The Shadow King

Content Warning: This section of the guide includes descriptions of war violence and sexual assault. 

In retelling the events of the Second Italo-Ethiopian war, Mengiste is clear in her treatment of Italy as the aggressor but avoids the easy characterization of leaders and soldiers on the Italian side as exclusively villainous. Mengiste relies on an omniscient narrator and the sweeping language of the epic to expose the complexities of leadership and loyalty on both sides of the war. This allows for a deeper understanding of how war and conflict amplify the best and worst in human nature.

The distant, omniscient perspective and the lofty language of military epics like Homer’s Iliad and Virgil’s Aeneid—both directly alluded to in the novel—allows Mengiste to explore the deepest motivations of each leader and their followers. Just as the Iliad portrays Achilles and Hector as equals and foils, Mengiste uses a similar technique to uncover Kidane and Fucelli’s motivations, which begin long before the war. Both men can trace their cruelty and moral failings to the influence of their fathers. Both mistake the obedience they garner from their followers for loyalty.

In Kidane’s case, though he leads admirably under great duress and gains the respect of his soldiers, he wages a terrible war against women’s bodies and uses rape to control the women closest to him. He forces Hirut’s obedience through sexual violence, his actions against Hirut’s body no different than Italy’s treatment of Ethiopia and motivated by the same disrespect of sovereignty. His motivation stems from his father’s modeling of sexual violence toward Hirut’s mother, Getey, and the epically worded advice to “break flesh and draw blood” on his wedding night with Aster (181). Like the Italians who wage an unending war with no clear end in sight, Kidane’s repeated rape of Hirut reveals that it is not just war that inspires the worst even in our best leaders. Though he fights valiantly and with loyalty to the Emperor, Kidane is morally tarnished. Those who follow know of his treatment of Hirut and allow it, their complicity making their loyalty as soldiers, which is viewed positively, into a morally questionable act. Because of the war, they overlook Hirut’s abuse for the sake of maintaining a unified front.

Fucelli regards Ethiopia and her people with the same contempt Kidane reserves for women. His absolute brutality, culminating in the choice to fling prisoners from the cliffs, stems from his father’s lack of affection and emphasis on social climbing at all costs. Fucelli will use Ethiopia to gain the glory he seeks without regard to human life or sovereignty. Though he feels for Ettore and disagrees with the fascist move to purge Jewish Italians, he leverages his knowledge of Ettore’s parentage to ensure his obedience and complicity. Ettore’s choice to document the atrocities is an imposed loyalty that forces him to betray his own roots even as it bears witness to atrocity.

Even Aster and Hirut, who step into leadership roles, are motivated by revenge and guilt as much as by the desire to cast off their oppressive roles as wives, daughters, and slaves. Aster is petty in her hatred and lack of care for Hirut, though she is Kidane’s victim as well. Only Hirut, who spares Ettore’s life, and who in the end returns his father’s letter, learns to resist the cycle in which trauma creates more trauma. It is in not killing that humans are most heroic. Though she uses the language and vantage of the epic to characterize and create depth with these characters, Mengiste is clear that in war, there are no heroes, only leaders and followers struggling with the moral complexities of their actions.