are nature also oppressed in the novel

Cruelty and oppression in nature are the natural way of things. To be treated like an animal is an allusion to being ill and inhumanly treated. When Hanifa's husband compares his action of tying her up as if she were an animal, the perception that he was treating her in a barbaric, cruel, and bestial nature is brought out. The narrator notes: "I'm going to tie you with a rope, like an animal."

I'm not sure hunting means oppression in nature. The archetypal value of a hunter-savior comes up again and again in literature. Heroes often kill predators, like Hercules killing the serpent as a child, or the "son of man" stepping on a viper's head in the Old Testament prophecies. In this story from African tribal life, we see the motif in full bloom. The heroic sharpshooter is basically like Adonis, the perfect hero for the town women who are need in of someone powerful. We learn later that they need him not for his hunting abilities but for his sharp reason—they'd like a true patriarch to talk some sense into their abusive husbands.