70
Chapter two
Maru
I am Black
Okay?
Hot sun and geographical set-up
Made me Black;
And through my skin
A lot of things happen to me
THAT I DON'T LIKE
And I wake each morning
Red murder in my eyes
Cause some crook's robbed me again
Taken what little I had right out of my hands
With the whole world standing by
And doing nothing...
Okay?'
This is Head's first piece of poetry for The New African, a periodical. The poetic
piece is characterized by an aggressive and angry tone and, according to Craig
Mackenzie, is an expression of "extreme frustration."'^ However, the poem is
71
reflective of the simmering discontentment within Head which was to find vent
unreservedly in the form of her literary output.
Similarly the moral depth,
sensitivity and understanding evident here become attributes of whatever she was
to write afterwards. A distinctive feature of Head's writings is that they have
been used as a powerful weapon against the Establishment. The whole set of
patriarchal myths and symbols coupled with allusions to racial bigotry lend a
characteristic tone of protest and rebellion to her language. As Susheila Nasta
puts it, "language is both source and womb of creativity, a means of giving birth
to new stories, new myths of telling the stories of women that have previously
been silenced; it can also become a major site of contest, a revolutionary
Struggle." Head's writings give credence to this observation.
Head's fiction deals with the origin and causes of racial and sexual inequalities in
southern Africa. However, her perspective is different in the sense that she does
not idealize the past nor does she adhere to any political ideology. In her novels
the personal and the political motives are intertwined and lead to tensions
between the oppressor and the oppressed.
Maru, Head's second novel, is a major attempt on her part to portray this conflict
vociferously.
Often touted as a novel attacking prejudices, it is an effort to
explode the social norms structured over centuries. Head deals not only with the
stereotypical image of whites oppressing blacks but also blacks oppressing
blacks.
Maru gives us a glimpse of the system of power and subjugation
72
operating within the black society. Horace I. Goddard is of the view that in
Maru, Head writes about a "liberation not only from a colonial past but also from
the African male's racialistic, sexist and power-seeking tendencies."''
In the words of Head, this novel "tackles the question of racialism because the
language used to exploit Basarwa people, the methods used to exploit them, the
juxtaposition between white and black in South Africa and black and Basarwa in
Botswana is so exact."'' While treating the theme of racialism and the idea of
power struggle, Head emphasizes that oppression did not come with the arrival of
the white man alone, but forms of it were already existing in the traditional
African society. The novel brings out the ill-treatment meted out to "Bushmen"
by the Botswanan tribal people and by whites. Head successfully imparts to the
novel a universal significance by delineating ordinary people who do
extraordinary things. The pain, the agony and the tension Head portrays is
common to every man irrespective of nation, class, colour or creed. Head termed
her work "inventive fiction"^ with "bits borrowed with observations and
leanings."^ Maru mainly deals with gender and racial prejudices. As Head writes:
...In South Africa, the white man says of us... 'They don't think.
They don't know anything...' When they see a Black person, they
automatically either look through you or above your head because
you're a non-thinking 'it' or something.
But when I came to
Botswana, the Botswana people's reaction to a tribe they oppressed,
73
the Masarwa, was similar... Botswana said to me: 'Oh, the Masarwa,
they don't think; they don't know anything.' How human beings can
do that to human beings beats me."^
Such statements constitute an outcry against the injustices that the author
witnessed in an "all black" country. It is the existence of racism that horrifies her
and leads her to vehemently condemn the subjugation of individual identities on
the basis of colour and caste.
In Maru, black women suffer from a double sense of powerlessness as women and
as blacks. They are marginalized and relegated to the position of outsiders in a
traditional African set-up. Pierre L. Van Den Berghe terms the geographical
segregation of ethnic groups in Africa as "macro-segregation" and defines it as
"the segregation of racial groups in discrete territorial units, such as the 'Native
Reserves' of South Africa, now being restyled as 'Bantustans'."' What really
emerges after a thorough reading of the novel is Head's own loathing of intraracial prejudices, especially those of the Bantus against the Bushmen. The white
man's dislike for non-white humanity in South Africa only aggravates the
situation.
Maru deals with segregation in various forms. Most of the writers in African
literature have widely discussed apartheid and Head is no different from her
brethren in the continent. Maru is an outcry against injustices that the author
74
witnessed in an "all black" country and its shocking similarities to the horrendous
system of apartheid. The novel is a critique of the postcolonial situation where an
equal social order is a far cry. It is Head's most coherent work on the themes of
racialism, intra-racialism and exploitation.
The plot of Maru revolves around the treatment meted out to a Masarwa woman,
Margaret, who has been raised by a white missionary. It portrays her efforts to
become a part of the black society of Dilepe, a rural village in Botswana. The
term Masarwa in the Tswana language refers to the people who live in the dry
and arid regions of the Kalahari. These Masarwas were treated as slaves in the
small village of Dilepe. Margaret being a Masarwa thus becomes a pariah in
Dilepe. Her missionary training has, however, made her intellectually superior to
the other Bushmen and she has earned for herself the job of a teacher. The novel
then goes on to delineate the tussle between the two community leaders, Maru
and Moleka, to win her love.
In Maru the internal caste system on the one hand and colonialism on the other,
work together to generate conditions of extreme suppression. The novel opens
with an ominous reference to the "black storm clouds" that "clung in thick folds of
brooding darkness along the low horizon....They were not promising rain. They
were prisoners, pushed back, in trapped coils of boiling cloud.""' The imagery is
suggestive of an underlying feeling of repression that marks the novel. Maru runs
a small farming community with the assistance of his wife Margaret and his three
75
followers, Ranko, Moseko and Semana.
The focus then shifts to Margaret
Cadmore and her earlier life.
Margaret's biological mother is dead. She died during childbirth on the outskirts
of a small village. Being a Masarwa, she obviously had fallen prey to the heartwrenching poverty. The Masarwas were treated as outcasts by the dominant
Botswana.
As Head says, "Masarwa is the equivalent of 'nigger', a term of
contempt which means, obliquely, a low filthy nation" (p. 12). The Bushmen
were treated as if they were less than human:
In Botswana they say: Zebras, Lions, Buffaloes and Bushmen live in
the Kalahari Desert. If you can catch a zebra, you can walk up to it,
forcefully open its mouth and examine its teeth. The zebra is not
supposed to mind because it is an animal. Scientists do the same to
Bushmen and they are not supposed to mind, because there is no one
they can still turn round to and say, "at least I am not a
'i (p. 11)
This blatant disregard for the dignity of Bushmen and their dehumanization is a
product of the intra-racial prejudices steeped in the African ethos. The death of a
Masarwa woman even serves to highlight the viciousness of the seemingly
benevolent white missionaries who were entrusted with the task of burying the
dead body of a Masarwa. It is ironic that these messengers of god in service of the
local population are averse to the idea of mingling with humanity.
76
The young child, Margaret Cadmore, is adopted by an English missionary, Mrs.
Cadmore, who bequeaths her name to her ward. Head's ironic portrayal of Mrs.
Cadmore makes her a representative of the phenomenon of colonialism. These are
the people who have little or no interest in the natives as individuals. Since Mrs.
Cadmore has abundant supply of "common sense" rather than her "love of
mankind", she makes use of her virtue to serve the natives. "It made her timeless,
as though she could belong to any age or time, but always on the progressive side.
It also made her abusive of the rest of mankind, because what is sensible is
simpler than what is stupid" (p. 13).
Head gives us a glimpse of the human prejudices through the eyes of the
missionary Cadmore. The nurses in the hospital refuse to wash the soiled body of
a dead woman because she is a Masarwa. When they are forced to do so, they are
unable to disguise the "expressions of disgust''" on their faces which are captured
by Margaret Cadmore in her sketch pad.
These human prejudices make her
wonder, "if they so hated even a dead body how much more did they hate those of
this woman's tribe who were still alive" (p. 15). However, we cannot lose sight of
the fact that Cadmore analyses the racist bias of the white nurses somewhat
dispassionately. It is a mere observation on her part rather than a condemnation of
the attitude of the nurses.
Mrs. Cadmore's adoption of a young baby for her is a mere experiment:
77
She had no children, but she was an educator of children. She was
also a scientist in her heart with a lot of fond, pet theories, one of her
favourite, sweeping theories being environment everything; heredity
nothing. As she put the child to bed that night in her own home, her
face was aglow. She had a real, living object for her experiment.
Who knew what wonder would be created? (p. 15)
Thus, for Margaret Cadmore, the baby was nothing more than a means to prove
her theory. In the words of Modupe O. Olaogun, "The ironic depiction of Mrs.
Cadmore's scientism and experimental spirit here reflexively picks up the subject
of...the racialist designs masquerading as rational science."" It is evident that
Margaret is brought up as an "experiment", without much love from her scientist
mother. Her adoptive mother sets out to create a new personality that would
consciously deny allegiance to any narrow definition of tribe, race or nation.
Margaret Sr. is a do-gooder whose "false generosity'^ howeverj fails to challenge
the unequal racial and class hierarchies in the society. As Freire aptly remarks,
"An unjust social order is the permanent fount of this generosity...any attempt to
'soften' the power of the oppressor in deference to the weakness of the oppressed
almost always manifests itself in the form of false generosity."'^ This is true of
Margaret Cadmore Sr.'s attitude towards Margaret whom she has adopted.
The relationship between Margaret and the missionary is never a child-parent one.
She is more of a '^semi-servant'* at home. The occasional kisses on her cheeks, a
78
bedtime story or her nature walks were the only factors that distinguished her from
the other servants. The young Cadmore could never despotically demand things
but gratefully accepted whatever was bestowed on her. All this only makes young
Margaret suffer an acute lack of personal identity. Consequently, there is "a big
hole in the child's mind between the time that she slowly became conscious of her
life in the home of the missionaries and conscious of herself as a person" (p. 15).
Maru focuses on the oppression of Margaret by society. The fierce racist bias
really hits Margaret once she starts going to school. She finds something wrong in
her relationship with the world, especially in the manner in which she finds herself
alienated from the other students. The young girl learns of her "Bushman" status
through other children at the school where Mrs. Cadmore is the principal. The
other students do not hesitate to jeer at her. "Since when did a Bushy go to
school? We take him to the bush to eat meatie pap.pap.pap" (pp. 17-18).
However, this fails to shake the silent integrity of this racial victim. The biased
attitude of people around her could not "un-Bushman" her. "There was only one
thing left to find out how Bushmen were going to stay alive on the earth because
no one wanted them to, except perhaps as the slaves and downtrodden dogs of
Botswana" (p. 18). Margaret is proud of being a Masarwa. A brilliant student,
she eventually becomes a primary schoolteacher and lands in Dilepe.
Once in
Dilepe, Margaret declines the easier option of being called coloured and stirs up a
racial protest at school.
It is in this remote village of Dilepe that she faces the
79
first major crisis of her life as a result of the choice she makes. Her English
manners make her the centre of attention. Her arrival in the village generates a
lot of interest as she is assumed to be coloured and hence a very susceptible target
for racial discrimination. However, as a coloured, her lot is certainly better than a
Masarwa's. The Masarwas were considered the lowest of the low, condemned to
a life of perpetual misery and alienation.
In this environment, Margaret's cool declaration in reply to her Headmaster's
inquiry - "I am a Masarwa" - does stir up a hornet's nest. She is unconcerned
about the fact that Dilepe is a stronghold of some of the most powerful chiefs in
the country who own innumerable Masarwa slaves.
By acknowledging her
lineage, she finds herself face-to-face with age-old prejudices.
Her past, her
upbringing, her coloured status, all now seem to acquire ghastly dimensions
haunting her interminably.
Ketu H. Katrak's study is very significant in this respect. She expresses the view
that the mental colonization of the colonized people through English language
education and values results in exclusion and alienation. Such alienations are
experienced in conditions of mental exile within one's culture, to which one
ceases to belong as a result of one's education. In Maru, Margaret's education
equips her to be a schoolteacher and subsequently become a part of the dominant
community.
However, there is a price to pay for that; she is cut off from her
own people, the Masarwas. Thus her education ultimately leads to her exclusion
80
and alienation from her own community. Her knowledge enables her to work but
under extremely hostile conditions in a highly prejudiced society. At the same
time, this western education does not equip her to be a part of the dominant,
elitist white minority. As Katrak rightly remarks:
In this context, the entire process of schooling from girlhood into
adolescence, the inculcation of British values, leads to the experience
of multiple marginalities from the colonizer's culture, from one's
own people, even from one's own voice as it articulates English and
other 'forgotten' and consciously rememoried tongues.'"^
The anguish that Margaret undergoes due to racial and caste discrimination is
compounded by gender discrimination she suffers at Dilepe School. The novel
portrays multiple forms of persecution to which Margaret is subjected in Dilepe.
Initially she is mistaken for being a coloured, hence she attracts the attention of
the school principal, Pete. Pete is complacently happy in his belief that coloured
people are not to be trusted, as they identify themselves with their white roots
rather than the African background. But once Margaret reveals her Masarwa
status, he makes a volte-face and begins a vicious defamation campaign against
the new teacher. Margaret is subjected to prejudicial treatment and is looked upon
as an "untouchable" by the people around her. Pete's difficulty, however, arises
because Margaret has impeccable credentials.
Pete and Seth, the education supervisor, make some shocking observations. They
beheve that Margaret "can be shoved out...it's easy. She's a woman" (p. 41).
Seth betrays his sexist leanings unabashedly through his remark about Margaret.
"She couldn't possibly have got there on her own brains. Someone was pushing
her" (p. 41). These men fail to acknowledge the intellectual status of women.
They would make all-out efforts to negate a woman's potentia] if she was
educated. They even think that she can be intimidated because she is a woman.
This makes Margaret's subjugation double-edged because of her gender and racial
identity.
Thus, education fails to shield Margaret from the prejudices that
pronounce her as an outcast due to her Masarwa status and an inferior being due to
her gender.
Seth and Pete are assisted in their task by Morafi, the younger brother of Maru.
Morafi personifies the tribal prejudices. These three men form a clique of their
own and derive sadistic pleasure by causing suffering to others. For them, the
Masarwas are a "millstone", for they "can't think for themselves but always need
others to feed them" (p. 44). Pete decides to turn Margaret out of the school. He
goes to the extent of even instigating the school students against her. His attitude
is a sad commentary on the way prejudices are passed from generation to
generation.
Margaret is a witness to racial bias in its crudest form when a young boy questions
her thus: "since when is a bushy a teacher?" (p. 45). In all this, Margaret displays
82
an amazing amount of patience and receives all the brickbats with dignity and
tranquillity which she has assiduously cultivated. Galloway is of the view that
Margaret is almost "objectified and subsumed"''* by the social set-up of Dilepe.
The administrators and children of the village strive to drive Margaret out of the
school. The cultural bias of the inhabitants of Dilepe has caused them to believe
that Bushmen cannot be educated. Hence Margaret, despite her impeccable record
and credentials, is not considered fit to teach the village children. She is later
rescued by Maru's sister, Dikeledi, when she takes over as the principal of the
school. Dikeledi's rescue only serves to place her, as Stan Galloway writes, at the
edge of the village where she becomes objectified simply as "the friend of
mistress Dikeledi" and nearly forgotten by the village. "She was not a part of it
and belonged nowhere" (p. 89). However, Dikeledi's timely intervention saves
her from a complete breakdown.
Thus, the portrayal of Pete and his associates serves to expose the irrationality of
race, caste, class and gender bias which is mindlessly accepted and practised by
those who themselves have been victims of these warped attitudes. As Modupe O.
Olaogum rightly observes, "Pete's anxiety over Margaret's identity reflects
complexes traceable to a colonial racialist order."
Seth's comic description
highlights the extent to which colonialism holds sway over the native mind. One
of the curses of colonialism is the way in which it aims at systematically
destroying the self-esteem and identity of the natives. Seth is described as "a
phenomenon of the African localization circuit...an exact replica of a colonial
83
officer down to the Bermuda shorts" (p. 41). Thus, by making Seth a stereotypical
colonial remnant, Head deprives him of any individuality or identity of his own.
It is ironic that a man desirous of robbing another human being's dignity is
himself a pathetic zombie conditioned by the colonial heritage.
Morafi, the second associate of Pete, with his stupidity, insensitivity and
oppressive ways is the representative of the dominating, tyrannical tribal chiefs.
He is portrayed as grotesque and undignified. "His neck was covered in layers of
fat.
His stomach hung to his knees because he ate too much and drank too
much... his eyes never smiled. They were always on the alert for something to
steal.
He was such a shameful personality to anyone with the slightest
sensitivity..." (p. 43) Morafi is the ugly face of tribalism that relies heavily on
obsolete and exploitative customs for its survival. By virtue of his lineage, he is
deemed fit for consultation by men like Seth and Pete, who come to him in order
to devise new means of persecuting the Masarwas.
Margaret's entry into Dilepe has an irrevocable impact on the lives of the other
main characters, namely, Maru, Moleka and Dikeledi. Dikeledi is the daughter of
a paramount chief and Mam's young sister who also taught at Leseding School.
She is described as a drastic revolutionary who has made good use of her
education in fighting tribalism. Dikeledi's basic goodness of heart makes her an
endearing character.
She accepts and befriends Margaret without reservation.
The ambivalence about female attitude to men, which was the result of the
84
loosening grip of traditions on women's lives, is evident in Dikeledi as well. In
spite of her independent spirit and clarity of thought, Dikeledi is helpless when it
comes to Moleka. Even though she utilizes every opportunity she gets to subvert
the society's gender and class prejudices, she herself falls prey to Moleka's tribal
machismo.
Moleka has earned for himself the notorious reputation as a ruthless womanizer
and as an arrogant chief of Dilepe. The village is rife with tales of Moleka being
heartless. "It was said of Moleka that he had taken his heart out of his body and
hidden it in some secret place while he made love to all the women in the village"
(p. 27).
He is undeniably a macho animal on a rampage.
The clue to his
chauvinistic personality lay in his relationship with women. Moleka had taken
women for granted and used them for physical gratification:
At the end of a love affair, Moleka would smile in the way he smiled
when he made people and goats jump out of his path, outrage in their
eyes. There was nothing Moleka did not know about the female
anatomy. It made him arrogant and violent...Moleka and women
were like a volcanic explosion in a dark tunnel. Moleka was the only
one to emerge, on each occasion, unhurt, smiling, (p. 35)
It is invariably women who get hui-t in the bargain whereas Moleka is unrepentant,
callous and chauvinistic in his approach. Dikeledi's unflinching devotion to him
85
and Moleka's blatant disregard for her epitomizes the traditional man-woman
relationship in the orthodox African set-up. Moleka is smug and condescending in
his relationship with Dikeledi:
"I know you like to praise me, Dikeledi." That happy look again
swept over Dikeledi's face. In her eyes there was the tenderness and
devotion of a dog. She seemed to have no control over the dog love,
even thought the man obviously took it for granted and was flattered.
(p. 28)
The patriarchal values aim at destroying a woman's self-respect and dignity so as
to give her a subhuman status. This is evident in what is termed Dikeledi's "dog
love". It is surprising to see someone who is as serene as Dikeledi submitting to
Moleka in such a way. It is apparent that she has been robbed of her pride and
self-respect because of years of conditioning.
Dikeledi's strong personality at times breeds in her contempt for tribal prejudices
but she is unusually conventional in certain ways.
She is hampered by her
reservations about her sexual identity and thus is an easy victim for the
unscrupulous Moleka. She loves him as much as Margaret does. But her love for
Moleka excludes the basic self-awareness and self-preservation instinct. Dikeledi
typifies a woman's complete surrender to man and hence her vulnerability to the
deep hurt a man might sometimes cause to her. She allows herself to be used as a
86
bait by Maru to steal Margaret away from Moleka. The use of woman as a
commodity is a legacy of the long history of colonization. It goes to prove that as
long as the mind remains colonized, the acceptance of dominance and consequent
subservience continues.
Moleka comes across as a curt, cold man in his initial meeting with Margaret.
However, after his initial hostility towards Margaret, Moleka gradually thaws so
that Margaret sees in him "a rainbow of dazzling light." He makes Margaret feel
like the most important person on earth. As a result, Margaret instantly falls in
love with him. Moleka also appears to fall in love with Margaret even though he
is being wooed by Dikeledi who "had been in love with (him) since doomsday"
(p. 26). Moleka on his part is harsh, unfeeling and indifferent towards Dikeledi.
He has no regard for her and dismisses her love as soon as he is attracted towards
Margaret:
Dikeledi was the nearest he'd ever come to loving a woman...
Dikeledi made his bloodstream boil by the way she wore her
skirts....With Dikeledi it was always distractions...With the woman
(Elizabeth) there were no distractions at all. He had communicated
directly with her heart, (p. 32)
He soon realizes that there is something in Margaret that overawes him. The
metamorphosis in Moleka is brought about as a result of his interaction with
87
Elizabeth. It teaches him humiHty in his dealings with women though it was not
the first time he had "felt humbled by some quality in another living being" (p.
32).
Head's idealist vision of a world devoid of gender and race prejudices is tampered
by a realistic portrayal of the fact that the emergence of a New World cannot
absolutely erode age-old values and customs. Moreover, hope lies in the struggle
for a Utopian world. Moleka the tribal chief has come to take his racial biases for
granted and the man in him is still trying to come to terms with the gradually
shifting gender roles. He is strong enough to denounce the existing social customs
of ostracism by eating with his Masarwa slaves at the same table but still cannot
uproot certain prejudices deeply ingrained in him. Modupe O. Olaugun rightly
says, "Although Moleka's break with custom appears to be radical, it is very
limited as political gesture of equality.
The narrative's critique of Moleka's
intervention (reflecting Maru's perspective) is impeccable: 'he always says he
treats his slaves nicely he never says there ought not to be slaves.' The selfbetraying irony on Moleka's part is evident."'^
This is indeed a telling comment on an individual's deeply ingrained racist and
intra-racist attitudes together with gender biases. Head seems to believe that
winds of change may herald a new dawn but they cannot completely erode the
smothering darkness. That would require a consistent and collective effort on the
part of every individual of the succeeding generation.
88
The tendency to berate women is further seen in the way Maru and Moleka treat
the women in their lives. Moleka, after realising that his marriage to Margaret
will not materialize, seeks release from his pent-up rage by directing all his
energies towards Dikeledi, "the next best woman on earth." He makes a statement
of power by taking her as his concubine.
To Dikeledi's refusal to bring a
fatherless child into the world Moleka's reaction manifests the male ego seeking a
victim for its frustrations. The victim as usual happens to be a woman, that is,
Dikeledi:
Then why do you advertise your thighs... I'd like you to stop that.
You think men don't know what you mean when you walk around
swinging your thighs like that. They can't take their eyes off you and
here you want to pretend all kinds of innocence before me. Women
like you are the cause of all the trouble in the world, (p. 83)
Even Maru's attitude towards Margaret is no less patronising. He manipulates and
secures her for himself as if she were a mere commodity without really caring for
her feelings. Maru presumptuously concludes that Margaret is not the woman for
Moleka. "What did he want with a woman who meant nothing to the public?...
She had lived like the mad dog of the village, with tin cans tied to her tail.
Moleka would never have lived down the ridicule and malice and would in the
end have destroyed her from embarrassment" (p. 9). Thus, Maru cashing in on
Moleka's inherent weakness which lies in his acute consciousness of his social
89
standing, obtains Margaret for himself while he antagonizes Moleka who puts up a
fight only to concede, "I won't get her from Maru...he's the devil" (p. 82). Lloyd
W. Brown rightly feels that Moleka's individualism often takes the "form of a
narrow egotism and a self-centered masculinity which prey on gullible women. In
this regard his personality is a manifestation of that exploitive power which Head
invariably locates in the male ego and by extension in the entrenched structures of
feudal privilege, racism and tribalism."'^ Thus Moleka's unconventional notions
of masculinity lead him to adopt highly oppressive measures for controlling the
women in his life. The feudal and tribal structures that support him are really
other forms of colonization that aim at a schematic decimation of womankind.
The motif of double colonization resurfaces in the relationship between Maru and
Margaret. The opening section of the novel focuses on Maru, a visionary and a
born leader. He is apparently a progressive man, symbolizing an "emerging male
humanness."'^ A born leader, he leads by example and not coercion as the other
chiefs do. However, there is an ambiguity enveloping his role as reformist and
benevolent schemer. The means that he uses cannot be justified even if it means a
promise of a new social order as symbolized by Mam's marriage to Margaret. His
role as a protector is a definite encroachment upon a woman's individuality.
Maru's duality is also manifested in his vision of a new world, which is both
spiritual and earth-bound. As Head explains, "there had never been a time in his
life when he had not thought a thought and felt it immediately bound to the deep
centre of the earth then bound back to his heart again - with a reply" (p. 7). Maru
90
believes in a relationship based on equality and mutual respect. Yet, he is not
really free from contradictions between his vision of social equality and his means
of achieving it. His subordination of everybody's needs to realize his dreams
smacks of authoritarianism.
He employs methods that include spying,
intimidation and chicanery in order to scare Moleka off Margaret. Maru uses his
sister to thwart his rival.
Commenting on Maru's conduct, Ravenscroft
perceptively observes, "Maru's methods, cold, calculating and ruthless, are the
normal methods of those who seek and wield power, and yet Maru's role in the
novel is the very antithesis of power-wielding."'^
The marital life of Maru and Margaret highlights the inconsistencies that govern a
man-woman relationship in an African set-up. Margaret is a symbol of her tribe
and through her Maru seeks to "gain an understanding of the eventual liberation of
an oppressed people" (p. 108). Yet, as Kibera remarks, it cannot be denied that
Maru "for all his idealism, his denunciation of antiquated social forms and the
exploitative relations between the sexes in his society is himself manipulative,
unscrupulous and overbearing."^" He uses his own sister Dikeledi as a bait for
Moleka and then proceeds to claim Margaret in marriage, bundling her off to
some far off, isolated place. In all his plans which affect Margaret intimately he
does not think it necessary to consult her or even seek her consent.
Maru and Margaret for all their enlightenment and sensitivity cannot help
retreating to the old gender roles of male mastery and female docility. Margaret
91
easily slips into the role of a submissive wife who fears her husband as "he
sometimes had vicious, malicious moods when every word was a sharp knife
intended to grind and re-grind the same raw wound." She remains the "object of
Maru's every whim."'^' Her marital life crushes her dignity and self-confidence.
Dreading Maru's temper, she often "looks up in fear" to guage the paramount
chief's mood. In such situations, Margaret's demeanour is more like that of a
Masarwa slave than Maru's equal. Even Maru is successful in effecting the
subordination of his woman. Margaret, despite her discontentment, is easily
pacified, having suffered for years on account of being a Masarwa and a woman.
Most often she is happy and ecstatic because "the days of malice and unhappiness
were few and far over-balanced by the days of torrential expressions of love" (p.
8). The possessive male in Maru raises his head at times on the issue of Moleka
who stays in their lives like a dark shadow. "There were two rooms. In one his
wife totally loved him; in another, she totally loved Moleka. He watched over
this other room, fearfully, in his dreams at night" (p. 8). Thus her marriage does
not completely signify the termination of her situation as an oppressed being. To
some extent it seems to aggravate her difficulties as a doubly colonized entity,
subjected to intra-racial hatred and placed within "patriarchal boundaries."
Margaret has no voice or volition once she is married to Maru. She is "sacrificed
as an individual for the greater good of the Masarwa people."^'' It is true that the
news of their union infuses a fresh life into the marginalized Masarwa
community, but Maru's association with Margaret for the other villagers implies
92
the end of Maru: "...they began to talk about Maru as if he had died" (p. 122).
Thus Maru and Margaret might be the harbingers of a new dawn of change but
the village life continues to be in the grip of the subtle intricacies of racial
prejudices. Towards the end of the novel there is a threat that the Masarwas
might unite and rise in their newly acquired human status.
But Margaret's
predicament remains unchanged. There is no indication that she might be able to
leave her position as a passive observer in the world Maru has created for her.
She ends up becoming Maru's prize rather than his wife - a trophy in the power
struggle between him and Moleka.
Stan Galloway in his essay, ''Maru and Intricacies of Cultural Prejudice", draws
an apt parallel between Margaret and Nora Helmer in Ibsen's play, A Doll's
House. Margaret's childhood and upbringing is quite similar to Nora's. Nora
says to her husband, "when I was at home with papa, he told me his opinion
about everything, and so I had the same opinions; and if I differed from him I
concealed the fact, because he would not have liked it. He called me his dollchild, and he played with me just as I used to play with my dolls."^"* Margaret
Cadmore Sr. raises the child Margaret in a similar fashion, believing that heredity
is nothing. Stan Galloway is of the view that Margaret's final condition in the
novel is much more objectified than Nora Helmer's position at the beginning of
the play. In a highly aggressive mood, Maru tells her, "I only married you
because you were the only woman in the world who did not want to be important.
But you are not important to me, as I sometimes say you are" (p. 6). Margaret
93
can never be expected to rise up in revolt as Nora eventually does in A Doll's
House by her proverbial slamming of the door. For all the love that she gets from
Maru, her individual autonomy seems to have been, in Mackenzie's words,
'brutally negated."^^
In the opening scene of the novel but chronologically in the end, Maru compares
his wife to yellow daisies. This comparison serves to highlight the objectification
of Margaret in a highly patriarchal society. She has been nourished and tended
by Maru in Dilepe society just like the yellow daisies, only to be removed and
transplanted into an alien garden spot. Thus in trying to conquer the cultural
prejudices in the society, Margaret's very existence as an individual is stifled.
The marriage is not the idyllic bliss envisioned by Margaret. The harmony she
has been searching for all her life finally comes, but at a price. This includes
abandoning her own goals and sacrificing her desires at the altar of the male
dominated institution of marriage. As observed earlier, Margaret's marriage to
Maru is symbolic of the political awakening of a Masarwa. It is also symbolic of
the stereotypical man-woman relationship. Margaret only ends up being a tame
partner in the marriage. She finally abandons her work, her school and the
constructive work, to set up a home for Maru.
It would be inadequate to describe the novel as merely a contest between Maru
and Moleka for Margaret's love, or a novel dealing with the marital lives of Maru
94
and Margaret. It operates on a universal plane. The language of oppression is
universal as what a Botswanan thinks of a Masarwa is what every white man
thinks of the black man. Head's proclamation bears this out:
The stronger man caught hold of the weaker man and made a circus
animal out of him, reducing him to the state of misery and subjection
and non-humanity. The combinations were the same, first conquest,
then abhorrence at the looks of the conquered and from there
onwards, all forms of horror and evil practices, (p. 109)
Head is able to universalize the issue of conflict between the oppressor and the
victim through the marital union between Maru and Margaret. Their marriage
ultimately becomes symbolic of the union created between the two groups - the
Masarwa people and the black Botswanans.
Ebele Eko, commenting on this
union, writes:
Margaret Cadmore's resourcefulness and personal achievements help
to destroy the myth of Masarwa inferiority. Her cultural pride gives
identity to her people, and challenges the myth of racial superiority...
her symbolic marriage suggests the unlimited potential of love even
in the most racist and oppressive of societies.
95
There is no denying the fact that marriage between a Masarwa woman and a man,
who would otherwise have been a paramount chief, changes the perceptions of the
other Masarwas:
... A door silently opened on the small, dark airless room in which
their souls had been shut for a long time. The wind of freedom,
which was blowing throughout the world for all people, turned and
flowed into the room. As they breathed in the fresh, clean air their
humanity awakened...They started to run out into the sunlight, then
they turned and looked at the dark, small room. They said: "We are
not going back there." (pp. 126-27)
Head always emphasized the importance of the liberation of racial minority
groups through the process of education.
The independence of mind, broad
mindedness of the various characters in Mam, the marriage between people
belonging to different racial groups, are all the direct products of the education of
minds.
The motif of double colonization in the novel can also be analyzed in terms of the
elements of myth and fairy tale. The novel ends with the marriage of Maru and
Margaret which in the words of Cecil A. Abraham "is a fairy tale marriage and
seems somewhat contrived."^^ Another critic says that Maru "depicts love as a
magical force from a fairy tale that overcomes insurmountable obstacles and
96
unites people of different cultures and classes."^^ The Cinderella-like relationship
between Maru and Margaret, the Tswana prince and a Bushman girl, is an
affirmation of racial and gender biases in the social milieu.
As a fairy tale
princess, Margaret is objectified through her extreme passivity. She does exactly
what others intend her to do. Her education, her employment and her marriage, all
are governed by the expectations of others. Her status in her marriage to Maru is
analogous to that of a fairy tale princess who is fiercely guarded by a monster
keeping her all to himself. Marriage does not change her position in society as she
continues to live within marginalized discourses, first as a Masarwa and then as a
wife. Her isolation as a wife of a paramount chief further reinforces her position
as a passive fairy tale princess. As Head writes, "In fact, until the time he married
her she had lived like the mad dog of the village, with tin cans tied to her tail" (p.
9). Maru offers a solution by removing her from the world where the tin cans
rattle rather than taking the cans off. Margaret is banished to a forest to live a life
of perpetual isolation and subversion, never to experience Moleka's love or be
seen as a Masarwa with a clout. Huma Ibrahim draws attention to an interesting
proverb from the sub-continent, describing Margaret's plight:
"What does it matter if a peacock dances in the forest, no one can see
its beautiful plummage"...her story is like a fairy tale that never ends.
There is no awakening. Is she still waiting? One can only imagine
that this time she wants to be rescued by Moleka.^^
97
She is a fairy tale princess, but the one who will never be rescued unless there is a
radical change in her prescribed role. Margaret finds herself colonized in Maru's
private domain just as the Masarwa slaves are fettered in the political and social
domains.
The paradox surrounding Margaret's liberation is very sensitively handled by
Head. As stated earlier, even though her marriage to Maru has been responsible
for the "winds of freedom" blowing into the darkest corners of Masarwa
oppression, it is not her actions but her passive acceptance of somebody else's
actions that leads to this liberation. Margaret only remains a fairy tale princess or
a guinea pig for experimentation by various individuals. The Masarwas search
for the metaphors of freedom in her marriage. Ironically, however, the marriage
does not liberate Margaret but it does exactly the opposite for her. She is never
allowed to function as an independent, "knowing" being. Maru uses her as his
people have always used the Masarwas. In a sense their union becomes an
extension of the experiment the colonial white woman had conducted on her.
"Margaret remains defined but never defines herself.
She continues as the
stunted identity she has always been."""' Both Maru and Margaret Cadmore, the
missionary, define her but do not let her define herself.
Huma Ibrahim calls the union between Maru and Margaret altogether "asexual",
thus drawing attention to Margaret's marginality. It is Dikeledi, the chief's sister,
who becomes pregnant with another chief's child.
Thus Dikeledi and not
98
Margaret will provide Dilepe with another chief. Margaret remains barren with
no possibility of vicariously enjoying the fruits of leadership through a son or a
daughter.
She finds herself living on another margin after marriage,
accomplishing very little.
There are clear-cut reflections of Head's personal life in the novel. She clearly
draws a parallel between Margaret's low outsider status among the dominant
Botswana people and her own predicament as an alien in her adopted country. In
the relationship between Margaret and her foster mother. Head alludes to her own
relationship with her white mother's tribe. Her own experiences made her very
sensitive to bigotry and she could not be selective in denouncing bigotry wherever
she found it. She stated in an interview:
I didn't use black-white theme like black versus white man. I used
my own theme to work out what I'd say was a kind of universal
thesis on racialism.
That's mostly the base of Maru.
It is an
examination of racial prejudices but I set black against black instead
of white against black.'"
In Maru, the Masarwa, Margaret Cadmore is tormented by her Tswana
schoolmates and is despised by her elders. This makes Maru, the Tswana chief,
exclaim: "how universal was the language of oppression!" (p. 109)
99
The motif of the artist figure is very important in Maru. It is through her art that
Margaret Cadmore Sr. confers dignity and meaning on the despised Masarwa
woman whose corpse she sketches. However, it is Margaret Cadmore Jr. who is
Head's fully developed artist figure. Margaret becomes an artist like the elder
Margaret Cadmore, having learnt a lot from her teacher. She, however, surpasses
her mentor. Her foster mother's "genre was caricature, the exposure of human
cruelty and stupidity, the younger Margaret's genre is visionary realism, which
embodies possibility and gives shape to dreams." Her pictures impart the vitality
of Bushman culture to the village life. Through her art, it becomes possible to
project the soul of a faceless, voiceless, almost nameless humanity - the people
who were enslaved by the Botswanans just as blacks were enslaved by whites.
Margaret's pictures carried a message, "we are the people who have the strength
to build a New World" (p. 108). Margaret's art, to a great extent, is prophetic.
Her paintings anticipate her marriage to Maru and seem to convey a message to
him:
Thus the message of the pictures went even deeper to his heart. You
see it is I and my tribe who possess the true vitality of this country.
You lost it when you sat down and let us clean your floors and rear
your children and cattle. Now we want to be free of you and be busy
with our own affairs, (p. 109)
100
Margaret's art itself becomes the motif for the theme of double colonization. If
her paintings are a medium for her to voice her stifled apprehensions and fears,
they also serve to illuminate the gender biases prevalent in black society. Maru is
the one who provides Margaret with the artist's materials with specific
instructions through Dikeledi so that she uses them in expressing herself.
Through her art Margaret finally finds a release and expression for her
suppressed emotions. She does not have the power to spell out her resistance in
words or action, due to her status as an outcast. So she turns to the non-verbal
form of expression, finding a covert way to delineate her thoughts. She is finally
able to give some sort of meaning to her life. However, she has to part with these
paintings as Dikeledi regularly takes them away for Maru. In the words of Huma
Ibrahim, "Her paintings and thus her thoughts are colonized by the patriarchal
hierarchy as it is aided and abetted by her closest woman friend, Dikeledi, who
steals her friend's treasures in order to appease the same patriarchy that
disconcerts her as well."''^ Dikeledi asserts her power over a Masarwa by first
providing Margaret with material for painting and then taking the paintings away
from her in order to give them to her brother, thus robbing Margaret of her
creativity and any attempt at self-emancipation.
Thus once again she is not allowed to be the decision-maker as Maru's subtle
manipulative power lurks behind all the major actions in Margaret's life in Dilepe.
Margaret's art is the "last link she had with coherent human communication." Stan
Galloway asserts that Margaret can never really escape her heredity.
Even
101
Dikeledi cannot help patronising her since she is a Masarwa and talks to her "like
one talking to a child" and Margaret turns her head like "a very young child with
its first toy" (p. 96). As Galloway remarks, "This is the end of Margaret's chances
to rise above her heredity. From this point she is almost preternaturally under
Maru's control.""''* Robin Visel is of the view that Maru's need for Margaret is so
great that it is emotionally destructive for Margaret and for Moleka. Commenting
on their relationship, he writes:
Maru and Margaret like Heathcliff and Catherine, like Waldo and
Lyndall, are two halves of one self. She paints his visions; she is his
destiny.
He safeguards his spiritual and her artistic odyssey by
abdicating the kingship, so thrusting the burden of political leadership
upon Moleka.""
Margaret the artist is clearly Head the writer, who reveals the people and their
setting to themselves while subverting the established order. Head called herself a
pioneer trying to bridge the gulf between old Africa with its black as well as white
forms of colonialism and the new Africa which was trying to seek freedom not
only from European domination but also from native forms of oppression. In
Maru, Head uses her personal experiences with the white mother. The novel must
have had a therapeutic effect on her. As Robin Visel aptly writes, "she exorcises
some of the pain of having been born in a 'mad woman's attic' in a mad whiteruled country, then denigrated as a Masarwa in traditional Africa."^^
102
The metaphor of double colonization is inextricably linked to Head's own
experiences as a victim of discrimination. Linda Susan Beard makes a perceptive
observation about Head:
[She] writes about issues of sex and gender about both biology and
socially constructed behaviour often tracing her tales with the
template of traditional and historical South African continuities.
Traumatized by the experience of dispossession as a non-white in an
albino paradise obsessed with binary oppositions she knows and
meditates long and often on the pain of difference.^^
Head's acute awareness of this anguish makes her focus on Margaret's
individualism.
This anguish is the legacy of having remained permanently
unwanted in society. It leads her to turn to her inner resources and derive strength
from deep within. Ironically, this legacy has also given her control over the only
part of her life that would be hers - her mind and soul. Margaret's features, it is
stated, resemble those of a variety of ethnic groups - Chinese, African and "God
knows what" (p. 23) and "this ethnically universal image complements that sense
of wholeness and inner strength which is the essence of her individualism and
which enables her to reject tribal divisiveness, sexual manipulativeness, and
political privileges."'*^ Margaret is befriended by Maru, Moleka and Dikeledi, the
members of the ruling elite. Head depicts their friendships with Margaret as an
103
extension of their personal fight against social prejudices and political privileges
in their community. The strength of her novel lies in its intensity.
ThusjMarM is an authentic account of racial and intra-racial conflicts that assume
menacing proportions when associated with gender issues. Linking the personal
with the political, Head interconnects freedom for women and national liberation.
The novel is a feminist critique of the orthodox African society, where
interpersonal relationships become the microcosm of the larger issues pertaining
to nations, politics, customs and gender.
104
References
Bessie Head, A Woman Alone: Autobiographical Writings, ed. Craig
Mackenzie (Oxford: Heinemann, 1991) xiv-xv.
Head, A Woman Alone: Autobiographical Writings xiv.
Susheila Nasta, "Introduction", Motherland: Black Women's Writings from
Africa, Caribbean and South Asia, ed. Susheila Nasta (London: Women's
Press, 1991) xiii.
''
Horace I. Goddard, "Imagery in Bessie Head's Work," The Tragic Life:
Bessie Head and Literature in Southern Africa, ed. Cecil Abrahams (Trenton:
Africa World Press, 1990) 108.
^
Bessie Head Interviewed by Michelle Adler, Susan Gardner, Tobeka Mda and
Patricia Sandler, Nelm Interviews, Serowe. 5 Jan. 1983. 11.
^
Linda Susan Beard, "Bessie Head in Gaborone, Botswana: An Interview,"
5age 3.2 (1986): 45.
^
Beard, 5flge 3.2 (1986): 45.
105
^
Beard, 5age 3.2 (1986): 45-46.
Pierre L. Van Den Berghe, "Racial Segregation in South Africa: Degrees and
Kinds," South Africa: Sociological Perspectives, ed. Heribert Adam (London:
Oxford University Press, 1971) 37.
'° Bessie Head, Maru (London: Heinemann, 1973) 5.
All subsequent
parenthetical page references to Maru are to this edition.
Modupe O. Olaogun, "Irony and Schizophrenia in Bessie Head's Maru,"
Research in African Literatures 25.4 (1994): 74.
'^ Quoted by Ketu H. Katrak in "The Englishness Will Kill You: Colonial(ist)
Education and Female Socialization in Merle Hodge's 'Crick, Crack,
Monkey', and Bessie Head's Maru," College Literature 22.1 (1995): 62-81,
Online, EBSCOhost, 2 Dec. 2000.
'^ Katrak, College Literature 22.1 (1995): 62-81, Online, EBSCOhost, 2 Dec.
2000.
''' Stan Galloway, "Maru and Intricacies of Cultural Prejudices," 3. Online,
http://www.africastudy.com/conference/galloway.htr, 2 Dec. 2000.
106
'^ Modupe O. Olaogun, "Irony and Schizophrenia in Bessie Head's Maru"
Research in African Literatures 25 A (1994): 77.
'^ Olaogun, Research in African Literatures 25 A (1994): 82.
Lloyd W. Brown, Women Writers in Black Africa (London: Greenwood
Press, 1981) 172.
'^ Brown, Women Writers in Black Africa 172.
'^ Arthur Ravenscroft, "The Novels of Bessie Head", Aspects of South African
Literature, ed. Christopher Hey wood (London: Heinemann, 1976) 180.
Valeria Kibera, "Adopted Motherlands: The Novels of Marjorie Macgoye and
Bessie Head," Motherland: Black Women's Writings from Africa, Caribbean
and South Asia, ed. Susheila Nasta (London: Women's Press, 1991) 323-24.
^' Huma Ibrahim, Bessie Head: Subversive Identities in Exile (Charlottesville
and London: University Press of Virginia, 1996) 106.
^^ Katrak, College Literature 22.1 (1995): 62-81, Online, EBSCOhost, 2 Dec.
2000.
107
"
Katrak, College Literature 22.1 (1995): 62-81, Online, EBSCOhost, 2 Dec.
2000.
^•^ Henrik Ibsen, A Doll's House (New York: Bantam, 1981) 63.
Craig Mackenzie, Bessie Head, Twayne's World Author Series (New York:
Twayne, 1999)54.
Ebele Eko, "Beyond the Myth of Confrontation: A Comparative Study of
African and African-American Female Protagonists," Ariel: A Review of
International
English
Literature
17.4
(1986):
139-52.
Abstract.
Contemporary Literary Criticism 67 (1992): 109.
^^ Cecil A. Abrahams, "The Tyranny of Place: The Context of Bessie Head's
Fiction," World Literature Written jn^ English 17.1 (1978): 22-9. Abstract.
Contemporary Literary Criticism 67 (1992): 236.
^^ Daniel Grover, "The Fairy Tale and the Nightmare," The Tragic Life: Bessie
Head and Literature in Southern Africa, ed. Cecil Abrahams (Trenton: Africa
World Press, 1990) 113.
29
Ibrahim, Bessie Head: Subversive Identities in Exile 106.
108
Ibrahim, Bessie Head: Subversive Identities in Exile 102.
^' Head, Nelm Interviews 11.
^^ Robin Vissel, " 'We Bear the World and We Make It' : Bessie Head and
Olive Schreiner," Research in African Literatures 23.3 (1990): 119.
^^ Ibrahim, Bessie Head: Subversive Identities in Exile 106.
Galloway, '"Maru and Intricacies of Cultural Prejudices," 3. Online,
http://www.africastudy.com/conference/galloway.htr, 2 Dec. 2000.
"
Vissel Research in African Literatureir23.3 (1990): 119.
^^ Vissel, Research in African Literatur^23.3 (1990): 120.
^^ Linda
Susan
Beard,
"Bessie
Head's
Syncretic
Fictions:
The
Reconceptualisation of Power and the Recovery of the Ordinary," Modern
Fiction Studies 37.3 (1991): 579.
"'^ Brown, Women Writers in Black Africa 171.