Maru

Head allows each character to tell a part of the story from his or her point of view. The reader develops a sense of each character’s values and personality. The multiple points of view add layers to the storytelling, allowing the reader to understand each character’s motivations. Head’s use of shifting points of view, including an omniscient narrator, with no breaks between paragraphs or other indications that a shift has occurred, leads to some difficult transitions, where the reader might confuse one character’s thoughts and feelings with those of another. As a narrative technique, it seems she is attempting to humanize each character rather than control the flow of the narrative, sacrificing clarity for emotional resonance.

Though Margaret Cadmore is the protagonist of this novel, the novel begins at the end of the story with Maru’s contemplation of his wife. Margaret and Maru are married, though both know that she is in love with Moleka and he with her.

After Maru reveals his fear of his jealousy and hatred of Moleka, Margaret Cadmore’s history is given in a flashback. An omniscient narrator reports Margaret’s birth, her Masarwa mother’s death during childbirth, and Margaret’s upbringing in the mission by the missionary’s wife, Margaret Cadmore. At times, the voice of her foster mother takes over the narrative. Margaret takes up her own story at the departure of the elder Margaret Cadmore for England, as Margaret finishes teacher training. Margaret tells her own story from this point to her first day in Dilepe.

The awkward love triangle between Moleka, Maru, and Margaret is complicated by the presence of Dikeledi, who cannot help her lifelong love, with the “tenderness and devotion of a dog” toward Moleka (18). Although Maru arranged for Moleka to have his sister (4), he does not believe the current situation will remain stable. Both men are chiefs; Moleka has his own kingdom while Maru is the son of a paramount chief, so they are roughly equal in the eyes of society and between themselves, and they both love Margaret.

After leaving Margaret, Moleka walks and thinks about what has just happened to him. He has become a new man; the old womanizing Moleka is gone, replaced by a new Moleka who loves only Margaret Cadmore. He, too, experienced a “bang!” in his chest (21). He compares his relationship with Dikeledi, who makes “his bloodstream boil” (21), to Margaret, whom he “had communicated directly with [Margaret’s] heart” (21). “The woman,” as Moleka thinks of her, has completely changed the direction of his life (21).

Next, Moleka reviews his relationship with Maru; they have always loved each other. In addition, they have always shared women, and both men have kept up continuous love affairs over the years. As kings of opposing kingdoms, Maru knows and fears the kingdom within Moleka, because he does not have the key to unlock that kingdom (23). However, Moleka does not realize his own full potential, because he is always looking toward Maru for guidance and takes care of Maru before himself.

Both Maru and Moleka are well-known ladies’ men in the village, and their affairs end differently, but catastrophically, for the women involved. Head declares, “[T]heir victims exploded like bombs” (23). However, Moleka is never hurt at the end of his affairs; he just smiles and goes on his way. The idealistic Maru is always devastated by the end of his love affairs, so much so he would have health crises, and the women would even go insane. Maru finds himself greatly disappointed that the women he puts on a pedestal only want to have a relationship with him because of his social status and wealth—as a soon-to-be paramount chief.

The differing romantic results demonstrate the great divergence in their personalities. With the exception of Maru, Moleka takes care of Moleka first, while Maru, with a more sensitive nature, feels the emotion at the end of his affairs keenly. Despite his position, Maru has only five friends: his sister Dikeledi, Moleka, and three spies—Ranko, Moseka, and Semana. Maru also acts upon the advice given to him from the gods who speak to him in his heart.

The principal of the school, Pete, upon questioning Margaret about her ancestry and discovering that she is a Masarwa, begins plotting to get rid of “it” because he does not believe Masarwa people are human (27). He does not want to be blamed for hiring a Masarwa teacher by the parents of the children in the school. He races to discuss this matter with the education supervisor, Seth. Seth says to leave the matter to the Totems or Maru to handle. They discuss the fact that Maru may not make it to his investiture as paramount chief, due to a new illness, diabetes. They focus on the man who would follow Maru, his younger brother, Morafi.

The three men—Seth, Pete, and Morafi—have many negative traits in common, and together, form a modest social elite within the village. They live to cause other people pain, enjoying other people’s misery. Morafi is the ringleader of the group: fat, stupid, and insensitive, but with the cunning that comes with the privilege of being the son of a paramount chief and an excellent cattle stealer. Additionally, the Totems discuss the matter all weekend; they are astonished that a Masarwa has arrived to teach the village children.

The principal sets in motion events he hopes will rid his school of Margaret on Monday. One of the children, a boy, challenges her in class: “‘Since when can a Bushy be a teacher?’” (31). The whole class erupts in jeers, and the whole school hears the commotion. However, Pete’s cause is lost when Dikeledi beats him to Margaret’s classroom where she shames and threatens the children into silence. In fact, Dikeledi has been running the school for years.

As evening falls on Monday, Maru arrives at home to discover his chief spy, Ranko, seated and waiting to give Maru his report on the new teacher at the Leseding School. Margaret is humble and forgetful, Ranko reports. Both Dikeledi and Ranko are “in love” with the new Masarwa teacher (38).

Maru goes to his sister’s house, next door to his own, and he finds her eating on the porch. Maru deepens Dikeledi’s love for Moleka by exaggerating his good qualities, and telling her the story of Moleka’s feasting with his Masarwa slaves. Next, he returns to the tribal office, where he works side-by-side with Moleka, and forces Moleka to have the borrowed bed returned immediately. He explains to Moleka that he owns over 100,000 head of cattle on fifty different cattle posts, all watched over by Masarwa slaves. He cannot let the rumor spread of granting one Masarwa a favor that he is not willing to grant all the other Masarwa.

After Moleka sends two henchmen to retrieve Margaret’s bed, Margaret returns to the tribal office to ask him for more time to arrange for a new bed. She confronts Moleka, but Maru tells her that he ordered the return of the bed. Margaret is shocked, “Suddenly she felt as if her throat were being choked. The man was Dikeledi’s brother. Dikeledi spoke of him with reverence. And how much had Dikeledi invaded her own life without giving her these awful details—that she, Dikeledi, was related to someone like this who had slaves as part of his hereditary privilege?” (45) She agrees to return the bed.

Maru visits Dikeledi and announces that he is going to marry Margaret. Dikeledi reminds him that Margaret might not want to marry him, and that she is a free woman who can make decisions on her own. She thinks that Maru is joking, and that it is unkind of him to make Margaret, who is so powerless, an object of ridicule. Maru reveals that he never intended to accept the chieftaincy, and marrying a woman like Margaret would ensure that no one expected him to accept that role. He laughs with Dikeledi over Margaret’s odd gestures, such as holding up a hand when people speak to her as if “warding off a blow” (52), yet Dikeledi’s affection for Margaret makes her protective of her friend.

In this section, Margaret arrives in Dilepe, and the primary relationships and themes of the novel are established. Margaret’s arrival in a village where her people are kept as slaves shocks everyone. Dikeledi opens her heart immediately to the proud and gentle Margaret. Dikeledi’s intervention saves Margaret from being fired as a teacher. Both Maru and Moleka are stricken with Margaret: they are now in competition for Margaret’s affection.

In this manner, the fairy-tale aspects of the novel are fulfilled. Margaret is Cinderella, while both Maru and Moleka vie for the position of Prince Charming, and Dikeledi acts as a fairy godmother, protecting and helping Margaret socially and professionally.

The novel shifts to Moleka’s mother’s point of view. She does not know what to do with her son, who seems to have lost his mind. He sits around her house, obviously distraught, but he does not talk about his troubles. Eight of his children from women in the village live at her house. Moleka seems to have curtailed his previously incessant womanizing. She does not know what to do; he is her only child, and she dotes on him and pampers him as if he were a child rather than a grown man. Moleka himself does not know how to handle the shift inside him due to Margaret’s appearance in the village. His connection with her has changed him. He lingers in this indecisive and forlorn state for two weeks.

Finally, he decides to approach Margaret in her home to ask if she is comfortable. On his way to Margaret’s home, Ranko, Maru’s spy, stops him. Ranko tells Moleka that he should avoid Margaret, on Maru’s orders. Moleka then realizes that Maru has no idea how to approach Margaret either in the competition between the two men for her affection. He tells Ranko to tell Maru that if he approaches Margaret, Moleka will burn his house down, or he might even kill him. In a rage, he approaches Dikeledi’s home, determined to kill her if she denies him anything that he wants.

Dikeledi wakes at his knock on her door, and she allows him to push past her into her bedroom. As he undresses, he challenges her to call her brother to protect her from him. With tears in her eyes at his conduct, she tells him that she was so proud of him for standing up to Seth and eating with his slaves to show their equality with him. Moleka realizes that Dikeledi might be his “salvation” because he will never be able to get Margaret away from the “devil” Maru (59), so he lies and tells her he ate with his slaves for her sake. He chooses Dikeledi out of love for another woman and for his own future happiness. He remains bewildered that he chose Dikeledi and is perfectly happy within her “prison,” where he finds that her energy complements and completes his own (59).

Ranko, who was spying on Dikeledi’s house, eagerly reports Moleka’s visit to Maru. Maru pretends to be upset, when in reality he is greatly pleased that Moleka removed himself from competition for Margaret. When Moleka reaches the office, Maru is ready for him. Moleka insists that Maru will not win Margaret over and that he will not

marry Dikeledi. However, Maru easily undermines Moleka’s assertions.

Dikeledi appears in Margaret’s classroom, wanting to share her happiness. Dikeledi offers Margaret a spare bed from her house, and she picks up one of Margaret’s fat cakes and eats it with an ecstatic look on her face. She notices the picture that Margaret has just drawn of her happy, lovely face. The picture is remarkably drawn. Dikeledi asks to see the drawing of Margaret’s mother, made by the missionary Margaret Cadmore so many years ago. Dikeledi comments that the younger Margaret’s work is better. Margaret says that she learned to draw from watching what Margaret Cadmore the elder threw away.

Pete, the principal who tried to rid the school of Margaret but instead lost control of his staff, has become a terrified wreck of a man, muttering inside his room in a boarding house. Everyone who hears him wonders if he has lost his mind. By evening, he has decided to confront Seth, the supervisor, to demand that either Margaret Cadmore goes from the school or he does.

As he enters Seth’s house, he finds Seth and Morafi, Maru’s brother, and a Totem, in high spirits. They are happy because Maru has acted exactly as they would in demanding that Margaret return the bed: as a slave owner who puts only his own interests first. The three men are referred to as “demons” (65). They are happy to find that Maru, who acts as if he is morally superior to everyone else, is actually a hypocrite and just as morally compromised as they are. They are joyful because they believe that Maru will rid the village of the Masarwa teacher himself, without them needing to take any action.

Pete receives a chilling message as he walks home. A voice in the darkness says, “‘Tladi will get you for your evil deeds’” (66). To most Africans, the threat of a living demon is very real, and Pete, along with others, believes that Maru could become an incarnation of Tladi—a demon. After a night of terror, Pete flees the village. Subsequently, Seth, the education supervisor, also leaves Dilepe, followed by Morafi. Everyone in the village believes they have lost their minds, but Moseka and Semana, Maru’s helpers, sleep soundly after terrifying the three men, on Maru’s orders. Dikeledi is promoted to principal of the Leseding School.