Character Analysis
What's in a Name?
She's the narrator, protagonist, farm-owner and all-around Main Character in Out of Africa. That's not to say that she's self-centered; it's a memoir, which means that it's the written memories of the author. So let's get down to brass tacks and figure out just who this lady is and why we should care what her memories are.
Out of Africa is narrated by a Danish baroness named Tania Blixen, although that information takes quite a while to shake out as you read. You can get through the first several chapters without even realize that you're reading a woman's voice; she talks about lots of traditionally manly activities like farming and killing wild animals, so it's a twist when it comes out that the narrator's a she. We just love a good twist.
It's in Part 1, Chapter 2, that the narrator's gender is revealed. She's doctoring up Kamante with a hot poultice and burns him, which causes him to speak: "Msabu." The narrator explains, "The Natives use this Indian word when they address white women, but they pronounce it a little differently, and change it into an African word, with a diverging ring to it" (1.2.13). So now we know: she's a lady.
Other important details about her identity crop up as the book goes on. For example, we get her last name at one point, but it's hard to even recognize it because it's tied up in a joke: "I had a letter from him which was addressed to Lioness Blixen, and opened: Honourable Lioness." (1.4.20). Having been called a lioness—which we have to admit is pretty rock star—seems more important to the narrator than letting us know who she is.
We get more details about her noble title, and her first and last names, as the book goes on. When she signs the documents for the Kyama that decides how much livestock one squatter has to pay to another, she signs it "Baroness Blixen" (2.5.49), and later on her friend Berkeley calls her "Tania" (3.7.30).
This is all to say that we find out pretty slowly just who we're dealing with, which has some interesting implications. It could be that the narrator expects we know all about her and her life, sot here's no need for explanation; or it could be just the opposite, that she's kind of hiding. After all, Karen Blixen, the historical name of the author, used the pen name Isak Dinesen when she published the book.
The Baroness is really proud of her native nickname, Jerie. The old women on the farm call her that, which is
… a Kikuyu female name, but it has some special quality—whenever a girl is born to a Kikuyu family a long time after her brothers and sisters, she is named Jerie, and I suppose that the name has a note of affection in it. (5.5.17)
Aww, that is pretty sweet. It's clear that the narrator likes to think of herself as the Kikuyus' kid sister, but who wouldn't?
Just a Farmer
The Baroness defines herself not as a socialite, or a baroness, really, or even just a wealthy landowner. She is most proud of her farm and her work. That's pretty much what the whole book is about: recovering her lost farm through words and memories.
The memoir opens up with "I had a farm in Africa, at the foot of the Ngong Hills" (1.1.1) This sets the tone for the whole book. It's not "We had a farm" or "There was a farm." No, the narrator wants us to know that she feels possessive about the place. It's hers, dagnabbit.
She doesn't back off when things go south, either. The last section opens similarly to the first one, except this time it starts to show some chinks in the armor: "My farm was a little too high up for growing coffee" (5.1.1). It's still strongly possessive: "My farm", but now we get the idea that this is not going to be a book with a happy ending… at least where the farm is concerned.
There is a bit of a grudge hidden in there, too, although she doesn't air the dirty laundry. She might feel responsible for the farm, but she really blames its loss on somebody else:
One real trouble was that we were short of capital, for it had all been spent in the old days before I took over the running of the farm. (5.1.6)
She's talking about her husband, the Baron Blixen, who only comes up once in the memoir. It's clear that she's pretty peeved with the dude, and that he was kind of thick-witted when it came to saving for a rainy day.
Wake Up and Smell the Chai
So the Baroness is a down-to-earth farmer, but she has this real problem facing reality. When things start to get rough she just doesn't have the heart to admit that she is losing her home and will have to leave Africa.
At first she worries a lot:
It is a heavy burden to carry a farm on you. My Natives, and my white people even, left me to dread and worry on their behalf, and it sometimes seemed to me that the farm-oxen and the coffee-trees themselves, were doing the same. It appeared to be agreed upon, then, by the speaking creatures and the dumb, that it was my fault that the rains were late and the nights so cold. (5.1.10)
Whoa, self-pity much? But even if she's throwing a pity party, the Baroness does feel a responsibility to the people who depend on the farm. The problem is that she is unable to turn things around, for all of her worrying.
She feels the weight, and that's real, but the consequences are harder to deal with. When she's with Denys they live in a fantasy world, where there's no tomorrow:
A few times Denys and I spoke as if I was really going to leave the country. […] But most of the time when we were together, we talked and acted as if the future did not exist. (5.3.2-5)
For him—spoiler alert—the future doesn't exist, because he will die in a freak accident before he has to say goodbye.
That leaves the Baroness even more alone, to face her fate all by herself. And she finally does put on her big-girl pants and face the facts. It just takes time, and losing her land, to get to that point.
Timeline