IVORY BANGLES ANALYSIS PDF

IVORY BANGLES ANALYSIS PDF – Eric Ng'maryo

Because of the affection he shares with his wife, the old man shifts from the way things are usually done in their society. He defies the traditions. This is the dominant issue in Eric Ng'maryo's short story Ivory Bangles. The old man's wife later dies after her husband and she go against the instructions of a suspicious seer.

Key events in Ivory Bangles

• The worrying insight
• Warm reception 
• The evening meal
• Second wife
• The ivory bangles
• The revelation
• The alternative plan
• At the market place
• Conflict resolution 
• The wife’s death

 

Characters in Ivory Bangles

• The old man
• The wife
• Their only son
•  The seer
• Makusaro – sister-in-law
• Leveri – daughter-in-law
• Kabanda – grandson

 

Focus

• Love/affection
• Established norms/traditions/culture

 

Ivory Bangles Summary

The old man is distressed after the seer instructs him to give his wife a thorough beating and send her to her parents after the beating. The man consults the seer after he notices blood specks on the liver of a goat he had slaughtered.

The seer’s pebbles say the man’s wife is going to die because the spirits were jealous of a happy wife. To avert the death, the pebbles say he has to give her a thorough beating.

The old man wonders what he can do to avert that. 

He is willing to appease the pebbles in another manner and offers to give any number of goats. 

During the evening meal with his wife, the man is disturbed since he doesn’t know how to deliver the bad news to his loving wife.

The man is a chief's councillor and is regarded as a small chief. As much as he is respected, many are surprised that he has only one wife. When the chief suggested that he marries another wife, the man replies using a riddle. The chief quickly and ravels the riddle as “A wife, a co-wife, witchcraft and death”. This reveals that the people have deep-seated beliefs about witchcraft and death.

The man loves his wife dearly. When she had their first child, he gifted her twenty four handcrafted ivory bangles some etched with the words of a long love poem.

That night the man divulges the seer's words to the wife.

“The spirits want me to give you a ritual beating.” (pg. 22)

The woman dismisses this and hints that she knows the seer. He once wanted to marry her and had threatened to put a spell on her.

The man is adamant that the seer did not put blood specks on the goat's liver and that he is only the mouthpiece of their dead ancestors.

The man is disturbed on whether to carry out the seer's instructions in order to avert the wife’s death. The wife talks him out of it, proposing that there is another way.

He reiterates this when says: "There must be some way."

While at the market, she thinks of her plan: She intends to go home and cook for the husband before going to her brother’s place. She would go there weeping that her husband had beaten her for no reason, and would refuse to go back to him until her clan and her husband's clan meet to reconcile them. The husband would be asked to part with a fine and they would drink beer of reconciliation. This would certainly fool the spirits.

The woman returns home amidst cries of village scouts warning people about wandering elephants.

The woman decides to weed the weedy part of her grove. While hoeing,  her thoughts wander to Leveri, her daughter-in-law, who had helped her weed just three weeks ago. She had run away from her husband who had beaten her badly. The woman does not understand why their son is different from his father.

From nowhere, an elephant emerges, attacks and kills the woman.

“They found her thus in her shallow grave: a mass of flesh and blood and shattered ivory bangles.” (pg. 25)

Main issues in Ivory Bangles

Love/Affection 

The idea of love/affection pervades the whole story. The old man and his wife love each other. It is thus difficult for the old man to follow some of the cultural norms including wife battering and polygamy.

·        The seer’s pebbles say that someone was going to die. A wife was going to die. This is because the spirits were jealous of a happy wife, who was unmolested by her husband until old age. The old man knew it was his wife. Because he loves her, he wonders what he can do to avert that. The pebbles say that he has to give her a thorough beating and send her to her parents after the beating. The man argues that they can be appeased in another manner and offers any number of goats.

·        The old man is received cordially by his wife. This is clear display of affection. She unstraps his leather sandals and leads him to the lean-to behind the house to bathe him.

·        The couple referred to each other using affectionate names. The old man calls his wife ‘girl’ while she calls him ‘son of the chief’.

·        The instructions of the seer cause the old man a lot of worry. Apart from the worried look on his face, the old man chews his food nervously. His wife has to urge him to continue eating lest his food gets cold.

·        Even in his old age, the man admires his wife’s beauty. He says that she could still be a girl, when he sees her smile and her white teeth, made whiter by the beauty gap between her two lower teeth.

·        The woman makes her husband a sumptuous meal. The man savours the hidden nuances of taste and smell in the pottage. He acknowledges that it was not like any other meat and banana pap. The old man thanks his wife by saying, ‘You cook, woman.’

·        The old man is much talked about because he had only one wife. The man was a chief's councillor. A chief's counselor is like a small chief and was expected to have more than one wife. When the ageing chief tells him to get himself another wife, he answers with a riddle, effectively avoiding falling into the temptation of getting another wife as per the expectations of many. Clearly, he loves his wife.

·        The old man, a brave warrior, killed an elephant and carved twenty-four ivory bangles for his wife. His wife looks remarkable in them. The chief remarked that she looked comely. The man presented the bangles to his wife when their first born child was given a name. The bangles on her hands are etched with the mnemonic marks for a long love poem. When she moves, the bangles clank softly. She is a loved woman emblazoned with ivory. This is a sign of the old man’s affection towards his wife.

·        Instead of going to sleep with her grandson, the old woman takes off her skin and stretches herself beside the old man. She also puts her hand on his chest. She only steals back to her ‘husband’ when she notices that the old man is asleep.

·        During happier times, the couple often repeated the story of how the seer wanted to marry the woman.  Jokingly, the man would say ‘Tut I got you.’ Although the seer insists that he has to give the woman a ritual beating, the man is adamant that there must be some other way. He cannot beat his wife. He loves her.

·        Before going to her brother’s home, the woman goes to the market and buys sugarcane for her grandson and snuff for her husband. When she gets back home, she cooks and covers her husband’s food carefully. She also goes ahead to weed the part of the grove where the man said was very weedy.

The old man cannot bring himself to beat his wife as instructed by the seer since they are affectionate towards each other. Love helps him to subdue the pressure from society to marry a second wife or to beat his loving wife.

 

Norms/Established Customs/Traditions

This society, like many other societies, has certain established customs. People are expected to abide by these traditions.

·        This is a society where people are apt to believe in certain superstitions. When the old man notices blood specks on the liver of a goat he had slaughtered,  he has to consult the tribal seer, the priest of the people.

·        The habit of wife battering is part and parcel of this society and is even referred to as a ritual. The seer’s pebbles claim that the spirits are jealous of a happy wife who is unmolested by her husband until old age when she is called “Grandmother”. The old man is different from his son who is accustomed to the norm of battering his wife. He beat his wife Leveri to a fingernail’s distance to her grave. She runs away and seeks refuge at the old woman’s home. Such cases are so common that there is a prescribed way of solving them which involves elders from both sides.

·        Polygamy is another accepted custom in the society. The ageing chief even advises the man to get himself another wife. The old man loves his wife so much. As much as polygamy is customary, he does not bow to the societal pressure. However, it is so deeply-rooted in this society that the people find it strange for a man of his social standing to have only one wife.

·        Another practice that seems so deeply-rooted in this society is the hunting and killing of game like elephants. The elephants are killed using poisoned arrows. They are killed for the ivory. The man killed an elephant and carved twenty four ivory bangles for his wife. The elephants are apt to destroy young plants and scouts warn people about their movement. The old man's wife is killed by an elephant.

·        The people have a customary way of solving conflicts in the society. Whenever there is a conflict between a couple, their respective clans would meet to help reconcile then. A fine may be imposed and elders would drink beer of reconciliation after a successful resolution.

·        Also, women in this society are accustomed to doing normal chores at home like taking care of their husbands and children or grandchildren. The woman goes to the market and buys an array of commodities including snuff for the man. She later goes home and prepare the meal for her husband and go to the farm to do a bit of weeding.

This is a society where individuals are guided by norms or established customs.

 

Do you think the woman deserved to die? 

Next: The Sins of the Fathers analysis 

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