering. (442) Her inherit longing for balance, for justice in the world, is the driving force. This longing gives her a more defined sense of right and wrong, compared to her mothers various shades. This longing is why she eventually stays in Africa.
However, this false sense of responsibility does not last forever; unlike her Mother, and her Father, and learned “If I could reach backward somehow to give Father just one gift, it would be the simple human relief of knowing you’ve done wrong and living through it. ” Leah strives for justice, for worldly balance, and suffers day by day to achieve t. Adah, like her sister Leah, looks for a sense of balance within her life. Her balance, however, is less about the equilibrium between right and wrong, it takes more of a scientific viewpoint.
She sees a sense of natural balance between the dead and alive, hunter and hunted, virus and infected. Adah goes through her life depending on empirical analysis, taking in her surroundings and learning from them. Because of this, her disposition seems to span across the boundaries of cynicism and realism; however, Adah as she is in the end would not be the Adah she is, if she were not the Adah he was in the beginning. She was cynical as a child, as she felt disadvantaged and passed over due to her circumstances.
This early cynicism eventually developed into her happier, but still very much objective, realism. Her time in the the Congo allowed Adah to realize this, to observe what life gives and what it takes away, to take in nature’s everything, muntu: “All that is being is here. “(528) Adah views the world as it is, and gives everything that lives in it respect. also muntu. Ruth may is true balance, ingrained in the African soil. Ruth May, chanting Mother May-I, befriends the children of Kilanga, establishing a connection into the countries heart and soul. She becomes one with the soil, becomes apart of the muntu.
She argues that everything is in balance, that everything is connected and intertwined in a certain kind of harmony. “Even the child Ruth May touched history. Everyone is complicit. The okapi complied by living, and the spider by dying. It would of lived if it could. “(539) This is a direct response to Orleanna’s supposed complicity. She argues that Orleanna’s complicity is overthought, since everyone touches history, even with a single breath of air. The sins of the fathers belong to you and to the forest and even to the ones in iron bracelets, and here you stand, remembering their songs. (543) molded the lives of the price woman over many years. Their personal philosophies, meaning of life, and sense of harmony were all affected in an immense amount of different ways.
Although, at first glance, the philosophies of Orleanna and Leah; and Ruth May and Adah, appear to be similar, they approach similar themes from different angles, fitting in on different spots of the spectrum. But while Orleanna takes her guilt to her heart, nd constantly asks for forgiveness from her complicity, Leah obtains the relief on her own terms, comes to peace with her wrongs, and continues her search for justice.
Adah views the balance in nature, observing the checks and balances in the natural system; Ruth May is the balance, and sees every event, every person who has ever lived, in a perfect ordinary harmony. Leah and Orelanna care about what they did to Africa, Adah and Ruth May, buried in the African soil, is Africa shaped and Rachel care more about what Africa did to them. Ruth May is everything in the middle, “All that is being is here. “(528)
