Enlightenment at the End of the Tunnel

According to novelist George Eliot, “Deep unspeakable suffering may well be called a baptism, a regeneration, the initiation into a new state.”  When a person experiences great pain, they can emerge enlightened.  They are able to find the good that was hidden behind all of the evil they have encountered in their suffering. 

Elizabeth, the main character in Bessie Head’s novel A Question of Power, is a mentally ill woman who is plagued by bizarre and disturbing visions.  These visions and dreams are a debilitating force for her, unraveling any feeling of normalcy within herself.  She suffers greatly each day, living a nightmare in her mind.  To many, Elizabeth is just another “crazy person” suffering from delusions created in her disturbed mind.  Upon closer inspection, however, it could be argued that she is a modern-day prophet, experiencing similar visions and connections to other-worldly beings that any religious prophets have said to have experienced.  As Head describes the anguish experienced by Elizabeth, it is clear that the life of a prophet is no easy task.  A person like Elizabeth must overcome the challenges and dangers associated with her mental state, with potential rewards emerging as the positive outcome to her madness. 

A challenge Elizabeth faces is the enormous burden she carries in her daily life when experiencing these visions.  She has no idea when these visions will overcome her being.  At any time of the day she may break down and be powerless to stop what goes on in her mind.  One day while shopping in the village of Motabeng in Botswana, Africa, she is suddenly overcome with horror, voices chanting in her mind, “‘You don’t really like Africans…You have no place here.  Why don’t you go away…’” (51). She emits a long shriek and faints, causing the villagers to stop and stare, and the ambulance to be called.  To live with the possibility that an episode like this could happen at any moment is a challenge that Elizabeth must deal with throughout her mental breakdown. 

On top of this challenge, Elizabeth must also deal with the dangers associated with her mental illness.  The people around her think she is absolutely mad, not taking into consideration the enlightenment that could be found within her visions.  After her episode in the village shop, she is sent to the hospital, away from her son.  Due to her mental state, she is separated from her child.  While she is able to leave the hospital after a day or so, she loses her teaching job.  Driving family and friends away and losing her job are the dangers that arise from experiencing her nightmarish visions.  Her isolation, both physical and mental, is the ultimate danger she faces in her life.  She has felt isolated her entire life, but during her mental breakdown she experiences it at a higher level. 

Despite her isolation, however, she experiences goodness in select individuals, serving as a reward to her horrific visions.  A man named Eugene offers to help her when she feels alone and afraid, and she thinks, “The man’s instinctive sympathy and offer of help was the nearest any human being had approached her isolation” (58).  Her feeling of isolation separates her from the world, intensifying the visions that cause her to feel so different from the people around her.  Eugene’s kindness draws her a tiny distance out of her isolation, which is more than any other person has in Elizabeth’s life.   Another individual that makes Elizabeth feel connected to the world outside of her reeling, stormy mid, is a Danish woman named Birgette.  She admires the true kindness and blunt honesty of Birgette, noticing a similarity between them, yet her feeling of separation overcomes her desire to tell her this.  Elizabeth was “so lonely, so self-contained, so wrapped up in her own isolation” (85).  Birgette eases Elizabeth’s suffering, however, when she volunteers to tell an insufferable woman named Camilla that she is a “racialist” and has deeply offended Elizabeth.  She helps Elizabeth in this way, creating a positive relationship between her and Camilla.  Birgette listens to Elizabeth, making her feel like a normal, respected human being. 

Without the suffering caused by her visions and isolation from the world around her, Elizabeth would not be able to appreciate the genuine goodness found in these individuals.  As Part One of the novel ends, Elizabeth is set free from the evil represented by the terrifying Medusa found in her dreams.  She is rid of this evil, and finally feels the goodness on the other end of the spectrum.  Her first long journey of pain leads her to a new realization of the good in the world around her.