The Beautyful Ones Are Not Yet Born

The protagonist often reflects on his memories of growing up in the colonial era in Ghana. He tells a striking story of going with a friend to a golf course estate in the “white men’s hills” (76) to steal mangoes and almonds growing overripe and unpicked on the trees. The green, lush grass is beautiful, the man remembers—clean, bright, and soft, the golf course figures almost like an Eden in his memory. Then he remembers that he and his friend were spotted and chased by Black guards and dogs hired by the white men who lived in gleaming bungalows in the hills. This combination of beauty and violence is a hallmark of the novel’s depiction of the colonial legacy.

Even though the novel takes place in post-independence Ghana, the colonial past is not so much past as present—the hills are still where the white men live, alongside Black Ghanaians who have chosen to adopt fake English accents and hyphenated English last names in order to assimilate. The leaders of the new Ghana—who had promised an end to British tyranny and to the “enslaving things from Europe” (149) have instead grown more and more similar to the old British colonizers. Government ministers like Koomson have come to prioritize their personal wealth over the good of the nation, and prize luxury goods such as furniture, ashtrays, radios, and imported European liquors. The difficulty of moving away from European wealth, luxury, and living standards lead to widespread corruption and immorality. The legacy of British colonialism in Ghana is complex and contentious, but in the novel, it is portrayed as something which has a real, rotten, and pervasive effect on the present.

Armah illustrates the rottenness of the government and colonialism with his use of scatological imagery, most notably when he mentions the wooden bannisters that have all manner of filth left by the hands of passerby. He cements this commentary when Koomson, the corrupt minister, must climb through a latrine to escape judgement for his crimes. We see here the clear juxtaposition of what seems to be a rich and fulfilling life through corruption (like Koomson’s) that in reality ends in a fate lower than that of the Ghanaian everyman—Oyo tells the man that she’s glad he didn’t end up like Koomson, stinking of fear.

We also see this concept when the man reaches for his wife and feels the scar from her childbirth. The man is tempted to believe that the woman beside him is not his wife—that Ghana is not an already broken country with a painful history—but feeling the scars of that history helps him recognize his blunder. Ghana will never be free of its “scars” from colonialism, just as the man’s wife will always have scars from giving birth.

Despite the man’s realization, Armah’s ending isn’t without hope. After all, the country “gave birth” to independence following colonialism, and the phrase on the bus, and the title of the novel, suggest that a greater country will arise from the ashes of the tumultuous Ghana of the present: “The Beautyful Ones Are Not Born Yet.”