Césaire’s Lumumba: A Symbol of Sexual and Political Prowess

Abstract

In this exchange from Aimé Césaire’s A Season in the Congo, Lumumba actualizes the tendency in nationalist discourse to turn women into symbols of the country. What is striking is that the dialogue features a moment of resistance on the part of Pauline. Critics tend to present Pauline the wife as clinging to the personal or emphasize her materiality and oppose her stance to Lumumba the hero’s quest and transcendent spirituality. In a work that presents its protagonist as a “man-symbol” (Houyoux 54), Pauline’s refusal prompts us to take a closer look at how the process of turning characters into symbols of struggle and of country and continent is gendered. Keeping this fundamental question in mind, in this chapter I explore Césaire’s stated intentions for the play, the gender dynamics associated with the rehabilitating gesture of Negritude, including a feminist analysis of the Mother Africa trope, and women’s participation in the mimetic as well as lyrical and mythopoetic registers of the play. I pay special attention at the end of the chapter to the character of Pauline Lumumba, who is figured as the keeper of Lumumba’s legacy.

I haven’t got the name of a country or a river, I’ve got the name of a woman: Pauline. That’s all I have to say.

It can’t be helped. In my heart I have always called you Pauline Congo (87)