Exploring Symbols, Allegory and Motifs in Song of Lawino by Okot p’Bitek
In Song of Lawino, Okot p’Bitek uses symbols, allegory, and motifs to explore the tension between African traditions and Western influence. Through Lawino’s voice, the poem defends African culture and criticizes Africans who abandon their roots after being exposed to Western education and values. The poem teaches the importance of cultural pride and identity.
Symbols in the Poem
1. The Mirror “Ocol is no longer a man / He looks in the mirror like a woman.” The mirror symbolizes vanity and identity loss. Ocol and Tina obsess over their appearances, symbolizing how Western ideals have led them to reject their African identity.
2. The Clock “He is always watching the clock / He says the time for beer is over.” The clock is a symbol of Western time discipline, replacing the natural rhythms of traditional Acholi life with rigid schedules and deadlines.
3. The Saucepan vs. The Traditional Cooking Pot “The saucepans are shining / They look like round mirrors.” The shiny aluminum saucepan represents modern, imported lifestyles, while the clay cooking pot represents tradition, domesticity, and ancestral heritage.
4. The Piano and Western Instruments “Ocol plays the piano / Like a man whose hands are stiff with fear.” These symbolize artificial sophistication. Lawino contrasts the Western piano with African instruments like the adungu, which are played with soul and rhythm.
5. Hair and Skin Bleaching Products “She uses iron to straighten her hair / She burns her skin with chemicals.” These items are symbols of cultural self-rejection, used to show how colonized people harm themselves to meet foreign standards of beauty.
6. Tina’s Perfume and Powder “The smell of perfume / Chokes me!” Her Western makeup and perfume symbolize a mask—a covering of true identity. Lawino sees this as shallow and deceptive.
7. The School and Church Buildings “He left his people / And sleeps in the Mission house.” These symbolize colonial structures of mental colonization. Instead of empowering Africans, Lawino suggests they create a barrier to cultural understanding.
Motifs in the Poem
1. Dance “They dance like the wretched / Bending their knees like grasshoppers.” Traditional African dance is joyful and powerful, symbolizing community and cultural pride. The awkward ballroom dances represent forced imitation of the West.
2. Beauty Standards “She is trying to be white / She uses powders and lotions.” The motif of beauty shows how colonialism altered perceptions of self-worth, especially among women.
3. Language and Speech “My husband no longer speaks our language.” Language is a motif for cultural belonging. Ocol’s shift to English or “foreign tongues” reflects a shift in loyalty and identity.
4. Food and Eating Habits “He no longer eats millet / He has no taste for our dishes.” Food becomes a metaphor for rejecting one’s roots. Millet and pumpkin are nourishing symbols of home, while canned food is a sterile foreign substitute.
5. Traditional vs. Western Clothing “She wears tight skirts / And high-heeled shoes like a goat on ice.” Lawino ridicules Western clothing as unnatural and uncomfortable, compared to flowing, handmade Acholi garments.
6. Silence and Marginalization “Ocol tells me to shut up / That I am not educated.” This recurring motif of silencing reflects how tradition and indigenous voices were pushed aside by colonizers and modern elites.
Allegory in the Poem
The entire poem is an extended allegory of the cultural disintegration caused by colonial influence and the rise of African elites who abandon their roots.
1. Lawino as Africa
Lawino represents traditional Africa, wise, poetic, proud. Her voice stands for African cultural values that have been pushed aside but not erased.
2. Ocol as the Westernized African
Ocol represents Africans who have been educated and converted but lose their connection to their own heritage. He becomes ashamed of his roots. “He says our ways are backward / That our dances are childish.” This line shows how Ocol has internalized colonial attitudes.
3. Tina as Colonial Assimilation
Tina, Ocol’s second wife, is not just a rival but an allegory for Europeanized African women, who adopt foreign standards and abandon tradition.
4. Marriage as a Cultural Battlefield
Their broken marriage reflects the tension between tradition and modernity in postcolonial Africa.
5. Education and Religion as Tools of Colonization
Lawino criticizes these institutions for replacing, not enriching African life: “They put away our gods / And called us names.” They are allegories for cultural erasure.
