46 pages • 1 hour read
Ben OkriIn the Shadow of War
Fiction | Short Story | Adult | Published in 1983A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more. For select classroom titles, we also provide Teaching Guides with discussion and quiz questions to prompt student engagement.
Themes
Motivations of Loyalty
The narrator never explicitly states that the war mentioned in the story is the Nigerian civil war, but given context and Okri’s other writing, readers can infer that the story is indeed set during that time. This war between the Nigerian government and the secessionist state of Biafra lasted from July 1967 through January 1970, ending with the surrender of Biafra and its reintegration into the national territory. Okri never identifies where Omovo’s village is located, nor does he identify for which side the soldiers are fighting. Knowing the Nigerian military blockaded Biafra and systematically starved Biafrans, and that the veiled woman was considered an “enemy” secretly helping starving civilians, one interpretation is that the soldiers were part of the Nigerian military and the people in the cave are Biafrans.
As a child, Omovo learns how to form judgments of others on his own, and cautiously engages with the soldiers rather than unconditionally trusting them. His dishonesty could just be childhood mischief, but his lie about not seeing the veiled woman suggests an instinct to protect her; he does not want to risk a stranger’s well-being without first finding out if she really is an enemy spy. At the end of the story, his sense of loyalty to her outweighs his fear of the soldiers and their power; motivated by truth, Omovo’s conviction that he has witnessed injustice is strong enough to attempt to relay the night’s events to his father despite the soldiers’ presence.
Omovo’s father’s political affiliation is unknown, but they cordially drink palm wine together in his home, suggesting he is not Biafran. He does not demonstrate any overt political leanings, just that he is eager for the war to end. His reaction when Omovo wakes and tries to tell him what happened in the forest shows a deference to the soldiers. However, if he does believe what Omovo says is true (especially on the ominous night of an eclipse as foreshadowed early in the story), his dismissal can be read as an act of protection. As an adult, he understands the inherent risk and danger of accusing and confronting the national military during this civil war and wants to keep his family safe. In this scenario, Okri would be underscoring that during this time of strife, ordinary civilians did not necessarily feel a loyalty to one political side or another—their loyalty lay with their families and they did what was necessary to ensure survival.
The narrator does not positively characterize the soldiers; their day-drinking and general disinterest does not portray them as fighters driven by a righteous or honorable cause, but instead as lazy men with little motivation. Their willingness to shoot the woman, instead of uncovering her true identity, exemplify the callous violence humans can justify in the name of their loyalty to a larger group or cause.
In stark contrast to the soldiers, the veiled woman is quite intentional in her efforts and motivated by helping those in need. Because her identity remains a secret, it remains unclear if she is a Biafran helping the encampment or just a humanitarian who does not wish for more people to die. Regardless of her political allegiance, by juxtaposing the soldiers and their motivations against the veiled woman and hers, Okri makes the point that there are not always definable “right” or “wrong” sides of a war.
Uncovering Truth
With the transition into evening and arrival of the veiled woman, Omovo’s otherwise ordinary day becomes one of confronting disturbing truths. Omovo’s father discourages him from listening to the radio, because “it’s bad for a child to listen to news of war” (4). However, this attempt to protect him from the brutal reality of war lasts mere minutes, given Omovo has reached an age where he makes independent choices and learns things on his own. Omovo listens “without comprehension” (4) to the abstract news of casualties and bombings; the devastation of the war only becomes tangible to him when he directly encounters it that evening while following the veiled woman.
The mysterious woman’s veil serves not only to conceal her identity, but also as a symbol of concealing truth. The soldiers aggressively rip it from her head, mirroring the aggressive onslaught of distressing truth Omovo experiences. With the veil gone, they all see it was hiding traumatic wounds, much as Omovo is witnessing the traumatic effects of war for the first time. Without the veil, the woman’s identity becomes discernible and without the veil of his previous childhood innocence, wartime atrocities become more tangible for Omovo. The shift from childhood innocence to a deeper understanding of atrocities is marked by the stages of realizing what is floating in the river: what he first assumes are innocuous canoes transform into frightening animal carcasses, and following the veil’s removal, he realizes that the objects are actually human corpses.
Truth and realizations are frequently symbolized using elements of light—light bulbs, dawn, enlightenment, illumination, “seeing” the light—and Okri juxtaposes light and darkness within the theme of truth-finding. Omovo’s illuminating experiences exclusively happen in darker settings: the night of an eclipse, in the dense vegetation of the forest, by a half-lit cave, the shadow of a tree. He falls and blacks out and when he wakes up, he mistakes the darkness of his room for blindness. By unconventionally pairing truth with darkness, Okri underscores what a heavy burden the truth can be, and that truth can sometimes be even more bleak and sinister than ignorance.
The Ambiguity of Morality in Times of War
In addition to his lessons about truth, Omovo confronts the ambiguity of morality: Humans, especially in times of strife, have complicated reasons for their “right” or “wrong” behaviors. Omovo has reached an age where he can start experimenting with dishonesty and its consequences; he tests out an innocuous lie with the soldiers by joking about his name, which fortunately is met with laughter instead of anger. His second lie about the veiled woman also ends up being inconsequential, but demonstrates some preliminary understanding that acting dishonestly can sometimes be out of a desire to protect someone.
The veiled woman acts in secrecy and refuses to tell the soldiers where “the others” (8) are. Whether “the others” refer to other humanitarians, Biafrans, witches, or spies, the soldiers perceive her to be an enemy acting against the Nigerian state. Omovo sees she is aiding those in dire need, her moral deed becomes villainized by the soldiers. Her altruism is met with a loaded gun, fired by a soldier also convinced he is doing the right thing. Omovo witnesses firsthand that war has the profound power of so deeply dividing people that it strips them of their humanity, making them commit unconscionable acts in the name of a just cause.
What further complicates this realization for Omovo is that he learns morality (or a lack of it) is not absolute; the same soldiers who shot the veiled woman also brought him home from the forest after he fell. This dissonance is overwhelming, as his father expects Omovo to thank the men he just witnessed assault and likely kill someone perceived as good. By narrating the events from Omovo’s perspective, Okri reminds readers morality is complicated and ambiguous, which can be lost on adults who remain resolute in their assumptions of others and their situations.
