The Power Play: Ferdinand Oyono’s ‘House Boy’ Through Michel Foucault’s Ideas of Power

Abstract

The white man’s quest for power in Africa led to what Ngugi wa Thiong’o (1981) refers to as Colonizing and Decolonizing of minds. It is a power game that was perfected by the colonial administration in Cameroon to ‘rescue Africans from themselves’ as they take control over them and what belonged to them. This paper explores the manifestations and use of power in the novel houseboy by Ferdinand Oyono through the lens of Michel Foucault’s concept of power. The text depicts the black man’s plight on the hands of the colonial masters. Through Toundi’s diary, Oyono gives a detailed account of desperate human beings whose services are exploited, whose bodies are tortured and imprisoned, and whose lives are subjected to slow painful death in ‘Blackman’s Grave’ and buried naked in prison cemetery like common criminals. Against this bleak and dangerous backdrop, black men like Toundi, to some extent, redefined their spaces and identities through formidable resistance. The argument advanced in this paper is that Oyono’s’ Houseboy’ offers a counter narrative that depicts the social, cultural and political sensibilities of African people.