Gideon’s Freedom in Doris Lessing’s No Witchcraft For Sale

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Recommended: European Imperialism in Africa: Colonization

Gideon’s Freedom in Doris Lessing’s No Witchcraft For Sale

Dr. Gosby’s Comments: This student did an excellent job of applying the ideas we discussed in class relating to the obedience to authority

When Europeans moved into the bush of Southern Africa and realized that they were hopelessly outnumbered, they had to develop ways to create and maintain their authority over the native population. They had tremendous advantages in the obvious areas, as author Jared Diamond writes in his Pulitzer Prize winning book:

The proximate reasons behind the outcome of Africa’s collision with Europe are clear. Just as in their encounter with Native Americans, Europeans entering Africa enjoyed the triple advantage of guns and other technology, widespread literacy, and the political organization necessary to sustain expensive programs of exploration and conquest. (398)

The African natives, in this crippled state, had little choice but to submit to European authority. Many Africans lived a life of indentured servitude. Parts of their culture were mixed with that of their oppressors, and over time, so were their bloodlines. Some of their indigenous culture did survive, however. Shamanism, the practice of physical and spiritual healing by a medicine man that occurs in practically every hunting and gathering society, continued to thrive in Africa despite the oppression by European settlers. The concoctions and methods of this practice were well-guarded secrets, known only to certain African natives. The European medicine of the day was basically a version of our contemporary Western medicine in its infancy, and its doctors’ methods shared little, if anything, in common with the methods of the African medicine m...

... middle of paper ...

...ignity. Noted philosopher Erich Fromm comments, "A person can become free through acts of disobedience by learning to say no to power"(380). Gideon's disobedience is his freedom.

Works Cited

Anti, Kenneth Kojo. Women in African Traditional Religions. May 1996.

http://cehd.ewu/cehd/feculty/ntodd/GhanaUDLP/KKAntiAfricanWomenReligion.html

Diamond, Jared. Guns. Germs, and Steel: The Fates of Human Societies. New York: W.W. Norton & Co., 1999.

Fromm, Erich. "Disobedience as a Psychological and Moral Problem." Writing and Reading Across the Curriculum. Eds. Laurence Behrens and Leonard J. Rosen. New York: Longman, 2000.

Getahun, Amare. Some Common Medicinal and Poisonous Plants Used in Ethiopian Folk

Medicine.March 1976. .

Lessing, Doris. African Stories. New York: Random House, 1980.

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