Out of Africa 353nature is both a friend and foe to the narrator. Dine-
sen fundamentally views Africans as living closer to
nature and thereby living a more pure existence, yet
she realizes the dangers that industrialism will bring
to Africa and its native people. With her time on
the farm ending as colonialism is waning in Africa,
Out of Africa shows the importance of coexisting
with nature and the danger of underestimating its
power. In her memoir, Dinesen uncovers truths
about herself and her relationship with the natives
of Africa, with the European and English settlers,
and with nature.
Nature’s importance as a “character” in Out
of Africa becomes evident at once as Dinesen’s
description of her coffee farm opens the book, thus
providing a setting that will be used throughout
her narrative. The farm is set in the Ngong Hills in
Kenya (then part of British East Africa). Because
it is set at such a high altitude, Dinesen can only
grow coffee on a portion of her ranch; the rest of
the land is used to house the Kikuyu tribespeople,
who work the farm as payment for their use of the
land, in addition to being paid a small wage. Dinesen
experiences both happy and difficult times on her
farm. For her, it is a refuge from the stresses of urban
living in a city like Nairobi, which she describes as
a “motley little place.” She reiterates this feeling
throughout her book, despite the hardships she
faces on the farm, where she admits that her “work
is never done.” The farm is also a refuge for the
African native tribes who are able to live in harmony
with nature and avoid the colonizing forces of the
European settlers. For her, to live with the natives on
her farm is to live closer to the utopian ideal. Nature
is not only found on the farm; it borders all sides
of the farm, and its unsuitability for coffee growing
leads to Dinesen’s eventual departure from Africa.
Nature makes it clear to Dinesen that her uto-
pian dream cannot overcome the forces of develop-
ment. Throughout her memoir, she worries that
the African natives will be unable to adopt modern
technology on their land. She notes that the African
natives and the European settlers do not share the
same culture or history, making it difficult to recon-
cile how to use the land. In addition, she fears that
the native Africans will be pushed from their lands
by the colonizing Europeans. At one point, she says,
“it is more than their land you take, it is their past as
well, their roots and their identity.” When her coffee
farm fails, she delays her departure as much as possi-
ble, leasing her farm from its new owners and selling
off her furniture. She does so in order to find a way
to secure from the government a portion of her land
for the Kikuyu tribe, who have lived and worked on
her land since her arrival in Africa. Although she has
had to give away most of her material possessions,
her greatest reward comes in finding and restoring
land to its original inhabitants. By doing so, Dinesen
finds a revealing truth about herself and is heartened
by the experience.
Out of Africa uses nature to offer revealing truths
about colonialism and the roles native Africans and
European and English settlers play in the eventual
destruction of the African landscape. Nature does
provide a refuge to those who honor the land by
supporting its original inhabitants; however, it is
also destructive, as Dinesen witnesses in the even-
tual failure of her coffee farm and the devastation
from development to the forests that surround her
land. Like her fellow colonists, she is eventually
driven from Africa, and her memoir Out of Africa
is a reflection on the costs of striving to achieve a
utopian ideal in a harsh environment.
Sumeeta PatnaikrespOnsibility in Out of Africa
Responsibility toward the African natives and toward
the land of Africa itself is an important theme in
Out of Africa. Isak Dinesen’s memoir details how
she manages to negotiate that responsibility through
her management of the coffee farm and through her
mediation of disputes over land ownership between
the natives and the colonial government. Dinesen
uses the concept of responsibility to examine the
impact of African colonialism—which began in the
19th century—on the continent’s natives. Dine-
sen’s recollections of her time in Africa show that
the Kikuyu tribespeople on her farm relied on her
leadership and advice. However, readers must also
remember that the Kikuyu, living on their native
soil, only need her advice because they have been
colonized.
Dinesen begins her memoir by describing her
coffee farm and its day-to-day responsibilities. The