Out of Africa Race Quotes

How we cite our quotes: (Part.Chapter.Paragraph)

Quote #4

A white man who wanted to say a pretty thing to you would write: "I can never forget you." The African says: "We do not think of you, that you can ever forget us." (1.4.66)

In this quote race is seen through language. For the narrator, the white man speaks plainly, and privileges himself, starting with the "I". The African, however, uses a much more roundabout way of speaking, and is focused on the group, using "we".

Quote #5

The ideas of justice of Europe and Africa are not the same and those of the one world are unbearable to the other. (2.2.8)

Justice is one of those concepts that we tend to think of as pretty much impossible to question. We typically think that there is a fair way to do things, and it shouldn't change from one race to the other. The Baroness questions that transcendent nature of justice when she compares the European and African notions of justice.

Quote #6

The Europeans who have built and equipped the hospitals, and who are working in them, and have with much trouble got the patients dragged there, complain with bitterness that the Natives know nothing of gratitude, and that it is the same what you do to them. To white people there is something vexatious and mortifying in this state of mind in the Natives. (2.4.6-7)

The hospital, which might seem like a pretty straightforward space of do-gooding, turns into a racial war zone in colonial Africa. The white Europeans expect that the Natives who are "dragged" into the hospitals will then show their undying gratitude for curing them. Of course, the words "dragged" and "trouble" point to a perspective that has the hospital symbolizing, once again, white domination over the African races.