Changes

Out of Africa is a reflection of the lives of many wealthy people who traveled to Africa to embark on new business endeavors. It is at the same time a unique story in that it depicts the trials and tribulations of a woman in a way that could not have been so easily accomplished through the words of a man. She is sentimental and thoughtful, concerned with money and business without projecting greed towards her neighbors. At first I assumed that the film would serve the typical purpose of exploiting the mistreatment of the native people whom white money historically imperialize, but the situation was much more sensitive. Rather, we see a different truth in the way that life was conducted in the beginning of the 20th century, which I found refreshing. Karen moves to Africa with hopes of being a successful landowner, expecting to raise cattle, make money, and be satisfied. What she soon learns, is that this is a better way to live and it is more difficult than she expected. In her first monologue at the opening of the film she describes this realization as “a glimpse of the world through god’s eyes. And I thought, yes I see, this is the way it was intended”. Out of Africa tells the story of a woman’s discovery that living life with purpose is more valuable than any sum of money or land.
Karen had wealth, materials, and stature. Bored with her life in Denmark, she began to seek happiness and greater success. What she concludes, is that she must marry and travel far from the lifestyle of the Europeans to begin a new life. With her wealth and his ingenuity, she finds a very ideal relationship with her lover’s brother, but it is not one of affection. Rather, she marries the first man that she imagines will help her in reaching her dreams and we immediately realize that her idea of purpose is to be most affluent: marriage is material. Even after they wed she calls her husband “my lover’s brother” and teases him that she is going to leave him for Barkely Cole, who is very rich in the ivory trade. Her life in Denmark is of shallow intent. She is bored, depressed, and lonely. Thinking that Africa will bring her great success, she does not even begin to imagine the way she is about to change as a person. Her intention was to become an entrepreneur and she ends up becoming an insightful and powerful human being. She grows in many ways; in friendship, strength, and love, and this is proven by observing the differences between Karen at the beginning of the film in Denmark and at the end as she leaves Africa for the last time.
The first trait that caught my attention was her relationship with the coffee pickers on her farm. What many people don’t realize about the relationship between white landowners and the black tribes is that they were neighbors. They had to work together. Karen had to ask permission of the chief to build her plantation and hire his people, while they relied on her for the pay and resources. This is a refreshing contrast to the brutal stories of the slave trade in which there was no relationship between races and one simply owned the other. I believe that Karen cared deeply for these people and it was through this love that she began to release the tension that is fostered being raised in wealty, European society. She is personal with them, wanting them to be with her; safe, healthy, and prospering. When her farm burns and there is nothing left, she bends to her knees to ask the governor for more land so that the people would have somewhere to go. I’m not saying that she did not embrace her superiority, because she most definitely did. Everyone did. That was just the way it was and it was normal. What is more significant is that she, in a way, became them. She worked side by side with them and began to care less for money and more for the land and people; an outlook possessed by African peoples. The final moment the really threw her over the cultural border to me, was when she rode her horse all the way to her husband’s site and called the difficult, painful, adventure….fun. From shooting pheasants for game to shooting lions for survival, Karen goes through many changes.
Another ideal that changed in Karen was of love. Dennis was a man that she not only looked up to as a working man, but she began to be fond of him in a way that we had not seen her be with a man. She sheds her materialistic view on the world and begins to allow herself to be aware of the way she feels. What I found so beautiful about the film was Karen’s transition and sort of awakening as a free spirit, drifting in a world of misconceptions and false relationships, and settling into her own powers as a thinking, acting, human being. She develops a close relationship with Africa and wonders whether the country is fond of her the way that she is fond of it. Her life there opened her eyes to a way of life that she believes in and taught her many things about the world and herself.