Out of Africa – The Morals of the Story

Rating: 4 out of 4 stars
Writers:  Karen Blixen, Judith Thurman, Errol Trzebinski, Kurt Luedtke
Director:  Sydney Pollack

Out of Africa Plot Summary In A Sentence:                 

A European woman, who moves to Africa to marry for social standing, recounts her experiences and romantic relationships in Africa and moving out of Africa.

The Morals of the Story:                                             

If you’ve experienced a glimpse of real love with another person, you will have trouble forgetting it.

Real love often does not fit into conventional expectations.

Real love is not easy to explain in a simple phrase or maxim.  Sometimes it is better described through complex and well-composed stories.

As we grow old,some people tend to constantly and repeatedly focus and think abou the best lover we experienced.

Sometimes the great loves of our lives are those rare people who initially see most of our serious faults.  Some are faults we think we have hidden and some are faults we don’t even realize about ourselves.  And knowing these faults, they choose to take us on anyway.

“Out of Africa always something new.”

Any society with a “privileged class” usually requires a subservient “underprivileged class.” 

If you define “white” as “better than,” then the other colors tend to be underappreciated.

You will sometimes be judged by the quality of your art.  (Denys’ book collection)

Regardless of your country or culture, if you do not pick an enterprise that can become profitable for everyone involved, you put everyone at risk.  (Brandauer’s decision to grow coffee in a high climate instead of running a dairy)

Unfair compensation systems will create opposition and resistance.

When you ignore the knowledge of local people because you define them as an underclass, ignoring their knowledge will likely reduce your chances of success.  (Ignoring the local chief’s warning that coffee cannot grow in the high altitude)

We sometimes don’t profit from the property we “own and sell” as much as we profit from the property we treat well and make profitable.

Nature, if left unpruned and untutored, will go wild again.

When you believe your world is thoroughly defined, and when your activities and pursuits have long been routined and structured, a great love may show you new things you can become, things that are outside of your comfortable boundaries.  A few of these things may be things you were always curious about and hoped for, but more often these things will be new and foreign, containing characteristics you never knew how much you would enjoy.

There is not only one proper way to love.

If lovers stop defiining each other as owned property, they may become more sympathetic to their spouses other love interests.  (Denys’ “other woman” appearing at his funeral.  “He brought us joy.  And we loved him well.  He was not ours.  He was not mine.” – Karen at Denys’ funeral)

Great loves will support your efforts that defy convention and expand your activities outside of your supposedly “appropriate” gender, class, occupational, and cultural roles.  (Denys supporting Karen’s decision to deliver military supplies to dangerous territory)

Great loves will not allow you to define yourself narrowly.  They will encourage your expansions more than your presumptive limitations.

A great love will not necessarily take your hand and guide you every step of the way for as long as you want.  Sometimes a great love will come and go at uncontrollable intervals, having already given you enough guidance, advice, and directions for you to travel on your own.  (Denys gives Karen a compass when she is lost, so she can find her own way – instead of taking her personally to her destination)

The ability to read alone will not make you wise.  You must also learn to think.  (Chief says, “The British can read, and what good has it done them?”)

Some of the great companions of your life will not primarily converse with you about minor day to day problems.  Instead, they will focus conversations on larger concerns.  (“In the days and hours Denys was at home, we spoke of nothing ordinary.  Not of my troubles with the farm.  My notes due and my failing crop.  Or of his, and his work . . . what he knew was happening to Africa.  Or of anything at all that was small and real.  We lived disconnected and apart from things.” – Karen)

A good friend and companion is someone who elicits your honesty.  They do not discourage your candor.  They do not encourage your silence.

Some people never understand others’ pains from being alone, because they’ve never personally experienced a love relationship with someone else that helped them understand the value of being together.   Our definitions and experiences of “alone” are relative to the quality our personal experiences with being in love with someone else.

Life may give you a romance that gives you only one great opening sentence.  And sometimes your lover will not stay with you or finish the story with you, and your difficult choice will be whether or not to continue on, and whether or not to write the rest of the story on your own.  (Karen & Denys’ storytelling activity of Denys supplying the first sentence, and Karen creating a story from it)

When someone you love disappears from your life, you may discover value in their collected artworks, books, movies, photos, and artfully expressed writings & letters.  Those objects and things recreate some of remaining glimpses of their love, a love that gave you reasons to live, to want, to share joy, and to create.  (Karen Blixen sitting among Denys’ books after he has died)

“It’s alright to take a chance, as long as you’re the only one who will pay.”  – Denys

Our home is not necessarily where we live or where we are from.  Sometimes it is where our thoughts and memories are focused.

When someone says they don’t expect much out of life, it’s okay to doubt or question their assertion.  (Karen does not believe Denys when he suggests he asks less of life)

No person owns another person.  (Slavery and marriage are discussed in this light)

Your great loves will support your future development, your sanity, and your ability to pursue happiness.

There may be some people who you want to stay and love only you, but their nature is not to do so.  You may have to decide whether being only a part of their life is still worthwhile.  (Karen and Denys)

You may leave where you have been and never return to that place, but that does not mean that place, or the events that took place there, will ever leave you.  (Karen moves out of Africa, but Africa does not move out of her)

Sometimes the best response to a statement you disagree with is not to state a counter argument, but rather to simply ask, “Why?”

If you want to understand someone, you will benefit from understanding more about all the people, ideas, and things that person loves, especially the other people.

Your name will not likely be remembered.  But the effects of your actions may have a lasting effect.

As a woman, you may lose your ability to have children.  But you may still find a love that promotes your abilities to love, to help others, to tell your story, and to create.  (Karen loses her ability to have children, but supported by Denys’ ideas and insistent behaviors toward her, she becomes more creative and expressive.  Denys gives Karen a fancy pen to write her stories down, commiting them to paper)

Your loves will sometimes take you out of your “homeland” perceptually, literally, or culturally.  Sometimes your loves will redefine your roles, personal definitions, and priorities.  It will be your choice whether to adapt or to incorporate these new (foreign) influences.

Our real lives do not always meet all the dreams we are pursuing.  Sometimes storytelling creates and immerses us into expanded worlds more saturated to the degrees and depths of our dreams.

Humorous Highlights:                                                 

If you marry someone, knowing the are a gambler, philanderer, and spend thrift, don’t be surprised if in the end they turn out to be a gambler, philanderer, and spend thrift.

“Mentally travelling” costs less and has fewer real costs or consequences.

Before getting married, it’s good to discuss whether or not you want to have children.

If you marry someone and spend a lot of time with them, don’t blame anyone else if you end up having feelings for them and loving them.

If you want to marry a servant, don’t marry a woman.  (“Tell Blix his wife is here.”)

Mozart can still woo women in the middle of safari.

Brandauer:  “You might have asked, Denys.” (For his permission to have an affair with his wife Karen)
Denys:  “I did.  She said, ‘Yes.’ ”

Clichés and Assumptions The Story Challenged:         

You can’t make an unforgettable and beautiful romantic film with a lead female who is a childless aristocrat who marries for money and social position and has an affair with another man.

A Question For You Is:                                               

What other moral, humorous, or innovative ideas did you find in this story?

Out of Africa on IMDb

Out of Africa on Wikipedia 

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