The Sailor-Boy’s Tale (Historical Context)

Historical Context

Denmark

Dinesen returned from Africa to Denmark in 1931. A significant historical circumstance during her lifetime was the occupation of Denmark by Nazi Germany during World War II. Although Denmark maintained an official policy of neutrality at the outbreak of World War II in 1939, the government capitulated to German occupation in 1940. After a show of organized resistance by the people of Denmark against Nazi occupation, the Germans took over control of the nation’s government and much of its military forces. The resistance movement was organized as the Danish Freedom Council in 1943, and in 1945, the Germans surrendered to defeat by the Allies.

Kenya

Dinesen lived in the region that is now Kenya from 1914-1931 as the owner and manager of a coffee plantation. The history of this region during the late nineteenth and the twentieth centuries is characterized by European colonization and exploitation of members of the tribes native to the area, such as the Massai and the Kikuyu. Britain, Germany, and France all had a hand in colonizing the area. The Imperial British East Africa Company had a dominating hand in these efforts beginning in the 1880s. In 1894, the British government declared the area the East Africa Protectorate. In the 1890s, British military forces were employed to quell resistance to European rule by African tribes. A railway, built between 1895 and 1903 was a key factor in encouraging European settlement and cultivation of the East Africa Protectorate in the early 1900s. During this time, members of the native African tribes were restricted to reservations and forced into labor on European plantations. In 1920, the region was renamed the Kenya Colony. Throughout the 1920s, Africans, such as members of the Kikuyu tribe, organized to press for their rights. In the 1940s, a small number of Africans were allowed to sit on the Legislative Council. Large-scale protest, organized by members of the Mau Mau tribe and referred to as the Mau Mau Rebellion, was waged between 1952 and 1960. In 1960, a conference in London led to an African majority on the legislative council for the first time. In 1963, The Republic of Kenya was created under a new constitution, which allowed for self-rule and national independence.

Kierkegaard

Critics have noted that Dinesen’s writing shows the strong influence of the nineteenth century Danish philosopher, Soren Kierkegaard (1813-1855). Kierkegaard was a religious philosopher considered to be the father of existentialism, based on his criticism of rationalism, particularly the philosopher Hegel. A large inherited fortune gave him the freedom to devote his life to writing philosophical works. His first major work, Either/Or, was published in 1843. Later in life, Kierkegaard came to believe that he had been appointed by God to criticize the Christian church. His work was not given serious critical attention until the 1870s, and his importance to philosophy did not become widely recognized until the years between World War I and World War II.

Scheherazade

Before many of Dinesen’s stories were published, she narrated them orally to her lover, the British hunter and pilot Denys Finch-Hatton during his intermittent visits to her plantation in Africa. Because of this, she likened herself to the fictional character Scheherazade, narrator of the ancient collection of stories known as A Thousand and One Nights, or The Arabian Nights. The story of Scheherazade is that she was to be married to a king who hated women and killed all of his wives. To delay her execution, Scheherazade began to tell the king one story a night, being careful to end her storytelling each night before the story was finished to keep him in suspense until the following night. After delaying the execution for many nights, the king is finally won over by her and abandons his plans to kill her. The collection of tales, which result from this frame narrative, first appeared in the ninth century and has been published in many versions over the past thousand years. Tales that have become staples to Western folklore include that of Ali Baba, Aladdin, and Sinbad the Sailor.

Compare & Contrast

• Early Twentieth Century: From 1894-1960, the region of Africa in which Dinesen lived for over fifteen years is a protectorate of the United Kingdom called the East Africa Protectorate.
  Late Twentieth Century: In 1960, the East Africa Protectorate achieves self-rule and national independence and is renamed the Republic of Kenya.
• World War II: Dinesen’s native country of Denmark is occupied by German forces (1940-1945).
  Post-World War II: Upon the German defeat by the Allies in 1945, Denmark regains self-rule.
• Early Twentieth Century: The vast coffee plantations of the East Africa Protectorate, like those owned and managed by Dinesen, are owned by Europeans who force the Africans onto reservations and exploit their labor.
  Late Twentieth Century: Land used for coffee plantations is gradually ceded to African people, as a result of pressures to further the rights of African people in their native regions.
• Early Twentieth Century: The phenomenon of book clubs, begun in the nineteenth century, leads to the formation of the popular Book-of-the-Month Club in the United States in 1926. A total of five of Dinesen’s books are included in Book-of-the-Month Club lists.
  Late Twentieth Century: Beginning in the 1950s, the availability of cheap paperback editions of many books results in a decline in popularity of book clubs.