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17. Eeny Meeny Miny Mo
Themes
and Colors
Key
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in Blonde Roots, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
The Horrors of Slavery
The Arbitrariness of Cultural Values
Morality and Complicity
Autonomy and Dignity
The Importance of Love and Family
Summary
Analysis
In the pages of The Flame, Bwana justifies his actions to his readers. He is not, he says, violent by nature. But he was just so angry over Doris’s betrayal that he lost control. When he finishes the beating, he leaves Doris where she lies. He returns hours later, after dark. At that point, the merciful thing would have been to kill her. But he couldn’t bring himself to do that. He is not, he insists, a murderer. Instead, he decides that once she’s recovered, he will send her to Home Sweet Home where she will realize, belatedly, how good she had things when she was his personal assistant.
It's not surprising that Bwana would seek to justify the violent beating he inflicts on Doris by claiming that it’s meant to teach her a lesson (something he mentioned in Chapter 9 as well) even as he admits that his anger ruled his actions. It’s also typical that tries to reframe what he does in ways that would make him look good. For instance, he doesn’t finish Doris off because that would make him a murderer, just as he earlier pointed out that his men were responsible for the massacre of Europanes on the beach because they pulled the triggers (even though he gave the order). The mental gymnastics he must perform to absolve himself of responsibility indicate that he knows on a fundamental level that what he’s doing is wrong, even if he’s not willing to stop.
Active
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