Laughter Beneath The Bridge

Universidade Estadual de Maringá
Curso / Habilitação: Letras – Português/Inglês- 4º ano

Professora: Alba.
Disciplina: Literatura em Língua Inglesa - Narrativa.
Aluna: Aline Yuri Kiminami
Analysis of Laughter Beneath the Bridge
The story is narrated through the eyes of a twelve year-old boy, remembering the
civil war he went through in his youth. Therefore it’s a central point of view, auto/
homodiegetic narrator.
The story starts at the boarding school, after only the narrator and two colleagues
are left behind and forced to steal food to survive, sharing their space with lizards
(which are a symbol for renewal and resurrection, maybe indicating a new period of life
he would be facing). He remembers Monica, a rebel and independent adolescent and
gives signs of her role in his life: of his first love.
His mother (who was a Biafran married to a Nigerian who taught her to speak
the language) eventually comes to rescue him. They travel by a boxed up lorry full of
people and there was number of checkpoints for digging into people’s belongings and
checking if they were not from the rebel tribe. At some point a soldier named Frank
O’Nero took a dislike for the boy (who was blowing his nose) and demanded that he
spoke the language of the Nigerians. Some soldiers were raping a woman and others
were smoking marijuana, which made the boy forget the words he knew. He laughed
while the soldier foamed in the mouth of anger, but the boy finally remembered and
said he wanted “to shit”.
When they arrived the boy’s first concern was the whereabouts of Monica. He
searches the whole town only to find her at his own house being told off by his father,
who gave shelter to Monica in his house. She was angry but eventually calmed down
and talked to him. She said some of the children were building Egunguns and when he
tried to snatch the mask from one of the boys she warned he would die if he did so.
One important moment in the plot is when its night and Monica decides to go
past some soldiers, ignoring the curfew. They stop them and one paunchy soldier
becomes particularly interested in Monica. They only escape the soldier due to a lie the
boy made up, saying his father was the “District Commissioner”. They fled to the river
bank, when Monica first talks about her deceased brother, Ugo, killed by soldiers and
she expresses her own desire to become a soldier. The boy notices the bodies, the smell
and the swollen faces of the dead people dumped in the river and the madness in
Monica’s eyes and laughter, under the moonlight. After that they both came down with
fever, but Monica recovered faster than the narrator and by the time he was fully
recovered the city had begun to smell.
The respectable and proven citizens were given masks while the bridge was
being unobstructed to stop the effluvium. Meanwhile, the narrator met the other boys
who were getting ready to dance the Egungun. They danced through the city, fought
other dancing groups until the soldiers come and tell them to stop dancing. The kernel
of the conflict is when the Egungun refuses to stop dancing and teases the soldiers. The
climax is when Monica is found out to be the Egungun and is slapped in the face by the
soldier. The conflict coul be considered internal and the conjunctive relationship of the
main characters (Monica and the Narrator) becomes disjunctive.
It all ends in a negative state of affair. The rubbish (read it the bodies) were gone
and so was Monica. She was never seen again. I consider the conflict a accomplishment
one since Monica decided to confront the soldiers by showing her real language and
values.
Monica is the most intriguing characters in the story. She is daring, fears
nothing, she is rebellious and naïve (after all, she is just a teenager) and, at the same
time, more mature than the protagonist. She is so important that the title of the short
story refers to her twisted laughter when she shows signs of her madness. She represents
the youngsters who lost their beloved ones in the civil war, who were deprived from
their innocence and freedom. More deeply, it could be said that she is a feminist, for
being the first to dance the Egunguns and to try to cross the river by swimming,
competing with the boys, drinking alcohol, wishing to be a soldier.
The language in the relationship between oppressors and oppressed plays a
keynote role in the story. Soldiers show their power and belligerency by demanding to
hear the person speak the Nigerian dialect. Every time a soldier meets with one of the
main characters (the boy, his mother and Monica) it is this their first imposition.
Language is for them, after all, the best way to prove a person’s origin. It is because
Monica speaks her mother tongue that she is taken away ( and most probably killed).
Language is shown as an empowerment tool and it is used by the soldiers to oppress
people.

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Universidade Estadual de Maringá

Curso / Habilitação: Letras – Português/Inglês- 4º ano

Analysis of Laughter Beneath the Bridge

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