A Bend in the River: Pathos 1 key example

This clipping contains a sophisticated metaphor dealing with the tensions between the modern and the traditional in the country. It is also an example of persuasive rhetoric that uses hyperbolic emotional appeals to convince its audience to oppose the President.

The shrieking of the ancestors is a metaphor for what the Liberation Army argues is the suffering of traditional Africa under the rule of the new President. To say that the ancestors shriek is to express indignation and pain on behalf of tradition under the new regime. It is also a challenge to the President's claim on African identity. The Liberation Army fears that the President's model of African pride will result in the loss of African culture, and the shrieking of the ancestors is a way to declare this fear.

This clipping is also full of hyperbole. To express that the President’s regime will “kill all our mothers” or that citizens will “all die forever” is an exaggeration, despite the very real injustices of the regime. But these hyperboles participate in the broader tone of the passage: one of intensely emotional persuasion. This is a particularly furious mode of pathos—one that elicits pity and ultimately functions as a call to action.

This passage encapsulates some of the most important tensions throughout the work. By highlighting the conflict between modernity and tradition, this quote reveals the novel to be a portrait of a nation and a continent in constant oscillation between two fundamentally different ways of operating in the world.