And I was no longer sure whether I ought to continue to attend school or whether I ought to remain in the workshop: I felt unutterably confused.
In the memoir's first chapter, Camara Laye focuses on the admiration he has for his father, a highly respected blacksmith and goldsmith. As a child, Laye spends much of his free time in and around his father's workshop, observing the mystical rituals his father incorporates into his metal-working processes. Toward the end of the chapter, the mood turns when Laye's father becomes teary and visibly pained by the inevitability of Laye continuing in school and one day leaving to pursue his own career. In this passage, Laye outlines the internal conflict that haunts him through his formative years: whether to forge his own path or follow in his family's footsteps.
Good people! My little husband has arrived!
As a child, Laye regularly makes the two-hour walk south from Kouroussa to stay with his grandmother in the town of Tindican. Laye depicts his grandmother as a boisterous and affectionate woman who surrounds herself with other similarly disposed women from her community. When Laye arrives, his grandmother parades him past her many friends and announces that her "little husband has arrived," a term of endearment meant to exaggerate her grandson's desirability as a man. Laye takes the attention in stride, appreciating the attention lavished upon him.
These splendors dazzled country boys whose sole article of clothing was a short pair of drawers. I envied them for their freedom of movement.
When playing with his rural friends in Tindican, Laye is conscious of the difference in their outfits. As a student in the city, Laye wears khaki shorts and a shirt he must keep pristine. The country boys do not attend school, as their parents expect them to become farmhands like their elders. They wear only a simple pair of shorts in which they can run play freely, not having to worry about dirtying or tearing them. In this passage, Laye details how they envy each other. While the sight of such nice clothing on Laye amazes the boys, Laye wishes he could run around and get dirty as the country boys do.
It was true that I had been daydreaming: my life did not lie here ... and I had no life in my father's forge. But where was my life? And I trembled at the thought of the unknown life ahead of me.
When helping his uncle with the rice harvest in Tindican, Laye gets caught daydreaming. In his narration, Laye admits he wasn't paying attention to the work before him. Rather, he is lost in thought about his future. Still a boy, he is certain he won't become a farmhand like his uncle or work in a forge like his father, but he is deeply uncertain about what else he will do with his life. The lack of a circumscribed career path unnerves Laye, and he trembles with anxiety over everything he cannot predict.
I do not know how the idea of something rustic—I use the word in its accepted meaning: "lack of finesse, of delicacy"—became associated with country people. Civil formalities are more respected on the farm than in the city. Farm ceremony and manners are not understood by the city, which has no time for these things. To be sure, farm life is simpler than city life. But dealings between one man and another—perhaps because in the country everyone knows everyone else—are more strictly regulated. I used to notice dignity everywhere which I have rarely found in cities. One did not act without duly considering such action, even though it were an entirely personal affair. The rights of others were highly respected. And if intelligence seemed slower it was because reflection preceded speech and because speech itself was a most serious matter.
In the chapter dealing with his memories of helping at the Tindican rice harvest, Laye explains one of the key differences he has observed between people who live in the country versus people who live in a city. In this passage, Laye refutes the stereotype that rural people lack the delicacy of urbanites, claiming that he has witnessed far more civility among country people than city people. Laye speculates that stricter manners arise out of the fact that country people live in smaller communities, and therefore it is in everyone's best interest to get along with other by following a code of etiquette.
I realize that my mother's authoritarian attitudes may appear surprising; generally the role of the African woman is thought to be a ridiculously humble one, and indeed there are parts of the continent where it is insignificant; but Africa is vast, with a diversity equal to its vastness. The woman's role in our country is one of fundamental independence, of great inner pride. ... My father would never have dreamed of despising anyone, least of all my mother. He had the greatest respect for her too, and so did our friends and neighbors.
In this passage, Laye imagines how the reader is interpreting his depiction of his forceful mother. He comments that her strong-willed nature may surprise Western readers who assume all African women are demure and passive partners who let their husbands take charge. Laye explains that African cultures are diverse, and women in Guinea are expected to maintain independence and pride. Rather than treat Laye's mother with cruelty or anger, Laye's father respects her greatly, and, as Laye depicts later in the memoir, seems to fear her authority.
It was stupid of us to keep silent. Such beatings were utterly alien to my people’s passion for independence and equality.
When detailing the routine bullying he suffered as a schoolboy, Laye comments on a peculiar phenomenon: he and his friends never told their parents or teachers about the beatings and robbery they were enduring. Looking back on the time as an adult, Laye cannot understand the illogic that kept them silent, noting that Guineans have a propensity to see themselves as independent people who are not subordinate to anyone else.
All I know is that I could only say, "Mother!" and that after my joy in seeing her I suddenly felt a strange depression. Ought I to attribute this emotional instability to the transformation that had been at work in me? When I had left her I was still a child. Now... But was I really a man now? Was I already a grown man? ... I was a man! Yes, I was a grown man. And now this manhood had already begun to stand between my mother and myself. It kept us infinitely further apart than the few yards that separated us.
After his ritual circumcision, Laye stays in a hut with other healing boys. While convalescing, he is not allowed to go near any women. Several weeks pass before his mother comes to visit. Laye is told he can only speak to her from the other side of a fence. In this passage, he reflects on the changing emotions he feels, moving swiftly from elation at her presence to grief over the fact his passage into manhood means their relationship will be forever changed. In his thoughts, Laye discovers he is happy to be a man now, but the revelation is bittersweet when he considers that it will keep him invisibly separated from his mother, from whom he must emotionally disconnect if he is to become a fully independent adult.
Suddenly at the end of an avenue, I saw it. I stood a long time observing its vastness, watching the waves roll in, one after another, to break against the red rocks of the shore. In the distance, despite the mist around them, I saw some very green islands. It was the most astonishing spectacle that had ever confronted me. At night, from the train, I had only glimpsed the sea. ... Now that the whole spectacle lay before me I could scarcely come away.
Upon arriving in Conakry to stay with his uncle and attend technical college, Laye takes a long walk through the city. In this passage, he details how the ocean astonishes him, for it is a sight never seen in land-locked Kouroussa. To relate the breathless sublimity of seeing the sea for the first time, Laye initially refers to the sea as "it," as if the words "sea" or "ocean" are not enough to contain the glorious body of water that shimmers before him.
Later on I felt something hard when I put my hand in my pocket. It was the map of the métro.
The memoir reaches its climax when Laye accepts an offer to continue his education in France. The last scene depicts Laye and Marie flying on the same plane to Dakar, where Marie will continue her studies and Laye will transfer flights and go on to Europe. This passage—the last lines of The Dark Child—occurs just after Marie and Laye weep about Laye's promise to return to Africa. With a map of the Paris underground system in his pocket, Laye is embarking upon a daunting new experience. Having said goodbye to everyone he loves so he can begin a new life in a foreign culture, Laye is left only with a hard, impersonal map to guide him through an uncertain future.
