The irony of other cultures
With the images of Africans’ lives, some of their traditions and views on life are considered funny and even ironic. As Amari walks through the village she is watching “the chief elder’s two wives chattered cheerfully together as they pounded cassava fufu for his evening meal”. The fact that a man can have two women, who have good relations with each other, is an ironic reality for Western civilizations.
Let’s welcome our guests
“We must welcome our guests, Amari. We would never judge people simply by how they looked—that would be uncivilized,” her mother told her. “Let us prepare for a celebration.”
When the Ewe people heard of the strangers approaching, they thought of no danger and wanted to welcome newcomers. Little did they know of the fact that these newcomers came to slaughter them, and the word ‘uncivilized’ has in this situation the ironic effect, as shows the opposite side of how ‘civilized’ representatives of the Western civilizations may be.
A slave with beauty around
Amari could not comprehend fully yet that she was a slave, and what this really meant. And another thing was that she could not understand how with this beauty around them people can be so cruel and harsh. The irony is of Amari’s confronted impressions and emotions.
“Amari had no idea where they were being taken or why. They just marched, prisoners in a land so full of beauty and harmony that Amari could not bear to watch the golden sun rising in the east or the freely running giraffes and elephants in the distance.”
The branded man
Another ironic situation happens when a black man, who had helped the pale-faced people kill and capture poor Africans, was caught, branded, and sold with the rest. The old proverb goes: “He who digs a hole for someone else, ends up in it”, and it proves that evil is always repaid.
