African Women Writers- Yvonne Vera: Getting in the Mind of Vera- A Critique on “Why Don’t You Carve Other Animals

Holding my peppermint tea in one hand and a pen in the other, I made myself comfortable in bed and began to prepare myself for another journey with Yvonne Vera. This time it was “Why Don’t You Carve Other Animals,” Vera’s first book. “Why Don’t You Carve Other Animals” is a carefully constructed title. I read it as a question, yet there deliberately is no question mark. In fact the title is quite demanding and aggressive, almost sarcastic as if Vera is forcing you to engage. My initial reaction to the title before I began to read was that I was about to be propelled into a book, which although may seem simple on the surface, is in fact layered with ideas. I would have to push past boundaries and be forced to look not at the words but through them. Ironically as I opened the book there was the first chapter staring my smack in the face, “Crossing Boundaries.” Unlike Vera’s other novels, this one was constructed as a collection of short stories, beginning with “Crossing Boundaries,” the longest out of the fifteen. Why did Vera write in short stories? Is there a reason the first story is the longest? Even after I finished the book these questions loomed in my head and I thought how wonderful it would be to actually interview Vera. Get into her head and discover the answers and true meanings to her storytelling. I think “Crossing Boundaries” was purposely the first story and was a means to bring up various themes that would circulate and fuel the rest of the book such as identity, security, land, power structures, and the relationships between sexuality and power, and race and power.

“Crossing Boundaries” focuses on James, a black man, who works on a farm for a white couple, Nora and Charles. James, the name given to him by Nora, needs land for his brother and inevitably must ask Nora or James for this request. Knowing that Nora is in a subordinate role to Charles, James looks to her for help. Vera is setting up extremely interesting power structures here. James is obviously the result of a colonized land, forced into working on the soil which was once his and his people, now taken over by white rule. He must deal with the reality he is living in and conform to the best of his ability to the current situation while trying to keep up hope that things may change. At the same time, Nora is not only trying to assert some authority over her relationship with Charles, but she, like James, is also trying to obtain land. She was becoming fearful about the bush war and the possibility of losing the land they had taken to recognize as theirs. “The bush war had disrupted the calm that came with ownership of large lands and property, and the assurance she had secured with her marriage.” (Page 14) Charles could not let himself fear the natives. The struggle over what to do about land was a difficult one and “he did not want to run away from a native, or give Nora power over himself.” (Page 16) He felt it was his duty to assert his authority over both the natives and Nora, proving his power and control.

There is a lot happening in this story dealing with identity, gender roles, and power structure. Nora has given James his name because she claims it “was easier on her tongue than his native name, which she did not try to learn or understand. He held his old name between his lips whenever he encountered his new name, and in this way he expressed a power and an authority over his identity.” (Page 13) Who really has the power? More specifically, who has the power to affect ones identity? Does a name define ones identity? In this case, silence is power. Vera is constantly pushing the reader to ask themselves these sorts of questions. I wondered what her answers to these questions would be. If I could sit down with Yvonne Vera and ask her all the questions that clouded my brain as I read through this book, how would she respond? Are there even answers to these questions or is it just a tool to engage the reader in a world in which many have not experienced or even ever thought about? Vera is challenging us. She wants us to feel the tension between her characters. She wants us to feel what is like to be stripped of your land, your name, your identity. What it is like to be controlled by others. Is Vera trying to carve a history for us?
“Why Don’t You Carve Other Animals,” the story, is rich with imagery and metaphors. Two men, one a sculptor the other a painter, are sitting in front of an “Africans Only” Hospital. The sculptor carves giraffes and elephants. “Through the elephants he carve, and also the giraffes, with oddly slanting necks, the sculptor brings the jungle to the city.” (Page 71) The city is barren with a lack of spirit and history. The carver creates imperfect animals to shed lights on a this foreign place he is forced to live in. He doesn’t sculpt anything else but giraffes and elephants. What do the animals represent? Possibly the natives and the colonizers? Is this a pre-colonial way of codification? There is “this struggle between the elephant and the giraffe, to eat the topmost leaves in the forest.” (Page 72) Maybe Vera is trying to symbolize the tension and fight between these two groups of people for control; over land, over identity, over culture. What is the purpose of recreation over and over again? Vera might have said the repetitiveness of recreating emphasized the ongoing struggle; the tireless effort to succeed and to sustain ones existence and culture. It is to illustrate the intensity of the situation in which Zimbabweans had to endure and eventually deal with the consequences of. The carver has lived in the city his whole life and has never seen elephants or giraffes. “His carving is his dreaming.” (Page 73)
Yvonne Vera is a passionate writer who pushes society’s boundaries with every piece of work she creates. She stresses issues such as identity, security, land, and power structures, issues that many people are fearful to write about, and she does it with grace. I wish I could sit down with Vera and get the answers to all the questions that I have and see if what I’m understanding through her words is what she intended. I’ll unfortunately never get that opportunity but instead I’ll keep thinking about her work, analyzing it, and questioning it. Maybe it’s good not to know exactly what Vera meant to have the reader understand in “Why Don’t You Carve Other Animals.” Perhaps there’s isn’t a right answer or even an answer at all.
By Samantha Dareff