Crossroad tales

Choice is a Herculean task: to take or to leave, to go left or to go right, to do or not to do, or, as Shakespeare would put it in Elizabethan, “To be or not to be; that is the question…” that each individual comes across many a time in the course of their lifetime. The weight of it all comes from weighing the pros with the cons, comparing the advantages with the disadvantages while in the same process leaving room for those unforeseen eventualities that may come across. A lot of protagonists come across this issue in the world of literature, from Doctor Faustus to Hamlet; the issue of the impact the choices we make have on our lives is central to the existence of any one individual seeking to make sense of it all. Whether it be some wish that needs to be fulfilled or some new path that has to be walked after some slight hitch or great calamity, one as an individual does come to a point where they have to decide. The Dante Alighieri poem, Inferno, in his Divine Comedy, speaks of an individual’s descent into hell if one chooses to read it from the surface. The meaning between the lines however hints at the issue of choice discussed from the point of view of the individual that has to make the right choice or find the right path as is discussed in ‘Canto I (Stanza)’ of the poem: Nel mezzo del cammin di nostra vita (When I had journeyed half of our life’s way,) Mi ritrovai per una selva oscura (I found myself within a shadowed forest) Ché la diritta via era smarrita. (for I had lost the path that does not stray.) There are keywords: journeyed, half, life way, shadowed forest, path that ‘does not’ stray. Life is a ‘journey’ and there are places one will reach like the ‘shadowed forest’ which is in itself a dark phase in the course of the journey of life. There are points in the life of any one man that are not straight and one is forced by choice and circumstance to follow the road less travelled that is deviant from the straight path they were following before the change of heart or circumstance. It is a familiar tale that is shared by humanity: there is a point of choice in the life of any individual, and some will take it willingly, be forced by circumstance or be pressured by their peers to make that choice. The story of the figure in the first stanza of Dante’s Divine Comedy has found equals across the span of history before his time and after his passing. From the myth of Hercules to Christopher Marlowe’s Doctor Faustus, it seems some protagonist or antagonist had to make the choice to follow a certain path at some point in their life. The Delta Blues singer, Robert Johnson, is in urban legend said to have had what one can call ‘a Faustus moment’ where he had to choose whether to sell his soul to the Devil for money, fame and fortune or to keep it. He chose to sell it to the Devil and went on to become the most famous Delta Blues guitarist for a brief span of time before dying at the age of 27. A Miles Fertel article on the life of the singer and his point of choice states; It’s a cool October night and blues musician Robert Johnson trudges alone down a dark road in the Mississippi River Delta. His only company is his shadow, cast by the full moon overhead. As he walks he thinks about his sorrow. He thinks about the jeers and the shouts for him to get off stage. He reaches the crossroads of US 61 and US 49 in Clarksdale and falls to his knees. In his misery he lets out a cry that pierces into the night. It is a cry of weakness. Of jealousy. Of fear and the anguish of failure. But he’s not alone. The story goes that on that fateful night the Devil heard his cry and offered to grant Robert Johnson extraordinary musical talent. All he asked for in return was his soul. The Robert Johnson that returned from those crossroads went on to rise to fame as the King of the Delta Blues. There should be a close reading of these crossroads tales because far oftentimes than less they illustrate how stories and their characters deal with the whole issue of making decisions. Sometimes, there is a crossing of known human boundaries and the communion with spirits (not necessarily of the voodoo sort) usually leaves the individual a different being than he or she was before the solitary episode of communion with the spirit or the choice they make. These accounted experiences of individuals that get their power or prowess from having met the Devil at the crossroads all sew a common thread between seemingly disjointed stories to communicate essential truths about being human in a creative way. Thomas Mofolo’s Chaka gets his powers from the water snake, a scary figure that licks and preens him to the ascension of the throne. It is not an uncommon scene in African mythology, it is just not symbol of some given attribute of human character but a representation of how hard the issue of making choices is in real terms, or as it is in fairy tales; whether one is forced to kiss the frog the get prince charming. One type of literature in which one finds characters experience the reality of being at a crossroads is in an African dilemma tale. These types of stories are tales in which the main character is forced to make a difficult decision and the result of the story is left open ended, as in The Oedipus Rex. These stories force the listener to develop their own opinions and conjectures about how the story should end. The Fertel article speaks of a German archaeologist and ethnographer Leo Frobenius reciting one tale titled “A Vital Decision”, originating from Northwest Africa: A son is beaten and abandoned by his cruel father after a costly mistake. The boy is then rescued and adopted by a rich man who happens to be searching for a son to be his heir. However, after hearing that his son survived, the abusive father returns to claim him. Feigning resignation, the rich man agrees to concede possession of the boy to his father and escort both of them home. After some time travelling through the forest, the group reach a crossroads. It is then that the rich man hands the boy a sword and commands that he must choose which man he wishes to be his father, killing the other. The story ends, leaving the boy eternally at the crossroads. At the crossroads he is forced to choose between familial responsibility and personal happiness. In this case the crossroads are employed to thrust essential questions upon the reader: What would you do if they were in the boy’s place? Is it ethical to murder someone who has mistreated you? Is it more important to be happy or loyal to your family? This literal crossroad at which the boy must make a life-changing decision mimics the metaphorical crossroads that many people face in their lives when deciding what role their family will play in their lives. In a more general sense, this tale demonstrates how the crossroads is used as storytelling device that asks a listener or reader to place themselves at the heart of the conflict and engages them to grapple with the difficult decisions that a metaphorical crossroads presents. A common meeting at the crossroads offers an opportunity for the teller of a tale to signify that the protagonist will have to cross a symbolic boundary to continue down their path. For example, one version of the tale of Robert Johnson’s deal with the Devil quotes the Devil as saying: If you take one more step in the direction you’re headed… to Rosedale… you are going to have the blues like never known to this world… [and] your soul will belong to me. This example provides a powerful instance of boundary crossing. The meaning is twofold as Johnson’s step takes him both across the threshold of the crossroads and the path to Rosedale, as well as across the boundary from spiritual security to damnation. As a matter of fact, boundary crossing at the crossroads pops up consistently in African American folklore. However, the crossroad tales do not just end in African or American lore: they actually span the entire span of time and perhaps beyond in the pre-civilisation era where humanity had to take the hard choice to leave the safety of the cave as hunters and become agrarian farmers. The protection and safety the cave provided had to be dealt away with to ensure the progress of the human race as a whole. A Małgorzata Budzowska and Jadwiga Czerwińska article states that, “According to legend, Hercules was sitting at a crossroads and he saw two beautiful girls passing; one was Evil and the other was Virtue. Virtue suggested that he follow a narrow and difficult path full of sharp stones and thorns, which would be crossed with difficulty, but in the end he would win love and recognition. The evil one suggested following the easy path, wide and straight, where he would enjoy life and wealth, but he would be commit iniquities and injustices. Hercules followed the path of Virtue, giving him glory and recognition for his good deeds. The relating of his choice at the crossroads has been constantly repeated in literature and in art, becoming one of the most popular topics from Late Antiquity to the Renaissance.” This was the issue of choice being discussed at its most primal: the point where virtue and vice, or, good and bad are pitted against each other in the mind of the individual. In West African folklore, a deity called Esu was the guardian of the crossroads before the advent of colonialism. Colonial mentality turned this figure into the devil, feared and reviled. This is largely due to the Eurocentric outlook that indigenous medicinal practices are magic because the colonist usually does not understand the indigenous mythical practices. Crossroads are often depicted as magical places in Eurocentric lore, but the reality of the matter is that there is a universal element to the crossroad as a symbol: all of us humans and animals at some point come to the point where we are forced to make the choice. Even though all sorts of supernatural and paranormal things were thought to take place at crossroads, the place may just be a place in the mind of the individual that has to be reached if one is to make the way forward to the desired point of happiness. In short, crossroads could be just a metaphorical or visual representation of a moral dilemma that has to be vanquished before the point of progress is reached. The use of crossroads in the literary story is there to create some type of a visual aperture ending in the tale that encourages the reader to extrapolate what happens next. After filling his mind with knowledge in various schools and institutions, there is more than one path the individual can follow or take in life. The learned individual is armed with knowledge after a lifetime of reading, and therefore, there is more than one choice that is open before him. There is an awareness that the story one heard in their own cultural lore bears similarities shared with tales from other cultures and this is where the intercultural dialogue begins. Vladimir Sazonov states, “The purpose of intercultural dialogue between distinct identity groups is not always to achieve the benefits of common goals, it can also be to value and respect the role of another culture, religion or ethnic identity. Distinct identities can be developed as a dynamic process without denouncing other identities as worthless; indeed, learning and becoming aware of each other can be a central value.” The reality is that dialogue is an important source of knowledge where religions and cultures contribute to identities with rites, symbols, beliefs, norms, traditions, events and mythologies that make up culturally distinctive communities with their own particular historical and cultural memories. These memories are interpreted on an individual and collective level. Intercultural dialogue has to adjust a self-constructed picture of other cultures or religions according to the self-determination of others, which in turn may lead to a change in its own image. Strife could be dealt with this understanding of the diversity of the crossroads of intercultural dialogue we are forced to traverse sometimes within the scope of the realities of the current global world and its issues of human migration. According to Plato and Aristotle, there are three fundamental human drives, and these are appetite, spirit and reason. All of them influence the individual’s decision-making process. These three aspects determine the perceptions people might have about each other, and they give rise to the Self and Others perspectives. It is the most primal crossroad in human society, that is, it is the basic construct in the process of association that marks the human race as different from other animal species on earth. Choice determines who and what the individual associates with at the end of the day. Tšepiso S. Mothibi