50 pages • 1 hour read
Helon HabilaOil on Water
Fiction | Novel | Adult | Published in 2010A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Symbols & Motifs
Oil
Oil serves as not only a physical substance that drives the plot of Oil on Water but also as a motif that illustrates The Environmental and Social Effects of Neocolonialism. Oil spreads, running in rivulets and expanding into a slick. It pollutes, corrodes, or corrupts many of the things that it touches. When it gets into a water supply, it makes that water unusable and dangerous. As the oil industry spreads throughout the Niger Delta, it does much the same thing to the land and its peoples. Their homes are abandoned and then bought up by the oil companies. It is no wonder that in Chapter 5, when the major is lecturing his prisoners, he blames oil:
What, you can’t stand the smell of oil? Isn’t it what you fight for, kill for? Go on, enjoy. By the time I’m through with you, you’ll hate the smell of it, you won’t take money that comes from oil, you won’t get in a car because it runs on petrol. You’ll hate the very name petrol (61).
The oil is both the object of the men’s desire and the mode of their punishment, which mirrors its status in the larger context of Nigeria: The oil has the power to both help and harm. It brings the government vast amounts of wealth and provides temporary employment to those in need, but ultimately it helps the rich get even richer while it destroys the livelihoods and environments of the poor. It runs the automobiles and the industries that serve to maintain the modern infrastructures of Nigeria while at the same time causing conflict and war in the region and thereby destroying the very same infrastructure.
As the novel’s title alludes to, when oil is poured into water, it remains separate and settles on top. It cannot break the hydrogen bonds keeping water molecules together, so while water is a tighter-knit substance, the oil surmounts it. In the same way, oil companies are oppressing the tight-knit Nigerian communities, and all must take part in helping the “water” break through the surface.
Boma’s Scar
Boma’s scar, the result of an oil-fueled fire, is symbolic of the scar on the figurative face of Nigeria due to oil having burned and destroyed parts of the land. Boma tries to hide the damage whenever possible, feeling ashamed of her scars: “[S]he still managed to keep the burned, badly healed side of her face hidden. She did it unconsciously, but the scar always dictated how she stood, how she sat. It made [Rufus] sad when she did that, especially with [him]” (94). The Nigerian government does the same thing with regard to the oil industry. It takes the money, but it hides and ignores the devastation that the oil causes. Rufus, as a journalist, wants to see and expose the whole picture and reveal the truth.
Newspapers and Journalism
Journalism is a motif that develops the theme of Searching for Order Amid Chaos. Knowledge is power in Oil On Water, and the fact that Rufus and Zaq are journalists affords them certain rights to slip in and out of many situations that would otherwise have them killed or kidnapped. Everyone in the book wants their message heard. The fact that the Professor wants his message to reach a wider audience is what saves Rufus in the end, when the Professor demands that he tell only the truth, threatening to do something terrible to Rufus if his message is perceived to be a lie. The major too demands proof of Rufus being a journalist, as though that profession alone is a golden ticket to freedom. Further, it is only after Isabel’s fake kidnapping is discussed on the radio that it turns into a real kidnapping; it is this act that drives much of the plot of the novel.
