Song of Lawino and Song of Ocol

Ocol is the speaker in Song of Ocol and the antagonist of both Song of Lawino and Song of Ocol. He unapologetically criticizes Lawino and the traditional Acholi culture, which she has come to embody in his mind, because he has a firmly white supremacist worldview. Having converted to Catholicism and studied at Makerere University in Kampala (which was founded by the British Government in 1922), Ocol has been surrounded by Eurocentric messaging for some time and has fully embraced this way of thought. He frequently uses racial slurs and caricatures to describe his fellow Africans, clearly parroting what he has heard white people say about Black people. By revealing the abuse he has heard and internalized, Ocol indirectly characterizes the white residents of Uganda as racially vicious, contributing to p’Bitek’s overarching critique of colonial ideology.

Ocol is simultaneously a victim and proponent of this ideology, and p’Bitek characterizes him as alternating between vulnerability and malice in order to illustrate this dynamic. His desperate cry at the end of Chapter 2 of Song of Ocol, “Why, / Why was I born / Black?” (126), reveals the suffering that a racist colonial society has caused him. At the same time, Ocol inflicts suffering on Lawino with his racist abuse. She reports that when he refuses to answer her questions because her brain is too “tiny,” “[her] head begins to ache, / And [her] neck begins to pain” (88). As moments like this one demonstrate, both Ocol and Lawino are suffering privately because of Ocol’s internalized racism.

Ocol’s racist malice is not constrained to himself or his household. Instead, he aims abuse at other Africans throughout Song of Ocol. As with his insults against Lawino, his malice is often unfounded. However, as Heron observes in the Introduction, some of his complaints reflect frustrations that p’Bitek views as valid. For example, his anger with Acholi healers—e.g., a description of spitting and “squirt[ing] beer” and chicken blood on someone “[t]o cool him” (127)—is based on his knowledge that many traditional remedies do not work. These fleeting moments in which p’Bitek presents Ocol as sympathetic hint at the humanity that underlies his usually overwhelming mask of anger and violence.

Clementine (sometimes called Tina) is the woman with whom Ocol is having an affair. Although she is African like Lawino (p’Bitek never specifies which ethnic group she belongs to), Ocol is attracted to her because she has adopted a European lifestyle. She covers herself in pale powder, wears red lipstick, straightens her hair, and sometimes wears wigs. Her notably European name, which contrasts with Lawino and Ocol’s names, also contributes to the sense that she has chosen to assimilate into the colonizing culture. Lawino finds’ attempts to make herself look white pitiable; she tells the reader, “[T]he sight of Tina […] provokes sympathy from my heart” (39). However, Lawino is also obviously biased against Clementine, and because Clementine never speaks in either poem, readers must decide how reliable they believe Lawino’s account to be.

Regardless of the reliability of Lawino’s narration about Clementine, what is most notable is that Lawino presents Clementine as her foil. Tina has taken the completely opposite approach to surviving in a colonized society: Whereas Lawino vehemently rejects Eurocentric ideals, Tina has embraced them. As a result, Clementine’s presence in the poem indirectly characterizes Lawino’s cultural integrity and conviction. This seems to be her primary narrative function since she disappears from the text following Lawino’s early mentions of her.

Ocol never mentions Clementine by name, though the text offers glimpses into how he thinks about women other than Lawino. Despite encouraging African women to resist the objectification of traditional bride prices, Ocol objectifies them himself in lines such as these:

Do you see

The eyes of the girls

Glued on you?

Here you do not have

To kill a man or a lion first.

Take that girl

She wants you (138).

Here, Ocol takes for granted the women’s willingness to be “taken,” providing possible insight into the nature of his relationship with Clementine. Furthermore, by failing to acknowledge Clementine, Ocol is dismissive of her in the same way he is dismissive of Lawino. In this sense, the two women are bonded by their shared struggle with misogyny despite their romantic rivalry.