Thursday, October 31, 2019

What is the setting of The Palm-Wine Drinkard?

The Palm-Wine Drinkard was written by Amos Tutuola. It is a story about a young man from a rich family. The wealthy son drinks as much as he pleases because he has a palm-wine tapster for his own personal use; the tapster gets large amounts of palm-wine for the rich son. One day, the tapster falls from a palm tree and is killed in a horrible incident. Consequently, the narrator is not able to get his palm-wine, and his friends who he drinks with abandon him. To reclaim all the palm-wine he wants, he decides to go to Dead's Town to find the tapster.
The son's journey leads him from his own sanctuary to various places where all sorts of creatures exist. He has many adventures. The narrator eventually even finds a suitable partner and marries her in her town. In Unreturnable Heaven's Town, they encounter people who call themselves the enemies of God. They escape from that awful town and continue on their journey. As they move by a large white tree, two hands emerge from an opening in the tree and draw them inside. This happens in the land of the Faithful Mother, whose only responsibility is to care for those who have experienced hardships and challenges in the world.
In Red-Town, everything and everyone in it is red because of a mistake the Red-King had made years ago. After passing through the town of the Wise-King, the narrator and his wife reach Dead's Town and find the tapster. They get a marvelous egg from the tapster, and they return to the narrator's town—where his journey began. They use the egg to feed people during a famine.
There are various settings in multiple locations along the narrator's journey. All the settings create wild circumstances and crazy adventures for the characters.

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