51 pages • 1 hour read
Olive SchreinerThe Story of an African Farm
Fiction | Novel | Adult | Published in 1883A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Themes
Finding God and Unity in Nature
Content Warning: This section mentions death and infant death.
Though the novel does develop plot and characters, its philosophical preoccupations—primarily but not solely with questions of belief—take precedence. As the lapsed daughter of missionaries, the author herself grappled with the mysteries of existence and how to understand one’s place in the larger universe. Particularly through the character of Waldo, the novel questions where one can turn when the Christian worldview does not provide sufficient answers. In the end, despair over the loss of traditional belief leads to a revelation about the interconnectedness of life and the unity of the universe.
Waldo’s early experience of religion is oppressive rather than expansive and liberating. Of the religious lessons offered by his devout father, the condemnation of sinners impresses Waldo most deeply. In the scene in which he tries to make an offering to God, this punitive spirituality combines with Waldo’s expectation that the divine presence will appear or give him some sort of specific sign—partly a reflection of the literalism of his religious education but also an indication that Waldo craves a more materially grounded faith. He interprets the lack of response as rejection, so he too decides to reject: “He would not pray for mercy any more” (42). As he grows older, he views his Bible with a jaded perspective: “The leaves of that book had dropped blood for him once; they had taken the brightness out of his childhood; from between them had sprung the visions that had clung about him and made night horrible” (67).
Initially, Waldo perceives this reassessment as sinful and his doubt as transgressive, but as he matures, he begins to seek spiritual enlightenment from different sources. Without a god at all, he sees only despair and disorder—“All is emptiness” (151)—but he eventually begins to recognize patterns within the seeming chaos. Eventually, Waldo experiments with a kind of pantheistic belief, understanding God as all around him and embedded within nature, connecting all things: “We walk in the great hall of life, looking up and round reverentially. Nothing is despicable—all is meaningful; nothing is small—all is part of a whole, whose beginning and end we know not” (154). He finds comfort in nature, the landscape that has been patiently present for him from the beginning now manifesting as the evidence of divinity. The stranger on the road reinforces this discovery and provides him with an allegory that corresponds to his experience, in which the search for the ultimate truth is the work of a lifetime. The stranger claims that truth and understanding are always present and that one must only look to nature and its patterns: “There is nothing so universally intelligible as truth. It has a thousand meanings, and suggests a thousand more” (169). The world, which seemed “empty” under Christianity and atheism alike, is alive with possibility simply by virtue of being itself.
Lyndall draws a similar conclusion after her experiences away from the farm. Her views, though more political than philosophical, also embrace the idea of interconnectedness: “[A]ll things are in all men, and one soul is the model of all” (198), she tells Waldo, implying that the moral progress of the individual parallels the development of nations. When one person becomes more enlightened, then the entire nation will follow. Further, she imagines the various lives of disparate peoples to inspire her: from the “medieval monk” with his prayer beads to the “Hindoo philosopher” meditating alone to the “troop of Bacchanalians” wildly dancing (214), Lyndall finds connection and meaning beyond her own singular existence. As she puts it, “[I]t makes my little life larger; it breaks down the narrow walls that shut me in” (215). Like Waldo’s landscape, Lyndall’s diverse mass of humanity has an underlying unity.
Lyndall’s rejection of traditional social mores leads to her death, and Waldo’s pantheism seems to destine him to the same fate. His iconoclastic vision of the universe provides him with comfort after Lyndall’s death, but like her, he is out of place in the small-minded world of Tant’ Sannie’s African farm. However, he believes that death is not an end, even though he no longer believes in a traditional religious resurrection: “For the soul which knows itself no more as a unit, but as a part of the Universal Unity of which the Beloved is also a part; which feels within itself the throb of Universal Life; for that soul there is no death” (290). Thus, Lyndall’s death—the “Beloved” of whom Waldo is thinking—is not final nor is his own. They are reunited in the cosmic harmony that exists beyond their individual beings.
The Value of Education
The novel’s stance on education is complex: While the narrator and some of the characters express a deep and abiding desire for education, the events of the book often undermine its significance. The religious education in which the children are indoctrinated, for example, does not provide a lasting foundation for their growth into adulthood. The secular education that Lyndall pursues with determination does not teach her what she yearns to know. The education gained by (often harrowing) experience appears to be the only form of learning that ultimately matters. This uncertainty regarding the benefits of formal education reflects an anxiety over the society—colonial, isolated, and potentially obsolete—in which the characters reside.
The children’s religious education is undermined by the hypocrisy and gullibility of the adults who impart it. Both Otto and Tant’ Sannie welcome the thief and liar Bonaparte Blenkins into the household without skepticism. When Lyndall questions Otto about Bonaparte’s dubious stories, Otto exclaims in exasperation, “If we begin to question everything—proof, proof, proof, what will we have to believe left?” (62). He is too determined to preserve his unhesitating faith to allow room for rational thought. Eventually, as Bonaparte’s lies become more elaborate and his behavior crueler, Otto’s expressions of credulity become harder to accept, and the fact that his beliefs on this subject are so naïve calls all his beliefs into question. Drawing one’s lessons from the Bible, the novel suggests, will leave one vulnerable to chicanery. Similarly, Tant’ Sannie only needs to see Bonaparte in a nice, new suit and hear his obsequious flattery to swallow his deceptions. As the narrator wryly notes, “Not what we are taught, but what we see, makes us, and the child gathers the food on which the adult feeds to the end” (62). If these adults are role models, then they are only modeling foolishness. The children, especially Lyndall, consequently reject the purported wisdom that their elders offer.
Lyndall instead sets her sights on a formal education; she “intend[s] to go to school” (45), believing that a secular education will provide her with ample knowledge and adequate tools with which to navigate the world. Still, even before the disappointment of her actual experience, Lyndall’s cynicism about official versions of history suggests the limits of schooling by questioning the objectivity and conventions of academic scholarship. When the children discuss the exploits of Napoleon, Lyndall claims that the textbook only reveals “what he did, not what he thought” and advises the others that “[b]ooks do not tell everything” (48). After she returns from four years of finishing school, she rejects the whole enterprise: “I have discovered that of all cursed places under the sun, where the hungriest soul can hardly pick up a few grains of knowledge, a girls’ boarding-school is the worst” (185). While this is not an indictment of education in general, it is a clear condemnation of the kind of education offered to young women at the time. More overtly than the discussion of Napoleon, Lyndall’s experience at finishing school reveals the often ideological function of education—in this case, to inculcate traditional gender roles.
Education, as a broad concept, therefore turns out to be less than optimal (for Lyndall, as a woman) or simply unattainable (for Waldo, as an impoverished farmworker). Lyndall does, however, gather some wisdom from her extracurricular education: As she tells Waldo, “In the holidays I learnt a great deal more. […] I have not learnt what I expected; but I have learnt something else” (186). Her hard-won education comes from experience (not all of it appropriate, according to the standards of the time) rather than a classroom. The central lesson she gleans from her time at school is to trust in her own determination: She remarks that she “know[s] […] by [her] own little experience” that her resolve and patience opened the gates for her to leave the farm and enjoy life beyond it (216). Waldo also learns his lessons the hard way: His treatment at the hands of Bonaparte provides him with a steely resolve that reinforces his desire to seek out answers in the world.
Nevertheless, both Lyndall’s and Waldo’s journeys end in tragedy with their premature deaths: All of the value they placed on learning could not save them from the capriciousness of the world. However, the novel suggests that this is not the ultimate point of education. Rather, there is value in striving for something better and seeking something greater than the self, even (and especially) in the face of obscurity and mortality.
Women’s Status in Marriage
In 19th-century European society, the culmination of adulthood in marriage was a given. Young couples joined their households in matrimony to propagate the next generation and to ensure the rights of property (all the more important in a colonial context, given those rights’ questionable validity). As the traditional means for women to secure their livelihood, marriage looms especially large for the novel’s female characters. Tant’ Sannie has already been married (and widowed) twice, and she marries for the third time within the course of the novel; the act is crucial to the upkeep of the farm. Em desires comfort and continuity in her life and finds a kind of love with Gregory Rose: He adores her as long as she is obedient to him, until he does not. Lyndall rejects the notion of marriage, as it is inextricably linked to monetary concerns and childbearing and rearing. Ultimately, however, the novel rewards a conventional understanding of women’s roles even as it poses questions about the validity of marriage as an institution tied to women’s oppression.
As young women in a patriarchal society, Lyndall and Em enjoy limited agency whether they marry or not. Even as children, they are aware of their fate. As Em responds to Lyndall’s childhood wanderlust, “I suppose some day we shall go somewhere; but now we are only twelve, and we cannot marry till we are seventeen” (45). Marriage is synonymous with the expansion of their world—they can leave the farm once they are married—but not, ironically, with freedom or independence. Women have little independence in a society that offers them little opportunity for education and work, but marriage is not a true solution, as it simply makes wives beholden to the desires and financial concerns of their husbands. In addition, women are commodified within a marriage market: Tant’ Sannie cannot remarry until Em is 16, according to the terms left by her husband’s will, so Bonaparte turns his affections toward her niece, who stands to inherit “two thousand pounds […] and a farm, and two thousand sheep” (116). Thus, women are seen as not only objects for monetary gain but also potential victims for exploitation.
The critique becomes sharper after Lyndall returns home from her schooling, expressing unyielding opinions on the commodification of women via marriage. The world, she argues, tells women to deny their own aspirations in favor of their future husbands: “To us it says—Strength shall not help you, nor knowledge, nor labour. You shall gain what men gain” (188). In a patriarchal society, women cannot advance without men, so they must “sell themselves” in marriage. To those who suggest that women enter marriage of their own volition, Lyndall presents a metaphor: “Yes—and a cat set afloat in a pond is free to sit in the tub till it dies there, it is under no obligation to wet its feet” (194). The implication is both that women have no meaningful choice and that marriage itself is tantamount to death in its suppression of women’s individuality. She points out that this institution does not serve love but rather deforms it, as a woman cannot truly love someone who possesses or oppresses her: “[W]hen love is no more bought and sold, when it is not a means of making bread, when each woman’s life is filled with earnest, independent labour, then love will come to her” (195).
Em—and, to a greater extent, her betrothed, Gregory Rose—harbors views diametrically opposed to Lyndall’s. Em’s idea of love and marriage is service and devotion. When Gregory demands that she love nobody other than himself, Em demurs because her idea of love includes her sisterly feelings toward Lyndall and her friendship with Waldo. However, she wants to please him: “I will try not to love anyone else” (180). Further, she assures him that she “will do everything [he] tell[s] [her]” (180). With Tant’ Sannie as her only example and with no experience beyond the farm, Em accepts that marriage requires self-sacrifice and acceptance of her status as her husband’s possession. The fact that she is the one to break off the engagement when she realizes Gregory’s growing affection for her cousin only reinforces her subservience, as it allows him to preserve the illusion of honor.
The traditionalism of Gregory and Em’s relationship contrasts markedly with the reversals of Gregory and Lyndall’s. Gregory initially despises Lyndall, writing to his sister, “If I had a wife with pride I’d make her give it up, sharp. I don’t believe in a man who can’t make a woman obey him” (206). Gregory assumes that it is his right as a man to exercise power over women but ironically relinquishes his supremacy and control to obtain Lyndall’s promise of marriage—a promise she breaks. In fact, he symbolically relinquishes his “manhood” itself, dressing as a woman to nurse Lyndall through her fatal illness. His devotion upends conventional gender roles in marriage, with the man subjugating his needs to the woman. In his very “emasculation,” he becomes a more honorable character.
In the end, Gregory cannot save Lyndall but will marry Em in respect of Lyndall’s final wishes. Gregory and Em thus fulfill the conventional contract of marriage, following Tant’ Sannie’s lead. Tant’ Sannie herself has finally been granted a child, the requisite consummation of traditional marriage that previously eluded her. Lyndall, who refuses to marry the father of her child, dies of complications caused by childbirth. Her rejection of such an entrenched tradition threatens to destabilize the long-standing system, already made fragile by modern expressions of women’s rights. Her death—and the death of her child—ensures that the conventional carries the day.
