Complete analysis and Synopsis of in Amma Darko Beyond the Horizon
Darko’s Beyond the Horizon tells the dark yet sobering story of a naive Ghanaian girl who leaves the rustic familiarity of her village home, marries a brute of a husband, Akobi, and finally ends up as a hardened prostitute in the cold bitter confines of Europe. Mara’s story reveals the travails she suffered at the hands of Akobi, her abandonment, her oppression and exploitation, and the series of sexual abuse and violence to which her husband subjected her.
Domestic violence is a recurrent theme in the novel, which comprises fifteen chapters with a narrative structure modelled on the first-person narrative situation. The events are related by Mara who functions as the “narrating I”. In addition, Mara takes part as a character or as the “experiencing I” in the action in the fictional world. Mara acts as the homodiegetic voice. As the homodiegetic voice, she is both the narrator and also the protagonist. Further, by participating in the action she presents to the reader the different perspectives implicit in the action she is presenting.
Mara’s journey begins in the farming village of Naka. Her mother tells her,
“your life is your road, Mara. God puts you at the start of this road and propels you to walk on, and only He knows where your road will end, but it is the road He choose for you and you must walk it with gratefulness because it’s the best for you” At the same time, her father gives her away to the son of the village undertaker for “two white cows, four healthy goats, four lengths of cloth, beads, gold jewelry and two bottles of London Dry Gin”. Mara is then taken by her husband, Akobi, to the city. In time, Akobi, a clerk in a government office, bribes and pays dearly for a visa to Europe. He later sends for Mara to join him in Europe. Through a series of betrayals by those nearest to her, Mara is forced into prostitution and pornography.
As an uneducated African village girl, Mara has very few options in life. She accepts and never questions her father’s decision to marry her to Akobi without seeking her consent. She also endures the neglect and abuse that Akobi heaps on her because she believes (and has observed) that it is a wife’s duty to suffer her husband.
Complete analysis and Synopsis of in Amma Darko Beyond the Horizon
However, she is not one to accept her role as victim and she grabs any opportunity to assert and improve upon her status. In her husband’s absence, she transformed herself from a naïve ‘greenhorn’ village girl into a typical working class woman of an urban city. Here, Darko subverts the much-used urban migration as a harbinger of evil theme in African literature and instead deploys it as an empowering motif. But Mara’s power and movement are once again curtailed when she arrives in Europe as an illegal immigrant.
Various characters drop hints about her future employment, one suggests that Mara needs “coaching”, she is forced to watch, to her horror, her first porn film and she is taken to areas where African prostitutes work. She also witnesses firsthand the kinds of living arrangements and relationships that African men enter into to attain legal status. Darko is superb at allowing Mara to slowly come to an understanding about her husband’s new living situation and also the activities of his other African friends. It was painful to read and watch the deception, the coercion and finally the blackmail.
She is devastated when she realizes that she has been pimped out; she works tirelessly but receives none of her earnings. But again, this is Mara, and given an opportunity she exacts her act of vengeance on her abusers and her prisoners. Free of them at last, Mara says “I have decided to stop thinking about ever going home. I just don’t belong there any longer” (24) Through it all, I wanted Mara to pack her bags and return to the love and bosom of her family, return to her Ghanaian village. How naïve of me! Darko, the scathing realist, dismisses any idea of a return to the motherland.
THEMES IN AMMA DARKO’S BEYOND THE HORIZON
Adversity and Female Reconfiguration in Amma Darko’s Beyond the Horizon
Darko portray adversity and female reconfiguration as a result of the humiliation and emotional torture they encounter in their quest to please their husbands and not to be exposed being gang raped, these women devise a means of ending all forms of objectification. Darko in Beyond the Horizon also imbues Mara with the ability to do so. Due to her exposure to a series of men, Mara is able to get a valid German visa, which gives her the opportunity to be free from sexual slavery.
Her arranged marriage with a German man is paid for by her without the knowledge of her husband and Osey. Vivian also finds herself a white soldier boyfriend to stop working for her husband. The money they make was used to take care of other women. It portrays them as objects of sex, who make money in order to take care of their husbands’ concubines/wives, as the case may be. They both look for ways to end this form of humiliation.
Mara always finds comfort in Vivian, who is also her partner as a sex worker; they both resolve to look for a way out of their predicament. Mara states: ‘I have disappeared, Mara,’ she said. ‘I beg your pardon?’ ‘I’ve gone.’ ‘Where? What do you mean?’ ‘From Osey, Mara. Far, far gone! Direction America. Land of Yankees and steaks, here I come’ (128). Their exposure helps them to meet those who will liberate them from their enslavement.
The adversity of women constantly makes them succumb to every rule given to them. They hold the men who brought them to German in high esteem and cannot do anything to betray their trust. Vivian is aware that Mara is another victim of sex trafficking but cannot inform her. Mara confronts her about Comfort, whom she has been indirectly supporting through her husband.
Vivian confesses to Mara that she knows her husband’s aim of bringing her to Germany but cannot utter a word because she is his property. She even encourages her to do whatever they order her to do in order to sustain herself till she gets her freedom. Vivian affirms: ‘You were green then, Mara. Totally green. And I was also in love with Osey then. And I did what Osey ordered me to do. I was his property then, Mara. I love him. Mara. I really did.’ Her voice trailed off’ (129). Vivian also realizes that she is regarded as property and accepts it due to the predicament she finds herself.
Mara’s meeting and conversation with Gitte and Vivian makes her find a quick solution to the humiliation and betrayal by her supposed husband. Mara complains bitterly about her husband’s behaviour when she states: “My husband brings me from home to a foreign land and puts me in a brothel to work, and what money I make, he uses to pay the rent on his lover’s apartment, to renovate a house for her in village back home. I came to Gerhardt expecting the worst, but this was even worse than I had conceived of” (137-138). She finds this disheartening and humiliating and shows that she is just an object to make money to pay his bills.
Complete analysis and Synopsis of in Amma Darko Beyond the Horizon
Through the money she makes, Mara is able to hire a private investigator, who helps her to get all the necessary details about Akobi to enable her to ruin him. This goes to show that a wounded woman can go to any lengths to retaliate no matter how timid she may be. Mara at the beginning of the novel is presented as a timid village girl, who obeys her parents as well as the culture and tradition of her community.
She cannot react when her father finds her a husband and submissively married him and faced all the maltreatment from Akobi even before coming to Germany. It is still that submission that leads her to accept the humiliating oppression of being a sex worker. She now transforms into an independent woman, who is able to make certain decisions for herself without consulting Akobi. Her greatest regret is that the money she makes is used to take care of another woman in Akobi’s life.
As a result of her exposure and sense of independence, Mara is able to hire a private detective, who gets all the information necessary for the destruction of Akobi and his evil ways. Mara also sends details of Akobi’s expenses on Comfort to Gitte and it leads to their divorce and the beginning of Akobi’s downfall. Mara posits:
Comfort has been deported. I hear she is now in Nigeria and is the lover of some high-up army official there. I don’t know any more details and don’t want to know. Akobi is in jail here in Germany. He attempted to sneak out while still owing money to bank and a couple of mail order houses and was caught. I am sure he was wanting to follow Comfort when she got deported. Everything he and Gitte owned has been taken away by the bank. Gitte divorced him and returned to her family’ ( 138-139).
Mara is so happy to end all forms of abuse and humiliation that Akobi has put her through. She feels fulfilled by the extent of the damage she caused in his life. She also degenerates to a more dangerous life of featuring in pornography. Her aim is to make more money in order to take good care of her two sons, her mother and other siblings. She knows her life is in shambles but is happy that Akobi is divorced and in prison and Comfort deported. Mara states: ‘Sometimes I am not sure whether I did the right thing or not in coming here but thank God, here at Oves’, I don’t have time to worry or regret it. That doesn’t mean that I consider myself totally blameless either.
After all, I was also party to it all even if involuntarily. And I guess that my punishment for it is that I am stuck with Oves for the rest of my life. I have decided to stop thinking about ever going home. I just don’t belong there any longer’ (139).
Her sense of fulfillment has some form of regret because her life is just about acquiring material things at all costs and making her mind not to ever come back to Africa because she can no longer recognise her old self. She states, ‘At Oves’ brothel, I have plunged into my profession down to the marrow in my bones. There is no turning back for me now. I am so much a whore now that I can no longer remember or imagine what being a non-whore is. I have problems recollecting what I was like before I turned into what I am now’ (139).
Complete analysis and Synopsis of in Amma Darko Beyond the Horizon
Mara’s life is destroyed as a result of her marriage to Akobi. There is no love between them. Most women in Mara’s situation are not able to overcome this challenge, which makes them miserable and may lead to their death while young. Those who are able to liberate themselves like Mara find it very difficult to find other legal means of survival. As Many victims who have been…trafficked, if they survive, are permanently, psychologically damaged, suffering post-traumatic stress, painful flashbacks, anxiety, fear, incapacitating insomnia, depression, sleep disorders and panic attacks as a result of the conditions [they faced]…” (63).
Migration to Western countries is the order of the day for some Africans, especially women, who believe that travelling abroad automatically makes one a billionaire even without a meaningful job. Most people lose their lives in a bid to make ends meet in foreign countries, as they tend to engage in all kinds of businesses, ranging from stealing, prostitution and selling hard drugs. It is pertinent to ask why these individuals engage in all these heinous crimes. Amma Darko exposes some of the reasons why people willingly fall into problems they can avoid
The Theme of Violence on a pregnant woman: Mara’s case
When Mara gets pregnant, she can’t say clearly what has happened. She is not aware of her new state. She has just noticed that things have changed in her. To be sure of what is happening to her, she confides (herself) in Mama Kiosk. The latter reveals to her that she is pregnant. The unfortunate lady informs her husband of her new state and how she has happened to be aware of it. He gets angry with his wife because, in actual fact, hedoes not want to have children with Mara. For this reason, during their sexual intercourses, he practises withdrawal, consisting in removing or withdrawing his penis before ejaculating. Mara describes to Mama Kiosk such a situation in the following term
The first time he slept with me, when he started moving quicker and panting louder and sweating more, he suddenly at one stage removed himself very quickly from inside me and wetted me all over with this strange milk-white liquid coming from his manhood. At first I thought that he was sick and was throwing up through his manhood. But then he told me that it was to avoid something.‟‟ (16)
The „something‟ that Akobi wants to avoid is having a child or children with Mara. This is neither known nor clear to her. So, once again this is the reason why Akobi has beaten his wife when she informs him that she is pregnant. The sin the innocent woman has committed is her getting pregnant. While some married people and non-married people are looking for a child or children, others like Akobi don’t want and even beat their wives because of their pregnancy He is trying to be smart.
He doesn’t want people to know that Mara is his wife. He has just wanted to use Mara as his housewife and sex tool in order to prepare his journey to Europe and then leave her behind once in Europe. He needs so much sex that even after beating her, he has sexual intercourse with her. Here, Mara describes, how it happens to her husband to have sex with her even after a misunderstanding:
He was lying on the mattress, face up, looking thoughtfully at the ceiling when I entered. Tool, composed and authoritative, he indicated with part of his hand on the space beside him that I should lie down beside him. I did so, more out of apprehension of starting another fight than anything else. Wordlessly, he stripped off my clothes, stripped off his trousers, turned my back to him and entered me. Then he ordered me off the mattress to go and lay out my mat because he wanted to sleep alone (22)
For Akobi, Mara is hardly a human being, not a woman that can spend a whole night with him on a mattress. Only a mattress, not even a bed, is for Akobi something that must be slept in by special people that his wife Mara is not. She is good only for her sex because definitely beautiful as she is. Mara says “I was sleeping on the mat on the floor. I didn’t dare to sleep on the mattress.‟‟(17) No responsible and respectful man can prevent his wife from sleeping on a mattress with himself. Akobi is a special husband; a bad one indeed.
No responsible and sensitive person can agree with him. Mama Kiosk disagrees and blames his behaviour. She tells Mara: “… this ministries man, he is not only a bad man and bad husband, he has also got something inside his head. I only hope that he won’t destroy you with it before you too start seeing red with your eyes like I do.‟‟ (17) Mara herself wonders “what African man gets angry because his wife was carrying a baby? And the first baby at that.‟‟ (17)
The Theme of Men Negligent Of Manly Responsibility
Mara has come to the city as a village girl who has neither been to school nor learned any job or trade. During the very first months of her stay with Akobi in Africa, Mara has no job. She just does house work, taking care of her husband, cleaning the house, cooking food. In this framework, she has some time to devote to other people’s household rubbish for them. She has started doing it for her neighbour and friend Mama Kiosk. The latter behaves towards her like a mother, giving her some instructions and food too. Mara informs the reader about how Mama Kiosk has instructed her about city life. She does the same thing about the kindheartedness she has expressed giving her some food:
You are in the city”, she said emphatically, and in the city nothing is for free, you get me? Come. She beckoned and I followed her into her house. Minutes later I emerged with a paper bag filled with a piece of yam, two cassavas, some okras and a handful of garden eggs. „For throwing my rubbish away for me, she added at the door. I thanked her warmly and left (10-11)
Mara is rewarded by Mama Kiosk for throwing her household waste. She seizes the same opportunity to put her on the way of individualism which prevails in the city and how money and material goodsrule the modern life incarnated by the city. Mara renders the same service she has rendered to Mama Kiosk to other people because they ask her to do so as a gullible and naïve young lady. This gullibility and naivety bring Mama Kiosk to confess her that she is truly a greenhorn. (10)But Mara is getting emancipated as she has grown to be aware of the fact that nothing is free in the city. Throwing people’s rubbish twice a week will hence entice some specific ingredients:
I wasn’t taking from him for our daily meals again. I had bought myself a pair of car tire slippers and Mama Kiosk had presented me with an old set of clothes which I was now alternating weekly with my own old one. I was still throwing away people’s rubbish for them twice a week but this time, as Mama Kiosk would say, no one does anything for free in the city. I wasn’t waiting for them to pay me with just any foodstuffs but was demanding specific ingredients that went into making my full meals without me having to do extra shopping. Yam from here, plantain from there, garden eggs and pepper from here, tomatoes and smoked fish from there; and I had my full meal for the day and even extra for the next morning.” (24)
Mara has learned the good lesson of individualism and how interest rules the world. She does housework including cooking food for Akobi with the foodstuffs collected from other people; and Akobi doing nothing as a husband to deserve that care taking.
The Theme of Women Struggle for Survival
Mara has undertaken three different types of trade as a whole at different moments. A few weeks after the launching of her first trade, Mara has been able to save as much money as to pay back the capital her husband Akobi has lent to her and continue on her own as it has been agreed upon between the two of them.
The money has been lent to her under the condition that she must pay back if not she will drown and she has even sworn for that. The submissive and faithful Mara repays back her husband for whom she is bearing a child. Neither their coming child nor she herself counts for Akobi. His only concern is his “more important plans.”(19) Mara says:
I was always calculating my money to see when I could pay Akobi back his capital and still be left with something after I had also deducted the cost of my next quantity of eggs. And this goal is reached after eleven weeks… late evening, when he was sitting before our door, seemingly in deep thought as I had often seen him, I approached him with the money. He didn‟t take it immediately.
He smiled, just smiled, then got up wordlessly and led the way into the room, carefully closing the door behind him. We were in there alone now and the air about us was heavy. Then he returned and faced me and studied me briefly, cynically, and I sweated my first sweats of doubt. Then he snatched the money from me, counted and re-counted it, God knows how many times, then to my utter astonishment, slapped me hard across the face. I was stunned. I mean, Akobi was not beating me for the first time and this was not going to be the last beating …” (19-20)
This sequence is an illustration of women’s battery by their husbands. Mara’s submissiveness to Akobi results in the total domination of the former by the latter Instead of a husband being happy and proud of his wife, Akobi maltreats Mara for wickedness sake. Here, his victim accounts for the reason of her punishment. But Akobi was a closed man, no one saw inside him. At least I didn’t. But I dearly wished there, that moment, that somehow he too could feel it, the movement in my belly, for maybe it could have revived his human instincts. What do you mean paying without interest? He bellowed eventually.
I didn‟t know what interest was so asked meekly? ‟‟ And at the same time instant I saw his clenched knuckles ready to knock pain into my forehead.‟‟ ( .21) The special way of gratitude Akobi has found to express to his wife is not only to demand that she pays interests on the capital but also beat her because she has not thought of doing so. Once again, Mama Kiosk is really right when she tells Mara, talking of the latter’s husband “…he is a man but a bad husband.‟‟ (22) Mara has fought, unfortunately, with a woman named Esiama in the lorry park where she sells her boiled eggs.
This obliges her to stop her first trade because her opponent is “the love of the boss of truck drivers.”(23) Although Mara is compelled to put an end to her trade, “Akobi refuses to resume giving her money for their daily food.” (24), Mara leaves for her village looking for care and bearable living conditions mainly because Akobi frightens her that she will wake up dead the following day. Mara describes the last atmosphere she has lived in Akobi’s house after her fight with Esiama:
He howled, growled, and bawled. If I thought he was going to resume giving me money for our daily meals, he snarled, then I was kidding myself. He had more important plans for his money, he went on, and no way was he prepared to hear again that I wasn’t going to trade any more, unless I was willing to wake up dead next morning. (27-28)
It is obvious that Mara has come to life to struggle, struggle for the noble cause. She does not stay arms folded once back anew in her village. She “had to help on the farm to make up for my upkeep and shelter. And I had to sell palm wine too to make money for Alhaji’s monthly rent back in the city.‟(p…)
Mara is really the type of woman that can be called a responsible one. Although she is in her home village, getting ready for the birth of her second child, she still thinks of how to provide for her needs in the village and also pay the rent for the empty room she has left behind in the city in order to be able to live in it once back to the city. She has given birth to her second child and now that he is eight months old, she returns to the city.
