At Night All Blood Is Black: A Novel

Fiction | Novel | Adult | Published in 2018

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Summary

Background

Chapter Summaries & Analyses

Chapters 1-8

Chapters 9-13

Chapters 14-20

Chapters 21-25

Character Analysis

Themes

Symbols & Motifs

Important Quotes

Essay Topics

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Discussion Questions

Character Analysis

Alfa Ndiaye

Content Warning: The source material contains graphic depictions of rape and violence, including murder and torture.

Alfa Ndiaye is the narrator and antihero of At Night All Blood Is Black. He is a Wolof-speaking Senegalese man serving France in World War I. After the death of his childhood friend, Mademba, Alfa begins ritualistically murdering and dismembering German soldiers, becoming an increasingly alienated and unreliable narrator. At first, his trench mates enjoy his exploits; however, as Alfa repeats this act of violence and preserves the severed hands in salt—representing the way he is stuck in his trauma—they come to fear him, believing he embodies the racist stereotypes of “savagery, of rape, of cannibalism” (20). Alienated by both these tropes and a language barrier, Alfa is expelled from the trench and sent to the Rear to recuperate. However, he continues to deteriorate here as Doctor François’s healing methods fail to address the “uglier” sides of Alfa’s psyche. After being rejected by the doctor for drawing his collection of severed hands, Alfa experiences a mental health crisis in which he believes he is simultaneously himself, Mademba, and a dëmm, a Senegalese demon. During this crisis, he rapes and murders a white nurse and believes he is “double” (117), carrying with him his memories of his friend’s death and his uncompleted life.

Alfa is a dark yet sympathetic character who makes convincing and insightful points, though he becomes harder to empathize with in the last chapters. Despite his unreliability when recounting his past and violence, Alfa can be insightful, particularly around the complex interpersonal dynamics in his family and hometown. He also understands the way Senegalese men are perceived by the Europeans, including the German enemies and the French officers. Of the German victims, he writes, “I see in his eyes what he’s been told about me, and what he’s believed without ever seeing me” (20). Alfa’s rage at these “savage” stereotypes drives him to “play the savage” (16); the Germans expect rape and cannibalism from him, so he resolves, “I will devour him alive, or something even worse” (20). His character arc resembles the way dehumanizing violence—be it colonialism or war—ultimately dehumanizes both the subjects and perpetrators of that violence. His inability to differentiate between appropriate and inappropriate venues for violence also illustrates the futility of such a distinction; while actions on the battlefield are more easily understood, they are no less brutal than violence perpetuated against civilians.

Mademba Diop

As Mademba Diop is already dead when the novel opens, Mademba’s character is largely developed retrospectively. He is Alfa’s foil, caring, gentle, and scholarly, while Alfa is physically strong and unintellectual. Alfa knows that he would have betrayed Mademba to woo Fary had she not chosen him, whereas Mademba is a true friend to Alfa during their childhood, especially after Alfa’s mother disappears. Mademba accompanies Alfa on his northward journeys, wistfully awaiting her return, and engineers for Alfa to be adopted into his household as a brother. Even when he is jealous of Alfa’s looks and physical strength, Mademba loves and is proud of his friend, his “more-than-brother” (9). The French title of the novel, Frère d’âme, meaning Spirit Brother or Brother of the Soul, alludes to the power of the connection between the two men.

Mademba excels so profoundly in his schoolwork that he attends the local white school. As a result of this colonial education, Mademba feels the desire to enlist in World War I to “save the motherland” (95). His loyalty to France drives his transformation from a gentle scholar, symbolized by the peacock or crowned crane that is his clan symbol, into a strong and brave warrior; after he is rejected from the army, Alfa spends two months training him to meet the physical demands of army enlistment. Ultimately, Alfa concludes that the transformation is superficial: Mademba had always been courageous and had shown more courage in getting into youthful fights to protect Alfa while still small and weak. Inhabiting the weaker body, Mademba always had the braver heart and an inner compass of goodness. His fate—disemboweled while defending France in the war and remembered only by Alfa—represents the way colonialism treats its subjects as disposable. To France, Mademba’s death is merely “one among the rest” (40).

Jean-Baptiste

Jean-Baptiste is a Toubab, a white African soldier who is “the trickster, the joker,” although his jokes take the grim form of pulling pranks using one of Alfa’s severed hands (46). He is Alfa’s “only real white friend” (48), although his jokes must be translated for the Wolof speakers. He takes care of Alfa after Mademba’s death. Instead of praising his heroism for bringing Mademba’s body back, Jean-Baptiste focuses on caring for Alfa, helping him wash the blood from his clothes, feeding him, and making him laugh. He alone, of all the fellow soldiers, had the compassion to understand the closeness between Alfa and Mademba and see how, to Alfa, this is more than just one death among many.

Jean-Baptiste’s character changes radically when he receives “a certain perfumed letter” (51). It is implied that his sweetheart has broken up with him, after which Jean-Baptiste uses the severed enemy hand to taunt the enemy. He is ultimately decapitated by a “master artilleryman” after venturing out of the trench with the gauze-wrapped hand affixed, middle finger raised, to his helmet. Jean-Baptiste’s death does not have the deep psychological impact on Alfa that Mademba’s did, but it does impact him socially. With the loss of his last true friend, there is now no one to encourage the other soldiers to accept and celebrate him. The other soldiers also see how Alfa and Jean-Baptiste’s actions enrage and enflame the Germans rather than just terrifying them.

Ibrahima Seck

Ibrahima Seck is another foil for Alfa, representing a possible future version of him. Seck is introduced as “A Chocolat, much older than me, higher ranked. A Chocolat with a Croix de Guerre and his heart in his boots, a Croix de Guerre Chocolat” (43). The two men are linked by race, military service, and the Croix de Guerre, one of France’s most distinguished war medals for heroism in combat. Alfa was awarded one for staying with Mademba and bringing his body back, but the medal does not bring him happiness or pride, whereas Seck takes the medal so fully into his identity that Alfa persistently and scornfully identifies him by it, as the Croix de Guerre Chocolat (43). Seck is also superstitiously terrified of Alfa and his supposed “witchcraft.”

In his role as a translator and high-ranking soldier, Seck translates words into Wolof at the captain’s whim, becoming not just a translator of words but of the captain’s desires. His role as a translator, like his Croix de Guerre, is a symbol of his intense and servile collaboration with the French colonizers. The repetition of “Chocolat” regarding Ibrahima and his service to France emphasizes the way he and other Africans are objectified by their colonizers. He is all that Alfa is determined not to become: weak, afraid, and no longer his own man.