352 Dinesen, Isak
that she provides the reader with a true portrait of
Africa and its people.
The memoir is not written in chronological
order, but its chapters are divided into Dinesen’s
reflections on major incidents that took place on
her farm during her time in Africa. She portrays the
Africans not as savages but as a unique culture that
has openly embraced the colonial immigrants in a
relationship. Unfortunately, as she comments in her
memoir, this relationship is not mutually beneficial,
and in fact the native Africans have been pushed
from their land by European and English settlers.
As she states, “[I]t is more than their land you take,
it is their past as well, their roots and their identity.”
With this in mind, she fights for the rights of the
African natives, the Kikuyu tribe, who live and work
on her farm. By the end of her time in Africa, she is
able to help the Kikuyu acquire new land to live and
work on. Dinesen’s memoir is a tribute to her time
in Africa and to its native people.
Sumeeta Patnaik
cOmmOdiFicatiOn/cOmmercializatiOn
in Out of Africa
Commercialization is a major theme in Isak Dine-
sen’s Out of Africa, and it plays a major part in her
memoir on her time in British East Africa. During
the 19th century, coexisting with nature was a domi-
nant theme in literature and was used by writers to
uncover truths about themselves and their relation-
ship to nature. Dinesen uses this theme in her mem-
oir, which allows her to also reflect on the impact
of commercialization on Africa and its people and
her personal impact as a coffee-farm owner. Com-
mercialization of the land brought industrialization
to Africa and its native peoples, and while Out of
Africa does not describe the impact in detail, Dine-
sen’s reflections of her time on the farm demonstrate
how much colonialism and the industrialism that
resulted from it changed the way of life for African
tribes.
Commercialization first presents itself as a major
theme in Out of Africa when Dinesen begins describ-
ing the work on her farm. Coffee farming, according
to the author, is a difficult job often requiring 24
hours of labor seven days a week. She asserts that
coffee growing is not going to make her rich since
the altitude of her farm is too high to properly
grow coffee beans. Nonetheless, she describes cof-
fee farming as an addictive process, noting that “a
coffee-plantation is a thing that gets hold of you and
does not let you go, and there is always something
to do on it: you are generally just a little behind with
your work.” Coffee growing is hard work, despite
the assistance of the Kikuyu tribespeople whom
Dinesen pays to work on the farm, and who live
on and farm uncultivated areas of the plantation.
Blixen comments in her book that she often thinks
of writing as an “attempt to save her farm during
hard times.”
Yet the difficult times on the farm teach Dinesen
a great deal about her relationship to the natives
who live and work on her farm. The natives trust her
and often come to her with the problems they face
in dealing with the colonial government. Commer-
cialization has produced an interdependent relation-
ship between Dinesen and the natives, and for the
author, it leads to a greater understanding of Africa
and her relationship to it. For that reason alone,
she finds it difficult to sell the farm when she is no
longer able to make enough money to pay her debts.
She explains that Africa has become the core of her
existence and to perceive a future where she does not
live on the continent is unthinkable.
Out of Africa uses commercialization to reveal
truths about the impact of colonialism on both the
native Africans and European and English settlers.
Native Africans often have to fight with the colonial
governments for the right to use their own land,
while Dinesen, as European settler, has to balance
the needs of running her farm with the needs of the
natives who occupy the land. Ultimately, her farm
fails, and leaving Africa becomes the only option
available to her. Her forced departure from the land
she loves so much is a metaphor for the inevitable
exodus that European and English settlers will make
from the African continent.
Sumeeta Patnaiknature in Out of Africa
Nature is a major factor in Isak Dinesen’s Out of
Africa, and it pervades her memoir. From lush
descriptions of Blixen’s coffee farm to the gradual
infertility of her land due to the high, dry altitude,