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Reyes, Jonard Jairo P.

The novel follows the awful adventure of a seven-year old in the ethereal world of the Bush

of Ghosts after he and his brother had tried to escape the guns of the enemies. Upon reading the

first chapter of the novel, the narrator’s innocence is apparent; aside from not being able to

distinguish “good” from “bad”, it’s obvious by the way the talks about the situation that they are

in. The narrator’s style of storytelling might be the first thing that attracts the reader’s attention.

For one, the sentence construction of the narrator was difficult to comprehend; it uses pidgin

language and its syntax is quite awkward. Phrases are often repeated, as if imposing a certain

relevance to the story. Run-on sentences are also apparent in this novel and sometimes, it might

require a second reading to fully understand what the narrator is talking about. Upon researching

more about the author, Matthew Omelsky notes that Tutuola’s African heritage might explain the

“awkward” sentence construction which further suggests the oral form of storytelling rather than

written. A change in the approach to the novel is necessary – one does not just read the text, but

rather, listen to the seven-year old talk about his stay in the Bush of Ghosts. Aside from the

seemingly simple language, it’s also important to consider the Yoruba folklore with which the

author took inspiration from as the Bush of Ghost houses not only the common spirits of the dead

but several entities such as “smelling” ones with jujus and ones with televisions as hands. In this

paper, I would be discussing some points that I deem important – confinement, loss of innocence,

and the concept of good and bad.

Knowing the author’s African heritage, the concept of confinement is highly influenced by

the slave trade era. Even before entering the Bush of Ghosts, the protagonist knew of the ill-effects

of slave trading. The protagonist mentioned that slave wars were “causing dead luck to both old

and young” as he believes that once captured, the prisoner would be sent to a foreign land only for
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Reyes, Jonard Jairo P.
2015-12631
Eng 12 THV2
Instructor: Augusto Xavier Ledesma

him to be a slave, or worse – be killed for the buyer’s god. It speaks so much of the horrors inflicted

by slave raiders on African communities as the first thoughts of a seven-year old involves slavery

and death when threatened with the possibility of capture. Throughout the whole novel, the

protagonist has experienced haunting cycles of capture and evasion, which, as Laura Murphy

notes, “mimics the cycles of slave trade.” Furthermore, the protagonist is in a constant state of

being a captive and a fugitive. He runs away from slavery only to encounter a new and, sometimes,

more horrifying versions of it. However, it is with this endless cycle of capture and evasion that

the protagonist has gown as a person; aside from being a prisoner and escapee, he also becomes

both a child and adult as he ventures the world as he loses his innocence.

Initially, it has been a recurring thought that the narrator had entered the Bush of Ghosts at

the age of seven and remained seven throughout his whole adventure. However, the transition from

child to adulthood was a prominent theme in the novel. Anne Scott MacLeod states that “… a

child’s sojourn was to be protected, not hastened,” but this isn’t what occurred in the story. Instead,

the narrator encounters several challenges which forced him to do what he had to do to survive.

One of the early signs of this hastened adulthood was when he had decided that his brother leave

him at a young age of seven as he believes this increases the chance of his brother’s survival. In

“Gladness becomes Weeping,” he mentions that one who enters the Bush of Ghosts would not fear

anything within a week as one would “see fear personally” implying the horrors he had

experienced in his childhood which led to his hastened loss of innocence and adaptation.

Furthermore, Gail Murray suggests that the lack of parental support and understanding encourages

a child to develop his own sense of greater responsibility. The child then must become a parent to

himself. However, he was still a kid, all the responsibilities and confinement didn’t keep him from
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Reyes, Jonard Jairo P.
2015-12631
Eng 12 THV2
Instructor: Augusto Xavier Ledesma

finding his way back to the earthly people. Even after getting married the first time, he left his

wife in pursuit of the longing for his mother and brother. Eventually, he accepts his new existence

– living with the ghosts, even marrying the second time and having a child. He had adapted well

that nobody could identify him as an earthly person, even using the language of the ghosts to

protect himself from merciless ghosts. In “Son Divides Us”, he mentions that he had forgotten

about his family “because of love.” From a kid who didn’t know “good” but understood “bad”

through hatred to falling in love with a ghost, the protagonist has, indeed, had a personal growth

in his stay in the Bush of Ghosts.

The protagonist has oftentimes repeated that he didn’t know the meaning of “bad” and

“good”, even dancing to the noises of the guns. His cycle of confinement also presents him with

opportunities to experience bad and good. In the early parts of the story, the protagonist has mostly

encountered bad experiences, thus, he was more familiar with “bad” than “good.” Mostly, he was

confined against his will, allowing him to know fear, hunger, filth, and hatred. Only in the latter

part of the story that the protagonist has known “good” as he is “happily confined” – he had known

what is good for his body with the Super Lady and what is good for his mind with his dead cousin.

He has developed his own sense of good and bad - knowing when a situation is no longer good for

him or when a greater good awaits him. Furthermore, his adventure in the Bush of Ghosts allowed

not to see “good” and “bad” as complete opposites of one another. When he finally reunited with

his mother and brother, he mentions that if “gladness is too much, it becomes weeping.” He not

only knew the meaning of “good” and “bad”, but he also knew that good can be bad, and bad can

be good.
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Reyes, Jonard Jairo P.
2015-12631
Eng 12 THV2
Instructor: Augusto Xavier Ledesma

My Life in the Bush of Ghosts presents issues such as slavery, loss of innocence, and

cultural difference in a mythical manner. He also talked about the influence of religion and

education to a society. More importantly, Amos Tutuola successfully reminded the readers of the

terrors of the slave trade era while also allowing the readers to be immersed in his culture. After

leaving the Bush of Ghosts, the protagonist states that “it is in the Bush of Ghosts that fear, sorrows,

difficulties, and all kinds of punishments start and there they end”. However, he still dreams about

the Secret Society of Ghosts, reminding himself of the horrors he has experienced. Similarly, the

events of the slave trade era may have occurred way in the past, but its traces remain until today,

and is still affecting the world.

This is what hatred does.

References:

Tutuola, Amos. My Life in the Bush of Ghosts. UK: Faber and Faber, 1954.

Omelsky, Matthew. “The Creaturely Modernism of Amos Tutuola.” Cultural Critique, vol. 99,

2018, pp. 66-96.

Murphy, Laura. "Into the Bush of Ghosts: Specters of the Slave Trade in West African Fiction."

Research in African Literatures, vol. 38 no. 4, 2007, pp. 141-152.

MacLeod, Anne Scott. American Childhood: Essays on Children's Literature of the Nineteenth

and Twentieth Centuries. Athens: University of Georgia Press, 1994.

Murray, Gail Schmunk. American Children's Literature and the Construction of Childhood. New

York: Twayne Publishers, 1998.