Xala Literary Elements

Satirical fiction

Dakar, Senegal, shortly after gaining independence from France

We have an unnamed narrator who tells the story from a third-person omniscient point of view, giving us insight into certain characters' thoughts.

Ironic, satirical, cynical, detached

The protagonist is El Hadji Abdou Kader Beye, a businessman who is of loose morals and acts greedily and selfishly throughout the text (in this regard, he is an antihero of sort). The antagonist, most clearly revealed at the text's end, is the Beggar, who curses El Hadji with the titular xala or impotence.

El Hadji, afflicted with a spell of impotence (xala), consults both traditional healers and seers in order to figure out who put the spell on him and in order to find a remedy. Meanwhile, his various wives and their families vie for control and attention from El Hadji, and he neglects them and his business affairs increasingly in order to try and treat his xala. Simultaneously, a silent conflict between the wealthy and the poor of Dakar rages.

The explosive climax of the novel comes at its conclusion, when a riotous group of sick and poor people invade El Hadji's home. It is here that we learn that it was really the Beggar who cursed El Hadji with xala, and this scene can be thought of as the onset of a revolution where ordinary people try to get payback against the impotent postcolonial bourgeoisie (representing the culmination of the aforementioned silent class conflict). At the same time as this scene is explosive and climactic, however, the police are already standing outside El Hadji's home and ready to stop the riot. The future of Senegal's poor, despite their bold efforts to stand up to the bourgeoisie, does not appear too bright in such a moment.

Outside El Hadji's office, the Beggar sings chants every day. Ironically, however El Hadji does not realize that the chants are used to curse him, and that the Beggar is really the person who is responsible for his impotence. Even when a seer tells him that someone close to him is responsible for the curse, El Hadji never suspects the Beggar, though he passes him every day.

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Much of the language of the text is allusive and euphemistic so that the text's characters can communicate with each other in a way that accords with both modern and traditional decorum. For example, consider the way in which Yay Bineta communicates with El Hadji, which she considers part of an "ancient, allegorical language preserved by custom" (7).

Sembène overwhelms us with imagery and sense data, both to showcase El Hadji's wealth—as at the text's beginning, where his wedding is depicted to have a luxurious dimension that appeals to all the senses—and to underscore the dissolution of Senegal's poor—as at the text's end, where a retinue of diseased and grotesque beggars invade El Hadji's home in an attempt to have him atone for his various sins against them.

Money is what empowers El Hadji over people, but it is also what keeps him enslaved and indebted to others—for example, his wives, children, and creditors—at the same time.

The impotence faced by El Hadji is a broad parallel for the social and political impotence of the neocolonial bourgeoisie. Moreover, the lives led by his two first wives serve as a type of antithesis, throwing each other's choices and values into relief.

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Towards the end of the novel, the sun and the moon are given human characteristics, with Sembène creating the beautiful image of "the sun and the moon play[ing] chase, weaving life" (93).