[In the following essay, Wolitz explains the vision of Negritude as expressed by Césaire in his drama and poetry.]

          “J'ai marché devant tous,
triste et seul dans ma gloire.”

—Alfred de Vigny

The poet-President Léopold Senghor has written many theoretic tracts on Negritude,¹ but Aimé Césaire, poet, playwright, Mayor of Fort-de-France, has expounded, for the most part, his vision of Negritude in verse and drama.

… ma Négritude n'est ni une tour ni une cathédrale
elle plonge dans la chair rouge du sol
elle plonge dans la chair ardente du ciel …

(Cahier, p. 71)²

Césaire, like Lorca, began with poetry and turned to theater later in his career. The stage offered a larger audience and a more dynamic expression.

Art, for Césaire, provided the rhetorical vehicle for his didactic goal: to convince the reader of the validity and importance of Negritude. He must seek, therefore, to fulfill the highest esthetic norms in order that his polemics reach a receptive audience. Césaire, like Eisenstein in films and Brecht in theater, faces the demanding task of satisfying both art and ideology. It is clear then that Césaire adheres to the Marxist tradition of the artist's role in society.

In his plays, Césaire has concentrated on one particular theme of Negritude: decolonization, and particularly, political decolonization. Embittered by past and contemporary history, Césaire employs drama as a protest against colonialism and neo-colonialism. His plays are generally historical or quasi-historical tragedies. When Jean Decock, in an excellent article on Césaire's theater, questions the suitability of tragedy for social protest, “… puisque lui donner cette forme revient à exprimer le primat du malheur sur l'espoir …”,³ he underscores Césaire's disappointment with the past and the present. However, it does not mean that the future is necessarily bleak. The hero is defeated, but the ideology must be saved. In fact, the theater of Césaire is structured to reveal past failures so that the future may learn from them and implement the principles of the protagonist.

The hero is a political martyr. He symbolizes the first steps toward independence as well as the unfulfilled dream. The hero plays an inordinately central role in Césaire's dramas. The protagonist must be dramatically effective (the esthetic principle), and he must incarnate the ideals of Negritude (the didactic principle). That Césaire is able to satisfy such demands and to integrate the hero into a successful dramatic structure based on ideological needs underlines the originality of Césaire's dramaturgy. Our interest will be drawn to the didactic function of the hero.

Le Rebelle, Henri Christophe, Patrice Lumumba and Caliban are four incarnations of the Hero of Negritude. They are the protagonist in the four plays which form, at present, the corpus of Césaire's theater:⁴Et Les Chiens se taisaient (1943), La Tragédie du Roi Christophe (1963), Une Saison au Congo (1966) and Une Tempête (1968), an adaptation for a Negro troupe of The Tempest of William Shakespeare. These plays are, in Brechtian terms, Lehrstücke. They instruct the audience in the ideals of Negritude represented by the hero. Though the Hero of Negritude is defeated at the end of each play by the forces of colonialism or neo-colonialism, the audience leaves the theater aware of reactionary forces, but desirous of implementing the progressive political, social, and economic goals of Negritude. The theater of Césaire, then, is théâtre engagé, the socialist realist epic theater of the Left, the cultural manifestation of Negritude.

Each play of Césaire is divided into three acts and is structured on the following model: Act I—The Hero of Negritude leads or attempts to lead his enslaved people to full independence; Act II—The counter-revolutionary forces increase their agitation against the Hero who incarnates the ideals of the Revolution; Act III—The reactionary forces cause the death of the Hero of Negritude. Each play, then, presents the rise and fall of the revolution and its leader. An Hegelian-Marxist dialectic is visible: Act I—Thesis—Full independence for all the people is asserted against the colonialist condition; Act II—Antithesis—Colonialist aims are reasserted by former rulers and the bourgeoisie against the independence of the people; Act III—Synthesis—We see the emergence of neo-colonialism: the facade of independence is kept, but political, social and economic structures revert to colonial times. Thus, the tertiary structure of the plays reveals Césaire's adherence to historical determinism.

Tragedy, in the sense of destruction of what is noble, haunts Césaire's theater. Not only is the hero destroyed, but the goal of national unity and progress are laid waste by neo-colonialism. Each scene, an entity, is juxtaposed with another to reveal the conflict between the hero's attempted implementation of Negritude's goals and the reality of the opposition. In most scenes, in fact, the hero's ideals are contrasted with the reality of the given situation. The plays, therefore, end tragically, but the audience will reaffirm their ideology. A renewed national prise de conscience must occur and total decolonization may then proceed. In Une Saison au Congo, the murder of Lumumba and the usurpation of power by a new caste led by General Mokutu should so horrify the audience that it will act immediately to bring down the present-day government of the Congo headed by General Mobutu! All the plays of Césaire are pièces à thèse which call for the overthrow of colonial or neo-colonial societies and their replacement with the ideals of Negritude exemplified by the martyred hero. Césaire's theater, then, clearly avoids Aristotelian concepts of dramatic structure and emotional catharsis of the public by espousing Brecht's epic structure and the “presumed” rational response from the audience following the play.

But Césaire did not look only to Brecht. He looked to Corneille for the concept of the heroic figure. Césaire wants a lucid hero: a hero who bases his actions on willed rational choice, a leader who unflinchingly chooses the highest good, a man totally devoted to the ideal of Negritude. Both Césaire and Brecht, as Marxists, could appreciate the Cornelian hero who, with free will, chooses his destiny instead of falling victim to fate. Polyeucte in fact represents the hero of free will, a protagonist without weakness, an individual who inspires admiration, not pity and fear. He appears not as a man who falls into hubris or surrenders to his passion, but as a man who can convert everyone by his belief and his martyrdom. He is the fullest hero whose very death gives life. The hero who holds to his principles though it means his death is the basis of the Hero of Negritude. Such nobility is portrayed in the celebrated scene of Polyeucte, Act V, scene 3, in which Pauline, attempting to stop her husband's martyrdom, cries out, “Ne désespère pas une âme qui t'adore.” She is answered by Polyeucte's intransigent profession of love of the highest good, “Je n'adore qu'un Dieu, maître de l'Univers,” and goes off to his death! Atheist Césaire, substituting the profession of Négritude for Dieu, repeats this same scene between wife and hero three times in his theater.⁵ The most striking example is between Pauline Lumumba and Patrice Lumumba (L, Act III, scene 2):

PAULINE:
Tu as toujours été têtu … Mais est-ce que seulement il se soucie de moi! Je te parle, Patrice! Et tes yeux regardent par-dessus moi.
LUMUMBA:
Dessus dessous, je ne sais les deux, sans doute. Au dessus je regarde l'Afrique [read Negritude] … et au dedans le Congo.
PAULINE:
Rends-moi cette justice, je ne t'ai jamais détourné de ton devoir, mais tu n'as pas charge que d'Afrique.
LUMUMBA:
Tant pis, je t'ai toujours appelée en moi-même, Pauline Congo. Si je disparais je laisse aux enfants une grande lutte en héritage. Tu les aideras …

The hero is intransigent. His personal gratifications recede before his duties to the community, the Nation, to all Black People, and in the latter days, to all mankind. Negritude must be. He is the doomed prophet who leads his people from slavery in Egypt to freedom in the desert. When the Hero of Negritude enters upon the stage, his people, though independent, have slave mentalities. In Et les Chient se taisaient, Le Rebelle adequately describes the mental state: “Mon nom: offensé; mon prénom: humilié; mon état: révolté; mon âge: de pierre … ma race: la race tombée” (Chiens, p. 68). The first duty of the Hero of Negritude is to accept this pitiful condition and to lift up the people. As Christophe cries out, “Tout ce disjoint, oh mettre tout cela debout! Debout et à la face du monde et solide!” (C, I, 6). The hero is at once a telluric figure who incarnates the people, the leader and the shaman: “Moi, la tête, j'ai juré de fonder la nation” (C, III, 3). It is at such moments that the plays become lyric dramas. The hero enters a prophetic trance and mirrors the glorious optimistic future not only of the nation, but true to the philosophy of Negritude, the liberation and fulfillment of all Black people. Though Césaire permits Lumumba some beautiful lines,

Oh! cette rosée sur l'Afrique! Je regarde, je vois, camarades, l'arbre flamboyant, des pygmées, de la hache, s'affairent autour du tronc précaire, mais la tête qui grandit, cite au ciel qui chavire, le rudiment d'écume d'une aurore.

(L, III, 6)

Césaire, imitating Shakespeare, Brecht and perhaps the stances of Corneille, offers Christophe the most lyric and dramatic moment in Césaire's theater by passing from surrealist prose into hallucinatory verse:

Mes amis. l'âcre sel bu et le vin noir du sable,
moi, nous, les culbutés de la grosse houle, j'ai
vu l'énigmatique étrave, écume et sang aux naseaux,
défoncer la vague de la honte!
Que mon peuple, mon peuple noir,
Salue l'odeur de marée de l'avenir.

(C, I, 7)

At these moments of ecstasy, the hero fully incarnates Negritude: the nation, people, historic destiny, the myth.

But what are the first tasks of the hero? He must protect the newly won political freedom. He must build a nation out of slaves. He must turn slaves into men of dignity who will work together in harmony for the common good. Christophe shouts, “le matériau humain lui-même est à refondre” (C, I, 6), and Lumumba cries, “tout est à faire ou tout est à refaire … pour Kongo” (L, I, 6). All former colonial structures must topple and be replaced with the new nation of free men and new institutions.

The Hero of Negritude must give form to the needs and aspirations of the people. He is the constructeur (C, I, 7). The people, having just won their freedom, lack the discipline necessary for national social improvement. Only a rationally organized state will provide the opportunity for the individual to realize his potential. The Negritude vision of the function of the State which provides the individual with the freedom to fulfill his potential is drawn from classic Marxism.⁶ As Christophe clearly states: “Et c'est donc d'avoir un Etat … quelque chose grâce à quoi ce peuple s'enracine … quelque chose qui, au besoin, par la force, l'oblige à naître à lui-même et à se dépasser lui-même” (C, I, 1).

The Hero of Negritude, as leader, or better dictator of the people, must force his people to accept the responsibility and challenge of liberty. The duty of the citizen is to fulfill the call for national unity. The duty of the charismatic leader is to bring about the national drive to unity. “… Je parle et j'éveille … je parle et je rends l'Afrique à elle-même. Je parle et je rends l'Afrique au monde!” (L, III, 2). The Hero of Negritude accepts the responsibility of state and gives himself to it entirely: “Je suis un forçat volontaire” (L, I, 8). Christophe creates a royal court, Lumumba a unified socialist state. Each molds for his people, for the time and place, the form of government he thinks best. But no form will succeed, for the powerful enemies of the new state will destroy the best efforts.

While the Hero of Negritude plans for the future, the people seek diversions in the present. The protagonist is aware of this contrast and seeks to correct the situation. He declares war on laziness and repose. “Dans votre vie de compromis, je veux bâtir” (Chiens, p. 58). Bâtir becomes the key word for the hero. In building the nation, one builds for liberty, but it is according to a Marxian concept; i.e. the liberty to fulfill oneself, which is possible only within a strong, economically developed society. The present for the Negritude Hero is a quagmire of disunity and unrequited ideals, a dangerous ground in which the new nation could be recaptured by the former exploiters. The longer the hero permits the people to remain undisciplined, the more difficult it is to lead the nation to unity, progress and fruition. Thus to build, to give form to the nation, to involve the people, obsesses all of the protagonists. “C'est leur avenir que nous construisons” (C, II, 2). Christophe conceives of the Citadelle, “bâtie par le peuple tout entier, hommes et femmes, enfants et vieillards. …” (C, I, 7). It is a teleological symbol of the aims of Negritude: “qui … appelle un peuple à sa limite / le réveillant à sa force occulte” (C, I, 7). This monstrous construction, which still exists, proves the genius of a man who conceived of “quelque chose d'impossible! Contre le Sort, contre l'Histoire, contre la Nature! …” (C, I, 7). Built to protect the nation, to act as a shelter of liberty, to provide the people with proof of their dignity, the Citadelle became the tomb of Christophe. The Hero of Negritude had learned the importance of delayed gratification: to work now meant greater freedom and enjoyment later. The people, undisciplined, persist in carpe diem: “Et mon peuple danse” (C, I, 7). The more force the hero exerts to make his people work, the more he alienates them from himself. Because the hero lives with an eschatological vision of Negritude, work, constant work, provide the only tool to accomplish the entelechy. The hero is lucid, the people are blind! The former rulers and the new castes of bourgeois will exploit for their own ends the laziness and basest emotions of the people against the Hero of Negritude, who desperately attempts to draw the best out of his people. The miscomprehension by the people of the concept of their freedom to work will destroy the hero and the nation.

Freedom from work was the basis of the revolt against the colonizers. The people conceive of freedom as personal choice, freedom from doing something. The Negritude Hero understands the reluctance of the people because a Marxist analysis explains that under colonialism the people are alienated from the fruit of their labor. The Negritude Hero, therefore, attempts to convince the nation that with their newly acquired independence, the freedom to work means that the people, the nation, will benefit from their own labor. Therefore, the freedom to work is to hasten the economic amelioration of the state, the material surplus of which will provide the nation with the means to help each member of society fulfill his potential within the community. In short, the hero represents a Marxist vision of freedom, while the people envisage an anarchic freedom from responsibility. The Hero of Negritude will brook no compromise on this issue. The freedom to work is the basis of state policy in the theater of Césaire. For Christophe, “la liberté ne peut subsister sans le travail” (C, II, 4). The devotion to Marxian freedom by the hero claims the same fanatic devotion that religion does for Polyeucte. If the hero overworks himself in building the nation, he expects the same response from the people. The colonialists and neo-colonialists, however, exploit a carpe diem vision of freedom to seduce the people: “Sortez de vos usines … pour revendiquer et pour exiger! L'indépendence ne doit pas être un mot vide. Demandez le … à vos ministres. Les voitures … les femmes, c'est pour les ministres. …” And the drunken soldiers cry, “A bas les politiciens! Lumumba, vaurien” (L, I, 7). The people, irresponsible, unable to perceive the future, prefer what Christophe calls “la liberté facile” (C, I, 1) posited by their real enemies. The people, then, betray their leader and their independence. But the hero does not flinch from his principles; “L'Afrique a besoin de mon intransigeance” (L, III, 2). The hero's adherence to the socialist vision of freedom, though it mean death, is the most admirable chapter of the Hero of Negritude.

In the hero's haste to decolonize and rebuild, the blind obstinacy of the people is a difficult stumbling block. But the hero understands that the people are not his enemies but are rather victims of colonialism. This is why he tries so desperately to convert his people to work. Realizing that the people's constant enemy is the exploiter, the hero, the spokesman of his people, repeatedly condemns all forms of colonialism: “Empêcher que le pays ne tombe sous le joug d'un nouveau colonialisme” (L, III, 1). As the Hero of Negritude, he leads the revolution against the “mission civilisatrice” which has dehumanized his people. “Architecte aux yeux bleus … tu es le bâtisseur d'un monde de pestilence … ou la victime est par ta grâce une brute et un impie” (Chiens, pp. 97-98). Against the vulgarity of the white exploiter Prospéro, “Je suis la puissance” (T, p. 17), Caliban cries “la prochaine fois, le feu!” (T, p. 30). Le Rebelle and Caliban, however, fail in their bid for independence—fail, but they are already free men psychologically.

Christophe and Lumumba, though, succeed. These last named heroes must now commence the battle against the former powers and neo-colonialist castes which spring up in counter-offensives. “Que pour ma part, j'aurais voulu me multiplier … pour être partout à la fois présent … pour … déjouer l'innombrable complot de l'ennemi” (L, I, 2). Lumumba must beware of the Belgian ambassador, his staff, and above all, the Belgian bankers. Having lost political control, they are attempting to maintain economic control by “les nœuds de la complicité” (L, I, 4). While the hero seeks to unify the people into a nation, the former rulers subvert the nation by bribing new castes. In this way, the Hero of Negritude beholds the succession of Katanga led by the black bourgeois, Tzimbi, just as Pétion runs the mulatto bourgeois state of South Haiti. In short, Césaire believes that the native bourgeois becomes the new colonist who serves as a front man for the foreign capitalist behind him. The Hero of Negritude therefore symbolizes the authentic path to freedom and national unity, while the black bourgeoisie compromises its system of government and economics by collaboration with the enemy. The territorial successions and the scorn for legality by attempted coup d'états by the bourgeois castes contrast with Césaire's Hero of Negritude, the popular and legal representative of the people, who valiantly struggles to protect his people's collective interests. The didactic goal of Césaire's theater is obvious: in contrast to a neo-colonialist bourgeois leader, the hero with the socialist goals of Negritude will never tolerate that a caste may confiscate “à son seul profit les avantages que vous (le peuple) étiez en droit d'attendre de notre révolution congolaise” (L, III, 1).⁷

Nor will the true Hero of Negritude accept the presence of Christianity: he will eventually smash the altars with the same intensity of faith as did Polyeucte. The church is not only a colonial institution which robbed the people of their own religious heritage, but it is a divisive force in building national unity. Both Mgr. Malula and Archbishop Brelle are silenced. And Lumumba, a true Hero of Negritude, emphatically states: “… Dieu est mort” (L, II, 1).

Césaire hints that the United Nations, white leadership is also not a friend of the Third World. Lumumba called the U. N. to the Congo to stop the secession of Katanga, but he discovered that it protected the national enemy. “Nous n'avons pas secoué la tutelle des Belges pour tomber sous la tutelle des Nations Unies” (L, II, 3). Through Lumumba, Césaire attacks the hypocrisy of the white world which for example decries any massacres by blacks, “… et où était M. Hammarskjöld quand les Belges massacraient nos hommes et violentaient nos femmes?” (L, II, 5). Indeed, the Hero of Negritude will tolerate no former colonial institution nor neo-colonialist adventure, even if it be the intrusion of the United Nations in Une Saison au Congo. The hero and his party alone will mold the national unity.

But there are intangible enemies: nature and time. Christophe is struck down by paralysis as if by nemesis for tampering with Nature. The mountaintop Citadelle is his défi, the powder magazine destroyed by lightning and paralysis of the body are nature's answers. But as the Hero of Negritude, he perseveres: “Terre … j'ai compris votre langage de cape et d'épée” (Chiens, p. 186). Time, however, is the pervasive enemy. No protagonist has the leisure of Moses to kill off one generation by wandering forty years in the desert. He must drag his people directly into the modern age. Lumumba states, “Combien j'ai de temps pour remonter 50 ans d'histoire? Trois mois messieurs!” (L, I, 8). There is too much to do and too little time. The enemies of the nation exploit time against the naïve, superstitious people. The hero's dilemma is time: how much does he have to build a nation and to hold off the enemy? Persevere, continue to work, is the only answer.

History becomes the Hero of Negritude's greatest immediate enemy, but remains a potential friend. The hero, though aware of the historic forces of neo-colonialism, by his own will attempts to stem them in order to establish the foundations of Negritude. He is not an Aristotelian hero struck down by fate. The Negritude Hero chooses his fate within the context of history. As soon as the revolution succeeds, the hero frenetically makes use of time before the inevitable onslaught of neo-colonialism. He is aware of its power and its modus operandi. “Nous, nous avons construit. Eux détruiront (C, III, 8). The hero is building beyond his death, for the completed decolonization when the people will throw off the neo-colonialists. At that time in history, the people will have a paradigm of the ideals of Negritude personified by the martyred hero.⁸ Aware, therefore, of his impending doom, the hero must function with the greatest efficiency. Fighting history, the Hero of Negritude performs according to the Cornelian ideal: “au-delà du vraisemblable.” The hero works frantically, “Il allume, il met le feu!” (L, II, 7). Everything must be done swiftly: “Secousse puissance du dire, du faire, de construire, de bâtir, d'être, du nommer, du lier, du refaire. …” (C, I, 3). His actions, at times, lead to exaggerations: for example, Christophe collects all the fornicators of the realm and marries them off in one night to all the trollops of the kingdom—all this for national unity! (C, II, 2). Or he can lugubriously have a man shot for laziness! (C, II, 5). The hero's actions sometimes lead to self-contradictions. Christophe may suddenly abandon court formality for the native style of “à la bonne franquette” (C, I, 7) and yet exile a noble for daring to dance the “bamboula” at court (C, II, 2). Or Lumumba, who invited the United Nations to intervene, nevertheless refuses to meet Ralph Bunche representing the United Nations! (L, II, 2). These contradictions underline certain human frailties of the hero but they offer greater dramatic dimension to his personality. The hero must veer from the heroic pace at times to be theatrically effective. These moments of human weakness, however, contrast splendidly with the high resolve to his ideals, from which the hero never falters no matter how distasteful. For national unity, the Hero of Negritude will race off to the enemy, Pétion or Tzimbi, to try to make peace with them to end civil strife, or, at least, to buy time (C, I, 6; L, I, 10).

To establish the Nation before their death drives the protagonists onward to overworking themselves and the people. “Il faut faire plus et plus vite” (C, II, 2). They seek the impossible, the fulfillment of the ideals of Negritude immediately. Sensing approaching doom, they attempt to rally themselves, the people, and threaten the neo-colonialists. Christophe shouts impotently: “Attention, messieurs, Christophe est un gros noyau” (C, III, 7), and Lumumba cries out, “Méfie-toi, il y a dans ma poitrine un dur noyau …” (L, III, 6). Their indignation before treachery, their sense of legitimacy, their overriding moral sensibility, drive them into political hubris: “… sans moi, le Congo est une machine faussée” (L, III, 2), or “… vous aurez toujours besoin de papa Christophe” (C, II, 4). Unwilling to engage in political compromise, they will consciously live out their ideals to the tragic conclusion.

The fall of the hero begins by the disaffection of his comrades-in-arms. They attempt a coup d'état, Kala names Joseph Iléo Prime Minister in place of Lumumba (L, II, 8), Christophe's generals pass over to the enemies of Port-au-Prince (C, III, 7). These traitors are the new bourgeoisie who collaborate with the former colonists and foreign states. They are the real neo-colonialists seduced by gifts of land and rich profits. They will become the new, though temporary, rulers of the tortured land. The hero, however, appears incredulous as he witnesses the national betrayal by the intellectual and ruling élite with whom he had fought for independence. Not only the hero, then, is foredoomed, but the legitimacy of the new state is despoiled, and the people's rights and interests are subverted.

The people, too, sensing the imminent collapse of the legitimate government under the pressure of the neo-colonialists, instead of rallying, retreat into themselves and to the land: “Premier Paysan: Pour vous dire la vérité vraie … mon amitié est avec la terre” (C, III, 6). Not having learned from the Hero of Negritude that independence is hard work, the people fall prey to neo-colonialist propaganda: they stop working and betray their hard-earned freedom. They are even seduced into joining the neo-colonialists by promises of “the easy life.” The Hero of Negritude, like Moses of Horeb, faces a people who, disappointed with the present and afraid of the future, seem willing to retreat into a past condition. Some become apathetic observers of the battle for leadership and accept the outcome as “fate.” Others actively rail against the head of state who denied their puerile dreams of liberty by substituting mature action. The failure of the hero to convince the people of the responsibility of liberty is at the very heart of Césaire's concept of tragedy: it is social tragedy. The hero, as the incarnation of Negritude, must redeem the true ideals of his people. Abandoned by his comrades-in-arms and by the masses, in Vignyesque solitude, the hero must face the enemy and his choice of destiny.

At all costs, therefore, the sacrifice of the hero's life must help fulfill his ideals of Negritude: national unity. “Que de mon sang, je fonde ce peuple. …” (Chiens, pp. 61-62).⁹ “Si je dois mourir que ce soit comme Gandhi” (L, III, 2). The Hero of Negritude, then, is a soteriological visionary, a “chef-prophète”.¹⁰ He foresees the final victory over colonialism and neo-colonialism: not only Haiti or the Congo, but Africa, all the colonized will be free (L, III, 1). History, inevitably, is on the side of the people: “… ils peuvent nous détruire, pas nous vaincre. Trop tard, ils ne sont plus désormais que les attardés de l'histoire!” (L, III, 1). Indeed, the Hero of Negritude is “l'inventeur” (L, III, 6) of the future. Not by chance, Christophe's coat of arms is the Phoenix reborn and the totem of Lumumba is the sacred Ibis, the symbol of education and civilization! (C, III, 12; L, III, 2). The hero faces the future undauntedly. When the forces of reaction finally overwhelm the leaders, the Heroes of Negritude, though defeated, proudly refuse the life of compromise and choose martyrdom for their ideals. Christophe commits suicide (C, III, 10). Le Rebelle is stabbed to death (Chiens, p. 107). Lumumba is stabbed and shot to death (L, III, 6). The author has clearly orchestrated the end of the protagonists not for catharsis, but for indignation, protest and positive action. As the curtain falls, the spirit of the Hero of Negritude returns to the salvo of cannons (C, III, 12) and the beat of the drums (Chiens, p. 117), while the cry of revenge, “Luma, Luma,” (L, III, 6) blends with the rising voice of Aimé Césaire, the father of Negritude and Modern African Theater:

mais l'œuvre de l'homme vient seulement de commencer

et il reste à l'homme à conquérir toute interdiction immobilisée aux coins de sa ferveur et aucune race ne possède le monopole de la beauté, de l'intelligence, de la force et il est place pour tous au rendez-vous de la conquête …

(Cahiers, p. 83)

Notes

1. Léopold Sédar-Senghor, Négritude, arabisme et francité, (Beirut: Dar al-Kitab, 1967). Négritude et humanisme (Paris: Seuil, 1964). Nation et voie africaine du socialisme (Paris: Présence africaine, 1961).

2. Aimé Césaire, Cahier d'un retour au pays natal, seconde édition (Paris: Présence africaine, 1956), p. 71.

3. Jean Decock, “Faut-il jouer Césaire?” African Arts, Vol. I, no. 1, Autumn 1967 (pp. 36-39, 72-75), p. 71. In this article, M. Decock questions Césaire's aesthetic criteria in choosing the tragic form in order to interpret Negro emancipation. He considers Césaire's “acculturation” a major, if not negative, factor. Also consult the following excellent article: Marcel Oddon, “Les Tragédies de la décolonisation”, Le Théâtre moderne depuis la deuxième guerre mondiale (Paris: Editions du centre national de la recherche scientifique, 1967), Vol. II, pp. 85-101.

4. The following editions of Césaire's plays are used in this paper: Aimé Césaire, Et Les Chiens se taisaient, Tragédie (arrangement théâtral), (Paris: Présence africaine, 1956). La Tragédie du Roi Christophe (Paris: Présence africaine, 1963). Une Saison au Congo (Paris: Editions du Seuil, 1966). Une Tempête, in Présence africaine, Vol. 67, 3rd Quarterly 1968, pp. 3-32.

   The plays will be referred to in the paper as: Chiens, C, L, T.

5. Aimé Césaire, Chiens, pp. 57-63; C, Act I, s. 7; L, Act III, s. 2.

6. For a fascinating interpretation of political Negritude as presented by Senghor in his works, see A. James Gregor, Contemporary Radical Ideologies; Totalitarian Thought in the Twentieth Century (New York: Random House, 1968) who implies that the Negritude leader and his élite use marxist terminology but in reality support a national socialist state structure similar to fascist ideology. For further theoretic tracts on political Negritude and its marxist vision, consult Senghor's works and almost any issue of Présence africaine. Aimé Césaire's marxist leanings can be gleaned from: “La Pensée politique de Sékou Touré”, Présence africaine, Vol. 29, Dec. 1959-Jan. 1960, pp. 65-73; Discours sur le colonialisme, (Paris: Présence africaine, 1955); Lettre à Maurice Thorez (Paris: Présence africaine, 1956). In this last-mentioned text, Césaire breaks with the French Communist Party with these striking words: “Que ce que je veux c'est que marxisme et communisme soient mis au service des peuples noirs, et non les peuples noirs au service du marxisme et du communisme” (p. 12).

7. J. P. Sartre agrees entirely with Césaire's interpretation of Lumumba. “… c'est qu'il [Lumumba] représentait, vivant, le refus rigoureux de la solution néo-colonialiste”, p. 52. See J. P. Sartre, “La Pensée politique de Patrice Lumumba”, Présence africaine, Vol. 47, Trimestre 1963, pp. 18-58.

8. Significantly Sartre insists on this point: “Mort, Lumumba cesse d'être une personne pour devenir l'Afrique tout entière … il ne fut pas, ni ne pouvait être le héros du pan-africanisme, il en fut le martyr.” J. P. Sartre, ibid., p. 57.

9. Actually Christophe could have destroyed Pétion earlier (C, I, 6) and Lumumba could have brought down Mokutu (L, III, 2); but their genuine humanitarian distaste for civil war stayed their hand. From the point of view of Realpolitik, of course, they were less than professional. But their noble actions avoided raison d'état and reflected the stuff of heroes (or martyrs) and certainly statesmen: they are defenders of moral and ideological absolutes.

10. Jean Decock, op. cit., p. 73.