The appropriation of language in Beasts of No Nation

Some thoughts after reading Beasts of No Nation

I found Uzodinma Iweala’s Beasts of No Nation particularly compelling in his use of language. Our young protagonist, Agu, narrates his divorce from childhood through the stilted use of English in the present tense. An effect of this version of English is that of dis-identification with the reader. Typically, the reader’s identification with the characters is seen as a measure of a novel’s success; Lynn Hunt’s work argues that the novel conditioned people’s ability to sympathize, to identify with the discontents of others, which thus enabled the development of the invention of human rights. Iweala’s novel, however, aims to distance the reader from the character. The language alienates the reader in its decidedly foreign (non-English) accent. In the opening pages, Agu says, “Footstep is everywhere around me and making me to think that my father is coming to bring medicine to stop all of this itch and pain” (2). The elements which render this iteration of English as foreign sounding (or Other to “proper” English), are grammatical – such as disagreement between plural/singular subjects and verbs, run on sentences, and lack of correct punctuation. The language sounds foreign in its failure to adhere to grammatical structures of English.

The syntactical breakdowns of Agu’s language, however, further suggest his youth and straddle a fine line between illustrating his youth and becoming incomprehensible. In regards to referring to Agu’s youth, the language is reminiscent of a child’s, of the mistakes a child would make in forming complete sentences. The child makes mistakes precisely because he or she is coming into language, of being subjected into this (foreign, that which is outside themselves) system of signification. The grammatical errors then further imply a failure of signification, of assuming and pre-supposing those linguistic relations which come to figure human relations altogether (which echoes Lyotard’s explication of the child within the interlocutory circuit). Iweala cleverly uses language itself to signify the failure of subjection into the Symbolic Order. In this way, Iweala’s novel seems to lie in tension between entrance into the Symbolic Order and a constant referral to the Real Order, of pure emotions, desires, that which resists symbolization at all. Agu, as a child, is himself a bundle of desires and emotions which he cannot always fully articulate. His use of language to situate himself in the world (in relation to others) becomes onomatopoetic, such as when he describes the world around him through sounds like “KNOCK KNOCK”, “PING PING” or “KPAWA!” (2).

In this sense, Iweala accomplishes a remarkable feat of mimicking the grammatical breakdowns of a child, and the disruption between entrance into the Symbolic from the Real, without jeopardizing comprehension of the supposed audience of fluent English readers. As such, I don’t feel that Iweala is distorting English in his portrayal of Agu, but instead it seems he is cleverly appropriating English for the needs of a child soldier, of using language to dis-identify his character from the reader in order to show the limitations of the novel in “knowing” the other.