The Voter English notes

Justify that Roof is an intelligent manipulator with reference to the story "The Voter".

Answer - 

'Roof' is a popular character of 'The Voter' written by Chinua Achebe. This short story is in African context and tells about a person who is involved in the process of electioneering.

Roof, whose name was Rufus Okeke who was popularly called as "Roof' was a famous person in the village of Umuofia. He had worked two years as a cycle repairer's apprentice in Port Harcourt.

Roof was in the service of Honourable Minister, Marcus Ibe, who was the Minister of Culture in the outgoing as well as in the incoming government. Roof could tell the mood and temper of the electorate, at all levels - village, state and national. Roof was one among the trusted campaigns of Marcus and he conducted many night campaigns successfully. He met Ogbuefi Ezenia, a man of high traditional title in that village and four other elders of the village in Ezenwa's house. At first he gave live shrilling pieces to each of them to vote for Marcus Ibe. But they said that the two shillings given were too shameful. Later, he gave two more shillings and said that four shillings were more than enough for them.

The day before the election, during the night, Roof received a strange visit from the leader of the POP campaign team (Progressive Organisation Party) Roof and the leader of the POP campaign team were friends. No words were wasted, the leader of the POP campaign team placed five pounds on the floor before Roof and asked him to vote for Maduka who was contesting for election from POP against Marcus ave. Roof agreed and he was mesmerized to see the red notes on the floor and became happy by imagining a farmer harvesting his cocoa crop. 

He swore to 'iyi' who came from Mbanta that he would vote for Maduka. On the election day morning, Roof and other campaigners were prancing up giving last minute advice to the voters and said to vote for Marcus Ibe whose sign was a motor car. Later, Roof went to cast his vote. He was confronted and sidled by the car and head. Roof thought of going back to the leader of POP and returning his five pounds to him. But he knew that it was not possible to do so. 

As soon as lightning, a thought leapt into Roof's mind. He tore the ballot paper and tore in two pieces along the crease and to the precaution of putting first into Madu box and confirmed his action verbally br saying "I vote for Maduka"

Thus we can say that Roof is a clever manipulator. 

Or in short, 

A person from the opponent party POP meets Roof on the eve of National elections and offers five pounds for his vote to his party leader Maduka. Roof is caught between greed and loyalty. He is not able to resist the five pounds offered by the opponent party, but at the same time feels guilty about casting a vote for Maduka and thereby cheating his leader Marcus. He falls prey to greed and takes the money. Roof is also made to swear on the local deity Iyi of Mbanta that he would cast vote for Maduka. He is told by the opponent party campaigner that if he fails the oath then, Iyi will take note. On the day of the election Roof campaigns for Marcus with all his energy and enthusiasm more than ever before, to make amends for his disloyalty and also to imply business as usual. But when he finally has to cast a vote in favour of Maduka, he is shaken and is guilt ridden. He asks himself that just because Marcus does not know that he is cheating him, is it correct on his part to cheat Marcus? He wondered if he had played it all wrong. He has no answers. He does not have the heart to return the five pounds as his greed does not allow him. He is also aware of the oath that he has taken in the name of Iyi and if he fails, Her curse will be on his head. He also wants to be fair to his leader Marcus as he has received many favours from him and does not want to lose all of this in the future, as he is his Chief campaigner. Suddenly like lightning, he hits upon an idea. He takes the ballot paper, tears it at the crease, drops one part of it for Maduka, ensuring that he has indeed cast the vote for Maduka, and also verbally confirms his action to appease Iyi. He puts the other half into the box meant for Marcus. With this action he has cast an invalid vote for Maduka, and hence he has not done any disservice to Marcus appeased Iyi and put the other half into Marcus box. Thereby his promise of voting for Maduka, Iyi and Marcus are all met, except that they all are invalid. By casting an invalid vote for Maduka, the wrong that he did to Marcus is corrected, his oath to Iyi is met when he verbalizes his action and finally putting the other half of the paper into Marcus' box, he affirms his loyalty to Marcus. Thus he manipulates intelligently, but he is only technically loyal and this should not be mistaken as true loyalty.

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