Absolute Difference in Tayeb Salih's "Season of Migration to the North"
Salih's novel is about illusory assumptions of insurmountable difference based on culture, gender, nationality, or race.
In her Introduction to the 2009 edition of Tayeb Salih's Season of Migration to the North, Laila Lalami makes the claim that Salih's novel is about illusory assumptions of insurmountable difference based on culture, gender, nationality, or race. According to her: "The 'Other,' Salih seems to say, is not much different from the 'Self.' This challenge of the dichotomy of Self and Other is particularly evident in a series of dualities around which he has deftly structured he novel." Write a paper that explores the ways in which Salih uses narrative structure and symbolism to challenge presuppositions of absolute difference in Season of Migration to the North.
Tayeb Salih’s novel Season of Migration to the North deals with, among other things, the dichotomy between the Self and the Other. Set in post-colonial Sudan, it is as much a personal story as it is a global, historical narrative about the reconciliation of cultures in a post-colonial world. Clash of cultures can often lead to the generation of dualities between the perceived “Colonizer” and the “Colonized”, “East” and “West”, and the “Self” and “Other”. In these dualities, complex, multifaceted experiences are reduced to simplified snapshots that manifest as stereotypes. These stereotypes are often romanticized to the point that they become idealisms, residing in this untouchable space of perceived “absolute difference”. Salih challenges this presupposition of absolute difference by upholding that cultures cannot be reconciled when they exist as these stereotypes. This is seen through the narrator’s romanticized image of the traditional Sudanese village, Mustafa Sa’eed’s use of stereotypes to furnish his mythical identity, and the idealized dichotomy between “Colonizer” and “Colonized”. By setting up the ways the two cultures are defined by perceptions of absolute difference, Salih shows that the cost of this form of idealization can be high, and that a refusal to recognize the hybridity and constantly-changing nature of culture will only result in destruction.
One of the earliest images emblazoned in readers’ minds is that of the traditional Sudanese village. The village and its people is an image that the narrator himself cherished during his studies abroad, explaining how “For seven years I had longed for them, had dreamed of them”(p.1). He has dreamt so extensively of them that he nurtures his own idealized vision of the village in his mind, where he had “become used to their voices, my eyes grown accustomed to their forms”(p.1), His word choice of “used to” and “accustomed” despite his being away suggests that his idealized village is unchanged, sterile, and rooted in the past, resulting in the initial division between his idealized village and the present-day village as seen from the “fog” that “rose up between them and me”(p.1). This he quickly dispels by finding solace in the sameness of the natural setting: the familiar “merry whispering” of the wind and the “cooing of the turtle-doves” allow him to conclude that “life is good and the world as unchanged as ever”(p.2). It does not escape readers, however, that the dynamic human setting is vastly ignored, showing how the narrator’s desire for the village to conform to his cherished image of it drives him only to superficially evaluate his setting’s physical aspects. The line “I felt not like a storm-swept feather but like that palm tree, a being with a background, with roots, with a purpose”(p.2) stated shortly after his arrival shows that the narrator relies on his idealized image of the village and its constancy to inform himself of his selfhood. Through the disjunction between reality and the narrator’s romanticized image of the traditional Sudanese village, Salih shows the narrator’s lack of clarity in his own identity.
As the novel progresses, the narrator gains more clarity on the reality of his village. Upon his later return, he states that “No fog separates them from me this time, for I am coming from Khartoum only, after an absence of no more than seven months”(p.63). The word choice “this time” puts this return to the village in direct juxtaposition with his previous return, showing his own awareness of the absence of a fog and his increased clarity. His statement, “I am coming from Khartoum only” in addition to the emphasis of “no more than seven months” versus his previous duration of seven years shows the narrator’s perception that his idealized image of the village was a result of a nurturing that can only occur when he is away for long periods of time. This speaks to the non-temporal quality of the narrator’s idealized village, and how this timeless traditional setting, when now viewed with a “matter-of-fact eye” (p.63), is reverted to one of very human, if not plain and unsightly elements: the “unironed galabias”, “unshaven beards,” and mustaches defined in the utmost clarity of ranging between “black and white.” The slow disintegration of the narrator’s idealized Sudanese village is Salih’s form of critique on how the romanticization of culture will always result in a misinformed sense of self; the reliance on stereotypes to better inform ourselves of our selfhood will only result in confusion and a superficial understanding of identity.
The use of stereotypes is further seen in Mustafa Sa’eed, whereupon he takes advantage of the dichotomy between East and West to construct his mythical identity. Whereas the naive romanticization of culture expressed by the narrator had been an internal conflict, the use of stereotypes to define identity is externalized in Mustafa’s case, seen especially in his homes. He describes his London home as “a graveyard that looked on to a garden” (p.30), furnished with a “large mirror, so that when I slept with a woman it was as if I slept with a whole harem simultaneously. The room was heavy with the smell of burning sandalwood and incense, and in the bathroom were pungent Eastern perfumes, lotions, unguents, powders, and pills” (p.31). Here, Mustafa thrives on the illusion of absolute difference: his bedroom becomes an embodiment of the “ideal” East, a space where his women are able to live in the stereotypes that the West projects onto the Orient. However, the evocation of the “graveyard” leads readers to realize that reducing a culture to simply its stereotypes will only lead to destruction: Mustafa’s bedroom has not only become a graveyard for the women who have become infatuated with the exotic “Other”, but also a graveyard for the complexity and authenticity of his culture. “My bedroom was like an operating theatre in a hospital” (p.31). This comparison of a setting of love to a clinical, economical setting of the hospital associated with both healing and death drives home the idea that culture can be restorative when experienced with genuine emotion but also destructive when it is engineered and lived through stereotypes.
The compartmentalization of culture is also seen in Mustafa’s “wax museum” built right next to his traditional Sudanese house. Furnished with a “real English fireplace with all the bits and piece” (p.136), it is a copy of an English home. Yet, the narrator describes it as a “A graveyard. A mausoleum. An insane idea. A prison. A huge joke. A treasure chamber” (p.138). Here, Salih seems to suggest that in the same way he had imprisoned his romantic conquests in this idealized image of the East, Mustafa himself is imprisoned in his own idealized notion of the West. The “insanity” described by the narrator is Mustafa’s futile attempts to vicariously relive his intellectual, hedonistic past through this construction. Imagery of death is once again evoked, and the hundreds of volumes in his library that do not contain “a single Arabic book” are compared to “tombstones.” Salih seems to say that a culture must be actively lived and recognized for its hybridity and constantly changing nature; when it is isolated in a non-temporal space, fueled by history and sustained through stereotypes, it becomes as sterile and lifeless as a “mausoleum.” The narrator’s departure from Mustafa’s rectangular room so to “not let him [Mustafa] complete the story” (p.166) is thus a celebration of his arrival at this conclusion. His growth from a naive, romantic poet to someone who has a fresh understanding of his role in the village allows for a spiritual rebirth represented by his entry into the water “as naked as when my mother bore me” (p.166). When floundering in the Nile, he finds himself “half-way between north and south” (p.166), signifying his understanding that unlike Mustafa’s identity, which is constructed upon a bedrock of sterility and lies, the narrator’s is now rooted in truth: he is able to acknowledge the duality of his culture and its positioning in a hybrid space celebrating both “north and south”. It is a culture that must be lived–– must be acted upon–– and the narrator achieves the conclusion at the end when he declares “All my life I had not chosen, had not decided. Now I am making a decision. I choose life” (p.168). Culture cannot be compartmentalized, and Mustafa’s sense of self channeled through this externalized image of the world relies on a presupposition of absolute difference that can ultimately only result in destruction.
Finally, Salih seems to say that the destructive effects of colonialism itself arises out of this presupposition of absolute difference between Self and Other. Mustafa sees himself as the colonizer who will “liberate Africa with my penis” (p.120), fully framing his romantic relationships in the context of heroic military conquests. One of the most revealing episodes of this relationship between colonizer and colonized is the scene in which Sausan acts the part of the “slave girl” to Mustafa’s “master” (p. 146). For there to be a master, there must always be a slave; for there to be a colonizer, there must be a the colonized; and in that same way, for there to be a “Self,” Mustafa suggests that there must always be an “Other.” Mustafa recounts: “while still in the throes of fantasy, intoxication and madness, I took her and she accepted, for what happened had already happened between us a thousand years ago” (p.146). The “taking” of Sausan through the consummative act is a representation of Mustafa’s imposition of his “Self” onto the “Other”, and speaks to the thousand year tradition of colonialism, whereupon there appears to be a need for a hegemony of superior, colonialist structures that can only arise in the alienation between East and West. In Mustafa’s instance, we see that perceptions of absolute difference can be manipulated to gain power. However, through him, readers also realize that this process of gaining power is a manifestation of our need to assert control over “the Other” to better understand our own selfhood –––a process that Salih condemns as one that will only result in disillusionment and destruction.
This destruction is seen in Mustafa’s trial, at which the attorney states in defense of his actions: “Mustafa Sa'eed, gentlemen of the jury, is a noble person whose mind was able to absorb Western civilization but it broke his heart. These girls were not killed by Mustafa Sa'eed but by the germ of a deadly disease that assailed them a thousand years ago” (p.33). This line encapsulates Sa’eed’s role as the “Noble Savage”, who’s pure heart is unable to absorb the “corruption" of Western civilization. He epitomizes agency by taking stereotypes that are imposed on him and transforming them into a source of power. Yet, Salih seems to say that this is also what destroys him: because he must live up to this ideal “lie”, he loses his power. The West in the novel is stereotyped to represent the intellectual mind, while the East represents the sensual in the heart, showing that even in the end, Mustafa’s inability to acknowledge and assimilate the duality between East and West is what ultimately betrays him. This “germ” that assailed them refers to the alienation and presupposition of absolute difference between East and West caused by colonialism, ultimately credited to result in Mustafa’s tragic relationships. By being phrased simply as the “victim” of a “conflict between two worlds,” Mustafa is reduced by the attorney to an Orientalist stereotype: even when he kills, his conquests as a “Colonizer” are simply products of a thousand year system. Mustafa’s biggest failure is his ultimate lack of impact on either culture. By living in the role of a “Colonizer”, Mustafa denies himself the ability to live authentically in his culture.
No line other than the narrator’s critique of Mustafa’s poetry better encapsulates Salih’s challenge of absolute difference; upon reading one of Mustafa’s compositions in his “wax museum”, the narrator comments that it is a “very poor poem that relies on antithesis and comparisons; it has no true feeling, no genuine emotion” (p.153). Just like Mustafa’s poetry, a culture that relies on antithesis and comparison is lifeless, sterile, and devoid of authenticity. By setting up a series of perceived absolute differences around the Sudanese traditional village, Mustafa’s mythic identity, and the Colonizer versus the Colonized, Tayeb Salih implores readers to recognize culture’s existence in a unique hybrid space that is constantly subject to change. Culture must be lived, and Season of Migration to the North is a call to action: it may be easier to flow with the current and allow society’s construction of cultural dualities to define our identity, but we must fight this urge, so as to emerge from the resurrecting waters of the Nile perhaps not with life, but with a desire to live it to its fullest.