Moon Witch, Spider King

Fiction | Novel | Adult | Published in 2022

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Summary

Background

Chapter Summaries & Analyses

Part 1, Chapters 1-4

Part 1, Chapters 5-8

Part 1, Chapters 9-11

Part 2, Chapters 12-16

Part 3, Chapters 17-19

Part 3, Chapter 20-Part 4, Chapter 23

Part 4, Chapter 24-Part 5, Chapter 26

Character Analysis

Themes

Symbols & Motifs

Important Quotes

Essay Topics

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Discussion Questions

Themes

The Connection Between Memory and Identity

The Aesi’s power—and his great crime against the people of Fasisi—is to erase their memory. Olu is the prime example. Once a highly esteemed warrior and member of the royal court, when Sogolon meets him, he appears to be just a doddering old man, kept in secluded chambers by the charity of the throne. As Sogolon gets to know him better, however, she realizes that what seems to be random scrawling on his walls and floor are in fact memories. The shrewd Olu understands what is happening to him, and he keeps a frantic record of his life before the memories are lost. On an individual basis, memories are analogous to time capsules, allowing individuals to relive, through the power of cognition, past glories, lost loves, and old regrets. Those memories are crucial to the formation of personal identity; individuals are the total sum of their past deeds and all they have learned from them. Without his memories, Olu is—in his own mind—no longer a great war hero but simply an old man relying on the charity of the king and servants. Likewise, without her memories of Keme and her dead son, Sogolon is robbed of the anger that fuels her quest for justice. She is no longer a mother and lover but just the Moon Witch, a hired gun using her power to take vengeance upon guilty men. Only when Bunshi and Ikede fill in her memory gaps does she become fully herself again, a woman with a tragic past and the power to set right the perpetuation of centuries of crimes.

James explores the notion that memory is both individual and societal. In the novel, groups of individuals share common memories, and those memories serve both ritualistic and cultural purposes. For generations, the king of Fasisi has always been the firstborn son of the King Sister, and the collective memory of Fasisi’s citizens has enshrined that tradition. As the Aesi destroys that collective memory, however, that tradition is lost, and the citizens become docile and pliable, unable to recall both the throne’s past injustices and the Aesi’s past incarnations, which have continued for centuries. It is this collective memory that the Aesi fears the most, for if the citizens of Fasisi remember the crimes of the king—the witch purges, the assassination of family members, and the consolidation of power through killing rightful heirs—the citizenry (perhaps led by a retired war hero) might stage a revolt and overthrow the monarchy. Suggesting that maintaining an active memory of past injustice is crucial to preventing future tyranny, James draws broader implications about the role and power of memory in real-life uprisings. The Aesi’s actions parallel the ways colonial and other oppressive forces erase traditions, ban languages, and rewrite histories in order to maintain control.

Misogyny and the Oppression of Women

Running throughout the narrative is the persecution of women. Sogolon experiences it firsthand at the hands of her brothers, who keep her confined to a termite pit. Later, she is abused sexually in Miss Azora’s brothel and again by Master Komwono. That persecution takes a far greater and more terrifying scope in the court of Fasisi when the king and the Aesi order the witch purges. Women and men—but mostly women—are rounded up and deemed guilty based on little more than the word of a man. Their executions are brutal and public, serving as harsh warnings to any woman who dares meddle in things men deem inappropriate. In the context of James’s mythical universe, witches may possess supernatural powers, but the Aesi’s widespread purges target women across the social spectrum. Sogolon even wakes up one morning to find Emini’s headwoman, hardly an occultist or with any interest in magic, impaled on a stake. Sogolon quickly understands the way this deadly game is played, and the execution of anyone accused of witchcraft is, in reality, a patriarchal, totalitarian strategy rather than a moral cleansing of society.

Sogolon’s power and fighting skill, however, put her on equal footing with men, and this power makes her something of a feminist avenger. As she patrols the streets and pubs of Omororo, she senses men’s fear of the mysterious Moon Witch. Women, however, walk the streets unafraid because they know the Moon Witch has their backs. The queen of Dolingo is herself something of a feminist revolutionary, arguing that the world would be better off if the male hierarchy were overthrown and she and Lissisolo could reign side by side as sister queens. In the end, the fight continues. It is still a man’s world despite Sogolon’s formidable power, and though the witch purges have tapered off somewhat, they are still ongoing. Even the nobler kings of the Kwash line are susceptible to the Aesi’s misogynistic influence, and as long as men are in charge and women dare to think for themselves, the persecution will continue. At the novel’s end, Sogolon sits in a prison cell awaiting the Aesi’s rebirth, implying that this theme will develop further alongside the resolution of her quest in the trilogy’s final installment.

The Repression of Instincts

The biggest difference between Sogolon and Yétúnde is that Sogolon appreciates—and loves—Keme for his animal nature, while Yétúnde is repelled by it. His bestial half—full mane, thick tongue, and massive, furry body—drives their sexual attraction, and once she gets past the shock of birthing lion cubs, she grows to love them just as much as her human children. Yétúnde, on the other hand, kills the lion cubs she bears and buries them in shame. James depicts human sexuality as visceral and sometimes violent. Sexual abuse is common, and James implies that misogyny is at the heart of it, a stamp of male power over women. Even when sex is consensual, James often portrays it as verging on violence; Keme and Sogolon, for example, use sex as an outlet for their grief and anger. He suggests that violence—whether it be in making love or war—is humanity’s default mode. His world is perpetually on the verge of war—the North and South kingdoms are always ready to send in the troops for a tactical advantage—and more often than not, that violence plays out in his characters’ sexual encounters.

Yétúnde’s repressive shame suggests an effort to tame those urges, to reduce the wild nature of the human spirit. The white robes of the divine sisterhood likewise equate moral purity with abstinence; they even recoil at Emini’s menstrual blood. In the intense lovemaking between Keme and Sogolon, however, James casts that shame as itself unnatural, a denial of humanity’s connection with its roots. This liberated sexuality is not restricted to Keme and Sogolon but permeates the entire narrative. Tracker and Mossi exhibit the same passion. When the “white scientists” of Dolingo try to breed humans outside the womb, its very unnaturalness is slap in the face to humanity’s true self: A clinical, sterile alternative that might please the divine sisterhood but does not reflect an authentic expression of human sexuality.