Gabriel Okara’s “You Laughed and Laughed and Laughed”

Title: Laughter as Resistance and Cultural Assertion in Gabriel Okara’s “You Laughed and Laughed and Laughed”

Introduction

Gabriel Okara’s poem “You Laughed and Laughed and Laughed” is a powerful literary articulation of the cultural divide between the colonizer and the colonized, particularly between the White colonial community and the Black African identity. Through the motif of laughter, Okara exposes the arrogance and ignorance of colonial attitudes toward African customs, spirituality, and connection to nature. This poem becomes a voice of resistance and a celebration of cultural identity, using satire, metaphor, and powerful imagery to critique materialism and racial superiority.

Laughter as an Instrument of Mockery

The act of laughing in this poem symbolizes the condescension and derision with which the White community views African traditions. The speaker recounts that “you laughed and laughed and laughed” at various aspects of his being his song, his walk, his dance. The repetition of the phrase emphasizes the persistence and cruelty of this mockery. When the speaker sings, it is perceived as a “motor car misfiring,” suggesting the colonizer’s inability or unwillingness to comprehend African music and its spiritual resonance. The use of modern mechanical imagery contrasts sharply with the organic and traditional elements of African culture, showcasing the colonialist's mechanical perception of value.

Illustrations of Satire on Materialism

Okara's critique of materialism is subtly but effectively embedded in the juxtaposition between African spirituality and Western industrial culture. When the poet says, “instead you entered your car and laughed and laughed and laughed,” it illustrates the colonizer’s reliance on machines and material possessions as measures of civilization. However, these things are mocked in return as symbols of alienation and coldness. The speaker ultimately characterizes the colonizer’s laughter as “ice-block laughter,” representing not only emotional sterility but also a lack of genuine human warmth and understanding.

Critic Richard K. Priebe notes that Okara’s poetry often “reveals the impact of Western intrusion into African cultural practices,” and here, the mechanical world of the colonizer is cold and lifeless in contrast to the warm and animated world of the African.

Spiritual Resilience of the Black Community

Despite the ridicule, the speaker asserts his cultural strength. He draws his resilience from the deep-rooted connection with nature and his ancestors. He declares: “my laughter is the fire / of the eye of the sky, the fire / of the earth, the fire of the air.” These lines symbolize the elemental and eternal strength of African spirituality. The Black man’s laughter is not mechanical or cold, but warm, life-giving, and restorative.

This elemental imagery reveals the metaphysical grounding of African identity in the forces of nature. As poet and scholar Wole Soyinka observes, “the African world-view is holistic and inclusive,” and Okara echoes this ethos through the speaker’s claim of unity with the natural world.

Black Mentality vs. White Mentality

The poem draws a sharp contrast between the mentalities of the colonizer and the colonized, a dichotomy that is deeply embedded in postcolonial discourse. The White mentality is portrayed as superficial and mechanistic, while the Black mentality is holistic and grounded in natural harmony. This contrast mirrors what Homi K. Bhabha identifies as the tension between colonial mimicry and cultural resistance. The poem’s imagery reinforces this split where one worldview is associated with 'ice-block laughter,' the other with 'the fire / of the earth.' The White mentality is described as superficial, mechanical, and lacking in emotional depth. It “froze your inside,” indicating how colonial ideology alienates individuals from the emotional and spiritual dimensions of life. In contrast, the Black mentality, as portrayed by Okara, is grounded in the “living warmth of the earth,” suggesting a holistic and harmonious existence. This connection to the earth is also symbolic of a deeper cultural rootedness and authenticity.

Africa’s Connection to Nature and Cultural Nostalgia

The poem brings out the difference between the lifestyle of Africans and that of the modern world. The central theme of the poem reflects on the impact of foreign culture on Africa. In the opening stanza, the poet evokes the image of jungle drums that send “urgent” and “raw” messages, symbolizing a call back to African traditions and identity. The drums evoke vivid memories of a time untainted by Western influence a time of hunters with spears, stalking leopards and panthers.

With these rhythms, the speaker becomes nostalgic about his youth days spent in the lap of his mother, walking barefoot on "paths with no innovation." This line captures the intimate and affectionate memory of a simpler time, reinforcing the poem’s nostalgic tone and contrasting with the mechanized alienation of colonial modernity.  There is a subtle satire at play here: by highlighting the simplicity and nature-bound paths of Africa, Okara critiques the artificiality and excess of Western innovations.

In a later stanza, the poet employs the image of a “wailing piano.” This instrument, often played alone, symbolizes isolation a sharp contrast to the communal rhythms of the drums. Terms like “diminuendo” and “crescendo” represent the complexities and fragmentation of Western culture. The piano attempts to harmonize with the drums, yet the resulting melody is dissonant symbolizing the impossibility of reconciling the two conflicting cultures.

The Dilemma of Cultural Hybridity

In the final stanza, the speaker is caught in a dilemma a cultural limbo. The fusion of the two cultures creates confusion. The speaker stands by the “riverside,” surrounded by the “mist” of conflicting identities, symbolizing the broader African experience in the wake of colonial intrusion. This ending, unresolved and open, reflects the continued struggle of African societies to strike a balance between tradition and modernity.

Here, Homi K. Bhabha’s concept of the “third space” becomes highly relevant. This “in-between” space, according to Bhabha, allows for the emergence of new cultural meanings and identities. The speaker’s position in the mist represents such a space a hybrid site of negotiation between past and present, tradition and transformation.

Transformative Power of Indigenous Identity

Eventually, the African speaker's warmth and authenticity begin to affect the colonizer, symbolizing a moment of cultural reconciliation that aligns with Homi K. Bhabha’s notion of the 'Third Space' a site where hybrid identities emerge, making transformation and healing possible. This thawing reflects a broader postcolonial theme of reconciliation, where the colonizer, exposed to the vitality and resilience of indigenous identity, begins to question the supposed superiority of colonial discourse.

As Edward Said emphasizes, the recovery and assertion of native narratives dismantle imperial authority, making space for mutual understanding. Okara’s poetic strategy thus echoes the transformative possibilities postcolonial theorists envision when the once-marginalized assert their epistemic agency. The fire of his laughter “thawed your inside, / thawed your voice, thawed your / ears, thawed your eyes and / thawed your tongue.” These lines illustrate a turning point in the poem, wherein the spiritual power of African identity breaks through the emotional and cultural frost imposed by colonialism.

This thawing can be seen as a metaphor for enlightenment or realization on the part of the colonizer, who ultimately asks, “Why so?” The question is meek and vulnerable, indicating a softening of arrogance and a tentative willingness to understand. The answer given is both poetic and profound: “Because my fathers and I / are owned by the living / warmth of the earth.” It reinforces the poem’s central claim that African culture derives its strength from its deep connection to life and nature.

Conclusion

Gabriel Okara’s “You Laughed and Laughed and Laughed” transcends being merely a poem about cultural confrontation—it is a declaration of resilience and a hymn to the vitality of African identity. Through the powerful symbolism of laughter, Okara subverts colonial mockery and reclaims it as a tool of strength and cultural pride. The contrast between the icy, mechanical laughter of the colonizer and the warm, elemental laughter of the African becomes a metaphor for competing worldviews one rooted in materialism and detachment, the other in spiritual connection and natural harmony.

The poem’s satirical edge highlights the cold sterility of colonial ideology while celebrating the spiritual and ecological wholeness that defines the African ethos. As the colonizer's icy arrogance melts in the face of this warmth, Okara suggests the potential for transformation not just of the individual colonizer, but of the oppressive systems they represent.

Ultimately, the poem offers a compelling postcolonial statement: African identity, deeply intertwined with land, spirit, and tradition, is not diminished by mockery. Instead, it absorbs, resists, and transforms, radiating a fire that refuses to be extinguished. In reclaiming laughter, Okara reclaims dignity, asserting that the true power lies not in domination, but in rootedness, resilience, and radiant cultural selfhood. This aligns with Homi Bhabha’s idea of hybridity and resistance, and with Edward Said’s emphasis on reclaiming narratives from imperial discourse. Likewise, Gayatri Spivak’s call to “un-silence” the subaltern finds resonance in Okara’s poetic assertion of African voice and vitality.

Works Cited : 

Bhabha, Homi K. The Location of Culture. Routledge, 1994.

Okara, Gabriel. You Laughed and Laughed and Laughed. In The Fisherman's Invocation, Heinemann, 1978.

Said, Edward W. Culture and Imperialism. Vintage Books, 1993.

Spivak, Gayatri Chakravorty. “Can the Subaltern Speak?” Marxism and the Interpretation of Culture, edited by Cary Nelson and Lawrence Grossberg, University of Illinois Press, 1988, pp. 271–313.

Ashcroft, Bill, Gareth Griffiths, and Helen Tiffin. The Empire Writes Back: Theory and Practice in Post-Colonial Literatures. Routledge, 1989.

Ngũgĩ wa Thiong'o. Decolonising the Mind: The Politics of Language in African Literature. Heinemann, 1986.

Loomba, Ania. Colonialism/Postcolonialism. Routledge, 2005.