Name: Zingapi

Surname: Rebe

Student number: 202015583

Email address: 202015583@ufh.ac.za

Assignment title: Gods Bits Of Wood

Lecturer: Prof Mkhize

Due date: 15 June 2021

God’s Bits of Wood is a novel by the Senegalese, written by Ousmane Sembene in 1960. The
novel concerns a railroad strike in colonial Senegalese of the 1940s. It deals with several ways
that the Senegalese and Malians responded to colonialism. The novel casts a critical regard
towards accommodation, collaboration and overall idealization of the French colonials. At the
same time the story details the strikers who work against the mistreatment of the Senegalese
people. The essay below, it will critically discuss the representation of race, gender and class in
Gods Bits of Wood. But firstly I would like to do a summary of the novel.

Gods Bit of Wood is set in colonial Senegal against the backdrop of the 1947-48 railway strike.
At the time, Senegal was part of France’s African empire. In the novel, the French are in charge
of the railways, operating it for their own benefit as opposed to that of the native population. The
railway workers are deeply unhappy with their source of income and the condition that they
working under. The feel themselves exploited by their colonial overlords. Due to the challenges
that they are facing, the end up going on strike, they are inspired by a charismatic union leader
called Bakayoko, who gives them the courage and strength to resist colonial oppression. The
striker’s face various challenged, not just those posed by the French colonialists but also those
they must deal with on the home front. For an example, the men’s wives are initially reluctant to
support the strike, as they feel that this will cause them to bear an increasingly heavy burden on
top of what they already have to endure.

But as the story continues, the women come to see their husbands struggle as their own. They
become more deeply involved in the strike, and this made them to gain a sense of their own
identity, not just being a women, but as African women. The women start to take lead role in the
resistance as they embark upon a long march to the capital city, Dakar, to protest colonial
injustice and exploitation. As they do, they must overcome the challenges of their own. The evils
of colonialism, the hunger, thirst and enormous fatigue they must endure on their long march,
and the challenge of the traditional patriarchal assumptions of Senegalese society, which deny
women a role in public life.

Eventually, the strike becomes a success and the government is forced to step down. The
Senegalese people recover their strength, cultural identity and their fundamental humanity.
Doing so. They have fatally undermined the foundations of colonialism in Africa.
The representation of gender in the novel is shown as a character figure. Were men, are initially,
incredibly hesitant about the strike, full of doubt and uncertainty. Sembene goes to great lengths
to detail their insecurities through the limited conversations carried by the characters with one
another, highlighting the tension that lurked beneath the surface. The role of women in the novel
was passive, as they initially had almost no involvement whatsoever in the politics of the
workers labour union. The first feminist character Sembene introduces to us, is a nine year old
adopted daughter by Bakayoka. The girl is criticized by her grandmother for wanting to go to the
union meeting as the men were preparing to call for a strike, saying to her that “it is not a place
for a woman, and even less for a child your age”. The novel starts with women having essentially
no active role in the wider political life. However, as the story continues, the African had
discovered their ability to act ad influential agents and increasingly exerted their agency
throughout the strike. At the end of the novel, the women declare a march from Thies to Dakar to
protest the label of ‘concubines’ given to them by the condescending and dismissive colonialists.
Many men within the labour union were against letting the women make the march, as they
seems not being fit for doing so. But with support from Bakayoka, the men did not attempt to
stop the women from making the march. The movement of the women independently together
was not only to protest on behalf of their brothers, sons and husbands, but on behalf of
themselves, demonstrates their political involvement and their ability to make their voices heard.

Therefore the representation of gender in the novel, is not only railroad strike or the men who
took part in the strike. This novel is also about the women who grew and recognized their own
agency, their own significance and importance. The novel is about the importance of coordinated
and united movement beyond gender lines.

The characters in the novel are divided into two classes and are an exploration into their
relationship in a capitalist setup. This includes how they themselves are changed by this class
struggle and to what extent they effect change in their society. This change is in the levels of
their economic, social and cultural status. The two classes that are evaluated in capitalist and the
workers as they move towards change. The working class, whom are those who perform physical
or low-skilled work for a living. The working class in the novel are African men, employed by
the railway management and are oppresses by their employers socially and economically, and
this caused the main reason of the struggle and the revolution which follows. The class division
among the workers and their oppressors, it is that they have no power or say on what should be
done. This makes the middle class people or the oppressors to hold great power among their
workers, this makes the women and men in the working class to fight in the struggle so they can
be treated equally and with dignity with those in middle class level. When Isnard, the French
supervisor tries to bribe Doudu, a union secretary into breaking the law. He used his power to
make him do what he says, knowingly he has nothing to say because he is a working class

Therefore the representation of class in the novel, is that the working class are referred to being
in a line of poverty and poor with no power to speak. And the middle class are referred to those
with power and being dominant.

The representation of race in the novel, was a given within colonial-literary production and
reception. This divided the people, the African and the European. It caused tension, fight and
struggle among the African, because of their race, they were subjected to do what the white
ordered. They lacked power, resources and freedom. The European people had more authority
because they had power to do whatever pleases them on their workers. This does not only end in
what race one is, but also it involves the stereotyping of women. Women who are not supported
by men, being opposed from joining the strike that they are enduring. This also causes a tension
between them at first, but men later accept and see that women are not weak no useless but seen
as a high supportive, strong and united team.

Therefore the race in the novel, lets men, women, Africans, Europeans to find a way to unity and
freedom together at the end.

In conclusion the novel, God’s Bits of Wood also highlights the oppression faced by women in
the colonial era. They were first deprived of their ability to speak on matters including society as
a whole. Sembene however, raises women to a higher spectrum by considering them equally
important.

References
contributors, W., 2020. Wikipedia. [Online]
Available at: https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=God%27s_Bits_of_Wood&oldid=1025948781
[Accessed 12 june 2021].

Ed.eNotes, 2019. eNOTES. [Online]

Available at: https://www.enotes.com/topics/gods-bits-wood#summary-summary-786348
[Accessed 12 june 2021].

Reed, E., 2019. The Street. [Online]

Available at: https://www.thestreet.com/personal-finance/working-class-vs-middle-class-14881073
[Accessed 12 june 2021].

Tumanye, C., 2017. Twena_Tumanye. [Online]

Available at: https://twenatumanye.wordpress.com/2017/11/11/feminist-reading-of-gods-bits-of-wood-
by-clinton-tumanye/
[Accessed 12 June 2021].