Two Thousand Seasons: Analysis of Major Characters
"Two Thousand Seasons" is a rich narrative that explores the historical and cultural journey of a community through the perspectives of its major characters. The story is narrated by an omnipresent griot, embodying the voice of traditional African culture, specifically from Ghana. The central characters include Anoa, a prophetess who forecasts a cycle of cultural decline and resurgence; Isanusi, a wise counselor who confronts authority and ultimately becomes a martyr for his people; and Idawa, a strong and articulate woman who defies royal expectations and supports Isanusi. Abena emerges as a pivotal figure, leading the young rebels with her eloquence and determination, while Koranche, the treacherous king, represents the betrayal of African values for personal gain. Bentum, Koranche's son, serves as a tragic symbol of colonial influence and corruption. Together, these characters illustrate themes of resilience, betrayal, cultural integrity, and the struggle against oppression, highlighting the complexities of identity and history within the context of colonialism. The interplay among these figures not only reflects their individual journeys but also the collective experience of their people, offering insights into the enduring impact of their legacy.
Two Thousand Seasons: Analysis of Major Characters
Author: Ayi Kwei Armah
First published: 1973
Genre: Novel
Locale: Western Sudan, Ghana, and elsewhere in Africa
Plot: Epic
Time: 1000–1900
The narrator, an omnipresent griot (poet-historian) and the voice of traditional African culture, specifically that of Ghana. Masculine in tone but speaking in the first person plural (“we”), the narrator is confident in his remembrance and in his interpretation of Anoa's prophecies as he traces the migration of his people from the deserts of western Sudan to present-day Ghana. In recalling the collective experience and the principles of “the way,” reciprocity and compassionate mutual respect, he also offers vivid, intimate, and detailed descriptions of “connectedness” among the people and with the land. Clearly charting the growth, decay, and transformation of cultural practices and values, he frequently employs rhetorical questions that reveal an obvious disdain for fragmented consciousness and religious dogmatism.
Anoa (ah-NOH-ah), the second prophetess bearing the name, living around 1000. She prophesies five hundred years (a thousand seasons) of cultural decline toward death and five hundred years of return to principles affirming life. Slender, supple, and of stunning beauty, she has a grace that embodies her skills as a hunter. Her “deep” blackness reveals both physical strength and spiritual understanding. Although gentle in manner, Anoa speaks in “two voices,” one that is harassed and shrieking in her knowledge of impending doom for her people and one that is calm and encouraging, seeking to explore causes for the decline and creating hope for survival after the people's long suffering.
Isanusi (ee-sah-NEW-see), a learned counselor to Koranche, later exiled for his challenge to the king's authority. A master of eloquence and honest in his assessment of leadership, he refuses to flatter Koranche, who declares him mad when Isanusi reveals the king's secret alliance with the Europeans. Tired from suffering despair and loneliness resulting from the people's loss of values, the slender teacher becomes rejuvenated by serving as mentor to and leader of a small group of young revolutionaries. After the revolt is in full force, Isanusi is betrayed by a messenger from the king and is killed.
Idawa (ee-DAH-wah), the companion of Isanusi during his exile. Slender and graceful, the beautiful black woman is the ideal of physical strength and endurance as well as of compassionate, intelligent strength of mind and soul. She chooses to marry Ngubane, a farmer, whom she loves, to avoid being coerced into marriage with Koranche. The king kills her husband within the year. Articulate and courageous, Idawa confronts Koranche with his own inferiority and rejects him with public contempt. After Isanusi has been exiled, she joins him in the forest.
Abena (ah-BAY-nah), a young woman who becomes the principal voice for the young rebels. Eloquent, beautiful, and brilliant, Abena is quick to grasp the various skills of initiation rituals. She is the most skillful dancer in the village. In the ceremonial dance to choose mates, she dances her way to freedom, joining the rebels and rejecting Koranche's command that she marry his son Bentum. When the rebels are betrayed and enslaved, her comprehension of Isanusi's wisdom helps the rebels endure their suffering before their escape. After the rebels return to Anoa, she leads them to victory over the colonists at Poano; at Anoa, she persuades Koranche to confess his crimes publicly and then executes him.
Koranche (koh-RAHN-chay), the king of Anoa who betrays African values to remain in power by allying himself with European slave traders and colonialists. He was born an idiot in an incestuous dynasty. Koranche's sole skill consists of an uncanny ability to undermine the achievements of others, often destroying the fruits of their labor. As a child, he does not smile or cry, expressing himself in a dull, flat, constant stare. Breast-fed for five years and then vomiting at the sight of naked breasts thereafter, he does not walk until he is seven years old and does not talk until he is nine. Because he cannot complete the initiation rituals, he changes them for his son when he becomes king. Possessed by a numbing inner despair and emptiness in the self-knowledge that he is an utter fraud as an adult, Koranche learns to stay in power through mystification and pompous ceremony while surrounding himself with self-serving flatterers. He relies on the Europeans to enslave any who oppose him. Entirely dependent on the people's gullibility, he continually betrays the Anoans, who come to fear his fraudulent power. As he ages, he becomes a very fat, deluded alcoholic, eventually executed by Abena.
Bentum (BAYN-tewm), later renamed Bradford George, the son of Koranche and Prince of Anoa. Reared by Europeans in the colonized village of Poano and educated in Europe, Bentum is married to an older, physically disabled white woman to strengthen Koranche's alliance, but he lusts for Abena, who rejects him. Fat and stupid, he oversees the slave trading in Poano, marching children around the ground while he wears a blue cloak and a yellow wig. After his father is executed, Bentum, as Bradford George, becomes the colonial puppet king of Anoa.