354 Dos Passos, John
Kikuyu, who live on the coffee farm, work as pay-
ment for their use of the unwanted land. Dinesen
refers to these workers as “squatters” in her memoir
while referring to herself as an “immigrant.” These
designations are ironic in that they and their ances-
tors have been on African soil far longer than Dine-
sen. Because of this, much of what Dinesen learns
about Africa and the native Africans’ way of life
comes from this tribe. As a result, she feels a great
deal of responsibility and obligation to treat the tribe
ethically, both during and after her time in Africa.
Dinesen’s descriptions of the African natives
show the responsibility she feels to show them in
a positive light. Her memoir contrasts greatly with
other literature published during this time period,
which often referred to Africans as uncivilized
savages. Dinesen, on the other hand, specifically
describes these natives as hardworking people who
lack prejudice toward other races and often embrace
Christianity of their own volition. Because the
culture that the colonials have brought to Africa is
new to Africans, the tribe often look to Dinesen to
provide them with answers to the problems repre-
sented by the colonial settlers. She comments that
she is often uncomfortable with the responsibility of
representing the English and European culture and
often finds the experience to be “alarming.” Never-
theless, she is grateful for the experience of sharing
her culture with the African natives while learning
about their culture from them.
It is during the difficult times on the farm
that Dinesen learns a great deal from the Kikuyu
about the codependent nature of colonialism and
the responsibility that whites have to native Afri-
cans. The relationship between the colonists and
the Africans, according to Dinesen, is a codepen-
dent one, with Africans believing that the colonial
whites, being out of their natural environment, are
completely dependent on them. On the other hand,
most British and European settlers tend to view the
Africans as completely helpless, almost childlike.
As Dinesen struggles to keep her farm, both dur-
ing the war and when the farm becomes inoperable,
the Africans are a major preoccupation for her as
she prepares to leave Africa. The new farm owners
do not want the responsibility of taking care of the
Kikuyu, and she takes it upon herself to find them
a new home. During this time, she fights to have
the tribe given land in another location. This is her
last act of responsibility to the Kikuyu, and in doing
so, she is able to leave Africa, content that the tribe
has a place to live. Despite her work for the Kikuyu,
Dinesen never states that she felt it was a responsi-
bility, but a privilege as they had taught her so much
about Africa. Her memoir is a record of the respon-
sibility she felt toward Africa and its native peoples.
Sumeeta PatnaikDOS PASSOS, JOHN U.S.A. trilogy
(1930–1936)
John Dos Passos’s U.S.A. trilogy, which includes
The 42nd Parallel (1930), 1919 (1932), and The
Big Money (1936), functions as a prime example of
American satire. Frustrated by what he perceived
as a class division in the early 20th-century United
States, Dos Passos (1896–1970) wrote the novels to
illustrate the need for political and social change.
His experimental style, which includes four distinct
narrative components, embodies the modernist aes-
thetic. The reader follows each of his 12 major char-
acters through their experiences via fictional realism,
but the narrative is broken by “Newsreel” passages,
which include song lyrics and real newspaper clip-
pings; “Camera Eye” stream-of-consciousness sec-
tions, which some critics have suggested may be
largely autobiographical; and short biographies of
famous figures in popular culture, ranging from
Presidents Franklin Roosevelt and Woodrow Wil-
son to the scientist Albert Einstein and the dancer
Isadora Duncan. All of this combines to create what
Dos Passos had hoped would be an expression of
modernism viewed through a political lens.
According to E. L. Doctorow’s foreword to the
trilogy (published by Mariner Books in 2000), Dos
Passos “saw literature as reportage” and thought of
himself as a historian as much as an author. Indeed,
his texts reflect this; there is something magical
in the way Dos Passos describes these important
moments in American history, and the books race
along with what Doctorow calls “no plot, only the
movement forward of its multiple narratives under
the presiding circumstances of history.” Read as
equal part historical fact and carefully constructed