Summary
Song of Lawino and Song of Ocol portray two opposite characters. Lawino laments that Ocol, her husband, hurls insults at her and has turned his back on his traditional roots, his people, and his wife.
“My husband pours scorn on black people.”
Lawino attributes Ocol’s radical change to the education he acquired at Makerere University. On the other hand, Ocol counteracts Lawino’s words and justifies his behavior. He sees Western modernity as the epitome of civilization and adopts it as his new way of life, abandoning his original Acoli culture. Lawino, however, believes African customs are valuable and deeply rooted. At the end of the poem, she passionately defends the traditions of her ancestors:
“Let no one uproot the pumpkin.”
Okot p'Bitek uses oral traditional literature throughout the poems together with African rhythmic idioms, making the poems feel alive and deeply connected to African storytelling traditions.
Key themes and literary analysis
Okot p'Bitek begins by exploring the conflict between African traditional identity and Westernized modernity. This is shown through Lawino’s lamentations that Ocol no longer finds her attractive because she is a traditional woman. For example, Lawino says in Chapter one, page 47:
“You say you no longer want me because I am like the things left behind In the deserted homestead.”
However, Lawino refuses to see herself as worthless. Instead, she takes pride in her beauty while questioning why her husband despises his own people — the same people and woman he once loved and belonged to. While praising her natural beauty and rejecting Western beauty standards, she also recognizes that there is no harm in each race remaining grounded in its own traditions and natural appearance.
“I am proud of the hair with which I was born And as no white woman wishes to do her hair like mine, because she is proud of the hair with which she was born, I have no wish to look like a white woman.”
Nonetheless, Ocol still rejects Lawino and instead prefers Clementine, a woman aspiring to look white. This exposes the theme of cultural alienation. Lawino laments:
“Brother, when you see Clementine! The beautiful one aspires to look like a white woman.”
Additionally, Okot dives deeper into Acoli polygamous practices, which are respected despite the jealousy and emotional pain they may cause. Lawino recognizes this imbalance but does not struggle to change it. She asks for only one thing: for Ocol to stop insulting her. For Lawino, her pain comes not from sharing her man with another woman, but from the humiliation and insults she receives from him. Lawino says:
“I do not complain because he wants another woman.”
The emergence of political parties and the fight for independence introduce the theme of political awakening. Politicians speak about uniting tribes so that all people may become one. However, Lawino questions how this unity is possible if Ocol and his own brother are divided by political parties. She sees through their hypocrisy while they claim to fight for Uhuru. At the same time, she openly admits that she does not fully understand Uhuru herself.
“I do not understand the new political parties. They dress differently, they dress in robes tike the Christian diviner-priests, but Ocol treats his brother as if they are not relatives.”
Furthermore, Okot explores the theme of Africanness and Africa as a “dark continent.” Ocol describes Africa as darkness:
“What is Africa to me? Blackness, deep, deep fathomless darkness.”
His hatred and disgust toward his own blackness are revealed further when he asks:
“Mother, mother, why, why was I born black?”
This same feeling about blackness is explored in detail in Black Skin, White Masks by Frantz Fanon, which I have previously reviewed.
My reflections / my takeaways
The poems in this book are dramatic and painfully familiar. At times, they leave you laughing because the situations feel so real. Okot introduces the reader to the way of life of the Acoli tribe without you needing to go there physically. You experience it on paper, in ink, yet it feels vivid, alive, and sometimes humorous. After reading these poems, I walked away with a fuller understanding of what life looked like in Acoli and what it meant to be married to an educated, westernized Acoli man before independence. Ocol’s song attempts to justify his indifference toward Lawino and his disgust for his own blackness, culture, and what he sees as a sleeping continent.
Strengths
Song of Lawino and Song of Ocol are poems for a lifetime. Their relevance remains fresh and powerful over the years, and they will likely continue to resonate for generations to come. Okot’s style of writing is unique because he expresses African ideas in a deeply African traditional sense through oral traditional literature. His decision to use a traditional, uneducated woman as the central voice is genius. Despite her lack of modern education, Lawino possesses big ideas and asks important questions about identity, culture, politics, and belonging.
Weakness
I felt like Ocol had more to say than the space his words occupy in this book.
Recommendations
If you love provocative poetry and are a fan of African literature, this book is yours.
