Exploring the way Efua Sutherland portrays Ananse in The Marriage of Anansewa, showing its significance in the play

Name: Abraham Yeh

Grade: 10b

School: Tema International School

Course code: English literature 0486/2

Focus: Exploring the way Efua Sutherland portrays Ananse in The Marriage of Anansewa, showing its significance in the play

Date: 1st February, 2006

Efua Sutherland’s hilarious and interesting play, The Marriage of Anansewa, is a about a Ananse’s cunning arrangements for his daughter’s marriage, at the same time, using the bride prices to turn round his financial difficulties. I intend to explore how Efua T. Sutherland portrays his character and its significance in the play.

Efua Sutherland first portrays Ananse as cunning and deceitful person when he deceives his daughter into typing letters that she did not know was for her own marriage in Act 1. We can note how Ananse succeeds in convincing Anansewa in typing for him whiles she wants to go out. He intentionally complains about the world and hardships in life in order to make her feel sad and eventually agree to type. From this, we can observe that one of tactics that he uses in cunning people is by making people feel bad using psychological means to remind his victims about undeniable difficulties that they are facing and talking about the negative consequences. An example of this is how he often asks Anansewa questions such as; “will your fees be paid by the time you return home?” and “will the leaking ceiling be fixed by the time you return?” Its significance to the play is that, it is the first event that Sutherland uses to portray Ananse’s cunning and deceitful character, so we are introduced to the kind of atmosphere we are going to meet in the rest of the play.

Another act that Sutherland uses to portray Ananse’s character is when he lies to his mother and aunt about the burning farm in order to drive them away. She portrays Ananse’s character by showing how he relates other characters in the play. We see how he pretends to weep and talk about how he feels about the burning of the farm, just to make his mother and aunt leave him.

He could be seen as fellow who is always planning his next step. This could be seen when he intentionally makes the outdooring festival for Anansewa, to show to ...

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He could be seen as fellow who is always planning his next step. This could be seen when he intentionally makes the outdooring festival for Anansewa, to show to the chiefs how “ready” she is whiles he knows that he is only going to let her marry “chief-who-is chief”. This is significant to the play because the play develops upon his character (he is the main character), therefore, without his spontaneous plans, the story line would not be able to lead smoothly and hilariously from one to another.

Probably, the master plan of Ananse is the one Sutherland succeeds most in portraying his cunning character. It portrays Ananse as a wise, sly and deceitful character. In this plan, he all of a sudden teaches Anansewa to pretend to be dead without giving her a reason. This is essential to the story, because it is a technique that Sutherland uses to portray Ananse as an unpredictable character which helps him in his cunning acts. Sutherland also uses Ananse’s character to create suspense in the play. Although we are not told why Ananse teaches Anansewa to pretend to be dead, the reason is obviously shown when Anansewa mysteriously “resurrects” after she sees her “love”. This act portrays Ananse’s role in the play, as he uses his acts to point out implicit meanings in the play, because we would never have known why Anansewa “died” if Ananse did not teach her how to pretend to be dead.

There are many hidden characteristics about Ananse which are not evoked by Sutherland. One of them is brave person. Although he knows what danger he is imposing on his daughter’s life, he is ready to take the risk in order for the survival of the family. He can be seen as a religious person who is cares about his reputation. This is seen in act 1 when he asks Anansewa, “Will I be able to go to memorial services this week in a fine cloth, next week in a suit or a different cloth? Will I be able, if I go, to thrust my hand confidently into my pocket in public and take out a five-guinea donation?”. We could see that he would like to go to church if he had money but would rather stay at home because he does not so that he is not seen as a poor man.

Personally, I think that Ananse is a character in the play, which makes me like him. His cunning and deceitfulness is not intentional done, but is forced to act as such because of the environment around him. He creates the suspense in the story and makes the story hilarious with his cunning. This play would not be memorable as it is if he were not present in it.

Word count: 777