Out of Africa (1937) (edit title/settings)

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Characters/People edit see section history

• Karen Blixen: Narrator of the story who marries and moves from her home country of Denmark to Africa where she and her husband own a coffee plantation.
• Denys Finch Hatton: Close friends with the narrator. Although it is never mentioned explicitly, the novel subtly suggests that they are lovers. Denys Finch Hatton is the embodiment of gentility and aristocracy. He is handsome, athletic and a good sportsman. He is a lover of fine music, wine and art. He helps the narrator learn more about literature by teaching her Greek, Latin and the Bible. He gives her a gramophone that adds "new life on the farm." He also takes her up in an airplane, which allows her to look down on Africa with new eyes, like God. It is Denys' sheer nobility as a human that makes many natives deeply respect him. His dignity allows him to transcend cultural boundaries. His death is considered a tragedy by natives and Europeans alike.
• Kamante: A servant on the farm who eventually becomes a cook. Kamante is a slightly comic figure. He is younger than Farah, and an eight-year-old child when the narrator first meets him. Perhaps because of his youthful age, the narrator frequently explains ideas to Kamante. Kamante does frequently appear skilled, but even some of his abilities are touched with comedy. Descriptions of Kamante's adventures serve a light, comedic purpose, while simultaneously providing information about the nature of growing up in the native community. Overall, he is a kind, friendly figure whom one tends to like.
• Farah: The servant closest to the narrator. Farah is the chief of all servants and the narrator's closest confidant.The narrator and Farah are so close, in fact, they she often appears quite dependent upon him. Farah manages all the affairs of the household. He accompanies the narrator to her ship when she travels to and from Europe.
• Kinanu: The father of Kabero. Kinanu is the boy who shot the weapon during the shooting accident. He is one of the richest squatters on the farms. The narrator depicts Kinanu as a wheeling and dealing businessman. Some of his daughters have married the Masai and he is frequently trying to bring some cattle owed to him from the Masai reserve. During the legal arbitration, Kinanu complies with the rulings again him, but may do so in shady ways. He frequently is accused of trying to give cattle or sheep that are not as healthy or young as others. Kinanu does not appear unkind and certainly loves his son, Kabero. However, his ability to be a good businessman makes him seem less noble and forthright than some of the others.
• Kinanjui: The Chief of the Kikuyus. Kinanjui is one of the most noble of the local natives. His profile itself appears aristocratic and he always holds himself upright. Although he does not have the luxuries that European aristocrats use, such as palaces, Kinanjui manages to make his dignity known by his stance and his behavior. The narrator likes Kinanjui and often uses him to arbitrate disputes on her farm. By the end of the novel, he turns into a tragic figure. He dies from a wound to his knee that turns gangrenous. It is an unfortunate illness, but one that could have been cured had Kinanjui had access to medical treatment. Furthermore, with his death the future leadership of the Kikuyu people is not secure, and the narrator implicitly suggests that bad things may lie ahead for the natives.
• Lulu: A baby gazelle rescued by Blixon and the people on her plantation.
• Kabero: The Kikuyu boy who accidentally shoots the other boys during the shooting accident. Kabero initially appears a tragic figure, as he is presumed dead by lions or suicide. Later, it is discovered that he is not dead. Instead he has been living with the Masai. By becoming a Masai and returning to the farm, Kabero serves to personify the differences between the neighboring tribes. As a Kikuyu boy, he was a slightly disobedient servant, but as a Masai he stands tall and noble with formality. The two tribes live close together, but are very different as Kabero indicates.
• Juma: Add a description of this character.
• Jogona
• Pooran Singh
• Masai: A tribe of natives.
• Wainaina
• Belknap: The American mill-manager whose gun is used in the accidental shooting. Nothing else is known about him.
• Ingrid Lindstrom: The author's Swedish friend who helps her before the final move. Ingrid is a struggling farm owner like the author who has tried many different techniques to keep her land profitable, including growing flax and different produce. Her struggles on her own farm help to demonstrate how difficult it is for farms to survive in Africa.
• Fathima
• Wamai
• Morani: "young warrior"
• Kitosch
• Choleim Hussein
• Ali
• Suleiman Virjee
• Ismail
• Sayid
• Mr. Christensen
• Wawerru
• Knudsen
• Karomenya: A young native boy who is deaf and dumb. Karomenya lives entirely in his own world because he lacks the ability to speak and hear. The other native children do not like him as they say he is violent. Eventually, Karomenya befriends the narrator's dogs after he learns to use a whistle. He tires of the dogs as well, and loses the whistle with no interest in getting it back. The narrator fears for Karomenya's future since he is a nomad in his own culture as well as the harsh colonial world.

Quotes edit see section history

• “Perhaps he knew, as I did not, that the Earth was made round so that we would not see too far down the road.”

  Karen Blixen

• “"All this, from my seat on the broken chair in the hut, looked to me as a weight too heavy to take on. I had not got it in me any longer to stand up against the authorities of the world. I did not have it in me now to brave them all, not all of them."”

  The narrator makes this statement in the "Death of Chief Kinanjui" in the final section of the book "Farewell to the Farm."

• “"It was and is becoming, I thought, that Emmanuelson should have sought refuge with the Masai, and that they should have received him. The true aristocracy and the true proletariat of the world are both in understanding with tragedy…They differ in this way from the bourgeoisie of all classes…"”

  The narrator makes this statement at the end of the "A Fugitive Rests on the Farm" segment, which is located in the third section of the book, "Visitors to the Farm."

• “"The relation between the white and black race in Africa in many ways resembles the relation between the two sexes."”

  This quote takes place in the chapter, "Of the Two Races," which is found in the fourth section of Out of Africa, "From an Immigrant's Notebook."

• “"Lulu came in from the wild world to show that we were on good terms with it, and she made my house one with the African landscape, so that nobody could tell where the one stopped and the other began."”

  The narrator makes this statement in the chapter, "Lulu," which is found in the book's first section, "Kamante and Lulu."

• “"Up in this high air you breathed easily, drawing in a vital assurance and lightness of heart. In the highlands you woke up in the morning and thought: Here I am, where I ought to be."”

  The narrator makes this statement while describing her farm at the very beginning of book's first chapter, "The Ngong Farm."

• Popular Highlights from Kindle Customers

• It made me reflect that perhaps they were, in life itself, within their own element, such as we can never be, like fishes in deep water which for the life of them cannot understand our fear of drowning.

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• Africa, amongst the continents, will teach it to you: that God and the Devil are one, the majesty coeternal, not two uncreated but one uncreated, and the Natives neither confounded the persons nor divided the substance.

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• When the first steam engine was constructed, the roads of the races of the world parted, and we have never found one another since.

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• Why the Kikuyu, who personally have so little fear of death, should be so terrified to touch a corpse, while the white people, who are afraid to die, handle the dead easily, I do not know.

  Highlighted by 5 Kindle customers

• My life, I will not let you go except you bless me, but then I will let you go.

  Highlighted by 4 Kindle customers

• For whether there be no venomous snakes in the world, or whether you shall have arrived, by injecting ever-stronger doses of venom into your blood, at a stage of perfect immunity to it, in the end it must come to the same thing.

  Highlighted by 4 Kindle customers

• If I know a song of Africa,—I thought,—of the Giraffe, and the African new moon lying on her back, of the ploughs in the fields, and the sweaty faces of the coffee-pickers, does Africa know a song of me? Would the air over the plain quiver with a colour that I had had on, or the children invent a game in which my name was, or the full moon throw a shadow over the gravel of the drive that was like me, or would the eagles of Ngong look out for me?

  Highlighted by 4 Kindle customers

• “Though in death fire be mixed with my dust yet care I not. For with me now all is well.”

  Highlighted by 3 Kindle customers

• When you have caught the rhythm of Africa, you find that it is the same in all her music. What I learned from the game of the country, was useful to me in my dealings with the Native People.

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• I wondered if this consistency was produced by an entire ignorance of the evil of the world, or by a deep knowledge and acceptance of it.

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Setting & Locations edit see section history

• Happy Valley

Organizations edit see section history

• Happy Valley Set: Add a description of this organization.

First Sentence edit see section history

Table of Contents edit see section history

Series & Lists edit see section history

Authors & Contributors edit see section history

1. Isak Dinesen (Author)

First Edition edit see section history

Classification edit see section history

• Library of Congress: DT433.54 .D56
• Dewey: 967.62

Notes for Parents edit see section history

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Subjects edit see section history

• Books › Literature & Fiction › History & Criticism › Criticism & Theory
• Books › Reference › Writing › Travel
• Books › Travel › Europe › Denmark
• Books › Biographies & Memoirs › Specific Groups › Women
• Books › Literature & Fiction › Contemporary
• Books › Travel › Africa
• Books › Biographies & Memoirs › Travel
• Books › Biographies & Memoirs › Memoirs

Movie Connections edit see section history

• Out of Africa (1985) (IMDb): In 20th century colonial Kenya, a Danish baroness/plantation owner has a passionate but ultimately doomed love affair with a free-sprited big-game hunter.

More Books Like This edit see section history