"Out of Africa" is a memoir by Karen Blixen, a Danish author who wrote under the pen name Isak Dinesen. First published in 1937, the book recounts her experiences living on a coffee plantation in Kenya, then known as British East Africa, from 1914 to 1931.
Blixen's memoir captures her life from 1914 to 1931 on a coffee plantation in Kenya. The memoir begins with Blixen describing the African coffee plantation she lived on, located in what is today Kenya. The plantation is very high in altitude, and only a small portion of the land is used to grow coffee; the rest is left in its natural state or used by the Kikuyu tribe as living space. In exchange for the right to live on the land, the tribespeople labor in the fields. Many other tribes live nearby. The narrator, who never expressly names herself, informs the reader that she is Danish.
Throughout the memoir, Blixen largely focuses on the daily challenges (and sometimes, triumphs) involved with running that coffee plantation in Africa. To keep her business afloat, she battles fires, droughts, locust infestations, diseases, and financial troubles.
Life on the Farm
The narrator is actively involved with the natives on her farm. She runs an evening school for both children and adults. She gives medical care to anyone who needs it every morning. Once she treats a young Kikuyu boy Kamante, who has open sores running up and down his legs. When she cannot heal him, she sends him to a nearby hospital runs by Scotch Protestants. Kamante is healed and returns home a newly converted Christian. He becomes the farm chef and is an expert at preparing the most complex of European dishes.
The narrator teaches at a school for the natives that she established, and every morning she acts as a nurse, offering basic medical services to the tribespeople. A young boy named Kamante comes to her with sores on his legs, and she sends him to a local charity hospital. When he returns he is healthy and has been converted to Christianity. He also demonstrates a surprising talent for cookery and becomes the farm’s chef.
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Throughout the memoir-but particularly at the start of it-Blixen talks about her workers with a tremendous amount of affection, especially her servant, Farah, who came from Somalia. Additionally, Blixen talks about her interactions with the native Kikuyu people, who live and work on her land.
For the majority of Out of Africa, the narrator remembers different incidents that took place on the farm, although these events are not described in chronological order. One time there is an accidental shooting in which one native boy shot two others, killing one and seriously injuring the other. Eventually, the elders of the Kikuyu tribe determine that the father of the boy who shot the gun must pay the other families for what they suffered.
Blixen largely focuses on the daily challenges (and sometimes, triumphs) involved with running that coffee plantation in Africa. To keep her business afloat, she battles fires, droughts, locust infestations, diseases, and financial troubles.
A drought afflicts the farm, ruining the crops. The narrator begins telling stories to pass the time, then typing the stories up; the typewriter fascinates the natives. The narrator notes that this experience results in her always appreciating the rain. There is a shooting accident in which one native boy is killed and another injured. The narrator helps to care for the injured boy, and the tribe debates on how to handle the matter. They finally decide that the family of the shooter must pay damages, and eventually a quantity of livestock is given to the injured family as compensation.
After Karen and Bror divorce, the farm has many visitors, from large groups of Africans who come for the Ngomas (social dances) to European friends. Berkeley Cole calls Mbogani House his sylvan retreat; he brings leopard and cheetah skins to be made into fur coats and fine wines to serve with dinner. He reminds Karen of a cat, a constant source of warmth and fun. His stories of the old days can make even the Masai chiefs laugh, and they are prepared to travel many miles to hear them. When Berkeley dies young, Karen feels a tremendous sense of loss.
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Encounters with Wildlife
Throughout the memoir, Blixen also describes the frequent encounters she has with exotic wildlife, from lions to birds who are migrating. From these descriptions, it is clear that she loves the wildlife.
There is the moment when Blixen witnessed giraffes being loaded on a ship to be sent to Hamburg.
Karen and Denys have great luck hunting lions together. One spring, two lions come to the farm and kill two of Karen’s oxen. That night, Denys is determined to get the pair before they can strike again. With Karen holding a torch, they track the lions and kill them near the edge of the property.
One of Karen’s greatest pleasures is flying in Denys’s airplane. His moth machine, as she calls it, can land on her farm only a few minutes from the house, and the two often make short flights over the Ngong Hills at sunset. Other times, they travel farther to find huge herds of buffalo or to soar with the eagles.
Love and Loss
She also loves Denys Finch Hatton, a big-game hunter and adventurer from the United Kingdom. Denys Finch Hatton gives Karen a powerful reason to stay in Africa, and, thanks to his love and encouragement, she fights to stay as long as she can. Although he owns land in another part of the continent, Denys makes Karen’s farm his home. He lives there between safaris, returning unexpectedly after weeks or months away. His visits are like sparkling jewels. Denys teaches Karen Latin and introduces her to the Greek poets; he brings her a gramophone and records with classical music. In the evenings, he spreads cushions on the floor, and she sits on them and spins for him the long tales she has made up while he has been away.
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The narrator also has many visitors to her farm. These visitors include many Europeans living around Nairobi, natives who come for large native dances or Ngomas, a old Dane named Knudsen who lives out his days on the farm, and an Indian high priest. Two of her closest friends, Berkeley Cole and Denys Finch-Hatton, spend a large amount of time on the farm. Berkley Cole has his own nearby farm, but he helps keep the narrator's up to standard by bringing in wine, food, and gramophone records. Denys Finch-Hatton has no home in Africa except for the farm, although he spends most of his days on safari. Finch-Hatton and the narrator frequently hunt together. On two separate occasions, they shot two lions together. Finch-Hatton and the narrator have a special relationship.
These happy days do not last, however, because the coffee plantation is rapidly failing. Too little rain produces poor yields, and when the price of coffee falls, Karen’s investors tell her that she will have to sell.
Soon after the farm is sold, another tragedy strikes. Denys Finch-Hatton is killed when his airplane crashes south of Nairobi. The narrator has him buried on the Ngong Hills at a location that looks over the plains. Eventually, Denys's brother, the Lord Winchilsea, places a large obelisk on the grave. After she leaves Africa, the Masai report to the district commissioner that many times at sunrise and sunset they have seen a lion and lioness standing on the grave.
Departure
Eventually, Blixen leaves Kenya to live in Denmark, where she hopes she can have a better life. Before she leaves, however, she says goodbye to her loyal servant, Farah.
Karen is making plans to dispose of her belongings and to find suitable land for her workers when the news comes that Denys has been killed in the crash of his plane. Heartbroken, Karen searches in the rain to find an appropriate burial site for him. Finally she chooses a narrow, natural terrace in the hillside behind the farm. At the grave, she and Farah erect a tall white flag so that from her window she can look to the hills and see a small white star.
In the dark days following Denys’s funeral, Ingrid stays with Karen. They do not talk of the past or the future. They walk together on the farm, taking stock of Karen’s losses, naming each item and lingering fondly at the animal pens and the beautiful flower gardens. Karen’s last months in Africa take her on a beggar’s journey from one government official to the next. Her goal is to find enough land for her workers to settle on together, so that they can preserve their community. Finally, the government agrees to give them a piece of the Dagoretti Forest Reserve.
Before she leaves Africa, the narrator also works to relocate the natives who live on her farm, since the new owners want them to leave. After much effort, the colonial government agrees that they can all move to a portion of the Kikuyu Reserve.
In the end, Farah drives Karen to the train station. She can see the Ngong Hills to the southwest, but as the train moves farther from her home, the hand of distance slowly smooths and levels the outline of the mountain.
Themes
As the narrator weaves through her memories of Africa, she shapes a landscape that resembles a type of paradise. On her own farm, she lives in unity with the natives and even some of the animals. At one point, a domesticated deer, Lulu, comes to live with them, which symbolizes the connection of the farm to its landscape. The narrator in general proposes that Africa is superior to Europe because it exists in a more pure form, without the modernizing influence of culture.
After describing life on her African farm as idyllic, the narrator concludes the tale in tragic tones. The coffee farm goes bankrupt because of the difficulties of growing at such a high altitude.
Critical Reception
Ironically, critical reception to Dinesen’s Out of Africa was mainly positive everywhere except in her native Denmark, where, with the attacks being mostly ad hominem, the critics accused Dinesen of snobbery and noblesse oblige. The latter criticism, however, was openly embraced by the author, who believed that her status of nobility (Baroness Karen Blixen-Finecke took the pen name Isak Dinesen) and of a plantation owner inferred obligation to assume responsibilities and behave nobly toward the native people living on what was now her land.
Adaptations
Sidney Pollack directed a film adaptation in 1985, starring Meryl Streep, Robert Redford and Klaus Maria Brandauer. The film is less a direct adaptation of the book than it is a love story. Written by Kurt Luedtke and drawing heavily on two biographies of Blixen, it is a compressed chronological recounting of Blixen's Kenyan years that focuses particularly on her troubled marriage and her affair with Finch Hatton. Some of Blixen's more poetic narration and a few episodes from the book do appear in the film, such as Blixen's work running supply waggons during the war, the farm's fire and its financial troubles, and her struggles to find a home for her Kikuyu squatters.
Out Of Africa Behind the Scenes - Possession (1985) - Meryl Streep, Robert Redford Movie HD
| Character | Description |
|---|---|
| Karen Blixen | The Danish author and narrator of the memoir, who owns a coffee plantation in Kenya. |
| Farah Aden | Blixen's loyal Somali servant, who helps her manage the farm and acts as an interpreter. |
| Denys Finch Hatton | A British big-game hunter and adventurer, who is Blixen's lover and friend. |
| Kamante Gatura | A Kikuyu boy who is healed by Blixen and becomes the farm's chef. |
| Berkeley Cole | A European friend of Blixen, who owns a nearby farm and visits her often. |
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