The Universality of Tragedy?

The Case of Bessie Head

Earl G. Ingersoll, SUNY College at Brockport The aim of my project will be to examine several stories by Bessie Head from her collection The Collector of Treasures as the basis for a discussion of the universality of tragedy. At issue here are such questions as these: Is it legitimate to maintain our belief that tragedy is universal? Or is it necessary to acknowledge that tragedy merely represents a cultural construct which, in an expression of a cultural imperialism, the West has attempted to universalize? To frame this discussion, it will be useful to draw upon the insights of several writers, among them Jacqueline Rose, Fredric Jameson, Edmond and Marie-Ccile Ortigues, and Charles Mauron. The writing of Bessie Head offers a number of rich texts for this discussion of the universality of tragedy because she was one of many writers in the postcolonial context who wrote in English, even though she was not part of AngloNorth American culture. Heads biography is important to an understanding of her work because she grew up among those racially classified as colored in South Africa. Indeed, she assumed that the woman who raised her was her mother until at twelve she was summoned to the principals office and informed without preamble that she was adopted.[1] She was told that her natural mother had died in an insane asylum, where she was confined by her white family when they discovered that she had been impregnated by a black servant. In 1964 Elizabeth, or Bessie, moved to Bechuanaland, just two years before it achieved its independence as the nation of Botswana. Just as she felt displaced in South Africa because of her racial background, she was disappointed once again not to be welcomed by the black community. This same lack of belonging contributed to Heads importance as a writer because it allowed her to draw upon more than one cultural tradition. The work of Jacqueline Rose offers a valuable starting point for the framing of these issues because she is modeling many of our concerns as Western thinkers when we examine the implications of issues, for instance, of madness in other cultural contexts. In a recent essay from her collection States of Fantasy(1996), Rose explores the universality of madness in Bessie Heads novel A Question of Power (1973). Rose encloses the word universality in what she calls scare quotes because of its problematic implications for the literary critic. Uppermost among those implications are the questions raised by terms such as universality and madness. Can we avoid, in her words, reproducing the epistemological privilege of the West in examining the writing of authors outside the West? Might the claim that universality is always Western privilege in fact generate the very exclusion it is designed to contest?[2] Roses concerns with universality and madness in Bessie Heads writing provide the impetus for the present examination of her short fiction as representations of what might be thought of as yet another Western constructtragedy. In many ways, the construct of tragedy, along with the notion of Western culture, deserves those English scare quotes at least as much as Roses terms in order to acknowledge its patently problematic associations. On the model of Roses interest in the universality of madness, it might be useful to examine several of Bessie Heads short stories as they are framed by the Western construct of the tragic. Examinations of tragedy have traditionally begun with Aristotles Poetics. Even those who have never studied the Poetics are liable to ground their theorizing about tragedy in Aristotles concepts. What is curious, however, is the tendency of those who have drawn upon Aristotles views of tragedy to reduce ancient Greek drama to a single model for the structure of tragedy. Even though Aristotle drew his examples of tragic representation from any number of Greek plays, the single paradigm for tragedy that most modern readers recall is Oedipus Rex. If, in fact, this first play in the Oedipus cycle of Sophocles has provided such a dominant paradigm for tragedy, it is difficult to resist asking the following central question: Is it the content or the form

of Oedipus Rex that has made the play so central to our understanding of tragedy? In other words, is it tragedy as a dramatic construct (i.e., the dramatic constellation which centers on an inescapable conflict) that is universal, or is it the Oedipus story (i.e., the dreadful fate that leaves Oedipus blinded) that we have come to associate so strongly with classical tragedy that we have misrecognized tragedy as universal? One helpful guide in such an investigation of tragedy, the Oedipus story, and the question of universality may be found in Fredric Jamesons long essay Imaginary and Symbolic in Lacan: Marxism, Psychoanalytic Criticism, and the Problem of the Subject. In this essay Jameson attempts to bridge the gap between the interest of Marxism in the collective or transpersonal and the concern of modern psychoanalysis to focus upon the individual within the matrix of the family. Jameson examines an alternative to the conventional notion of character in fiction, which he found in a text that he applauds as a remarkable and neglected work of Charles Mauron, Psychocritique du genre comique. Maurons psychoanalytic criticism of the comedies of Aristophanes interests Jameson because it legitimates a crucial shift of focus from the personal to the collective within textual representation. Mauron argues that in the oldest expressions of Greek comedy the function of one member of the dramatis personae is subsumed by the polis, or community. In Jamesons translation, Mauron asserts that the place of the love object of Oedipal rivalry is taken by the polis itself, that is by an entity that dialectically transcends any individual experience. Aristophanic comedy thus reflects a moment of social and psychic development which precedes the constitution of the family as a homogeneous unit, a moment in which libidinal impulses still valorize the larger collective structures of the city or the tribe as a whole.[3] Next, Jameson moves on from Maurons notion of the polis, which replaces the Oedipal mother in the Freudian paradigm, in search of further material for his bridging of the gap between Marxism and psychoanalysis in the work of Marie-Ccile and Edmond Ortigues, who have studied traditional African society in relation to the Oedipus complex. In their work entitled Oedipe africain, the Ortigueses argue that the Oedipus complex cannot be reduced to a description of the childs attitudes towards his or her father and mother. The principal distinction [between the manifestation of the Oedipal problem in Senegalese and European society] lies in the form taken by guilt. Guilt does not appear as such; in other words, as the absence of depression and of any delirium of self-denunciation testifies, it does not appear as a splitting of the ego, but rather under the form of an anxiety of being abandoned by the group.[4] Accordingly, in Senegalese society, it is the collectivity which takes the death of the father upon itself. From the outset traditional Senegalese society announces that the place of each individual in the community is marked by reference to an ancestor, the father of the lineage. Society, then, by re-presenting the law of the fathers, thus in a sense neutralizes the diachronic series of generations. In effect the death fantasies of the young Oedipal subject are deflected onto his collaterals, his brothers or his contemporaries.[5] Basing his project of mediating between the polar opposites of Marxism and psychoanalysis upon the insights of Mauron and the Ortigueses, Jameson points to the merit of freeing the psychoanalytic model from its dependency on the classical Western family, with its ideology of individualism and its categories of the subject and (in matters of literary representation) of the character. [6] Jamesons efforts at reconstructing the psychoanalytic model in the context of the collective prove useful in exploring texts of writers, including Bessie Head, who work at least partly outside Western traditions. The collection of her short fiction on which this discussion will focus, namely The Collector of Treasures and Other Botswana Village Tales, clearly demonstrates Heads implication in the postcolonial condition. As she has reminded her interviewers, her material is Botswanan; indeed, in some of these tales she functions as a village griot, recording the often tragic histories of her adopted homeland. What we find are uncanny echoes of the revisionary sense of tragedy toward which Edmund and Marie-Ccile Ortigues were working: a tragedy growing out of an anxiety of being abandoned by the group. Yet, she writes in English and, more to the point, she offers several stories in which she seems intent upon framing postcolonial experience within the context of classical Western tragedy. In their grounding in both traditional notions of the tragic, as well as Jamesons revisionary concept of the implication of the

collective in tragedy, these stories as a group force the reader to rethink constructs such as tragedy and universality. Much as it is tempting to begin by looking at the first story in The Collector of Treasures, we would do well to focus upon the story Life and its representation of traditional Western notions of tragedy. First, Head alerts her readers to the tragic implications of her tale by naming the young woman who becomes the viewpoint character Life. As the opening paragraphs make clear, the tragedy of Life grows out of the political situation in which many southern Africans, like Life, were forced to move when the Union of South Africa closed its border with Bechuanaland in 1964 in anticipation of Botswanas independence. As Botswanan-born immigrants in South Africa had to return to their homeland, the Western culture they had assimilated was accepted, if appropriate, or rejected, when it ran counter to Botswanas more traditional culture. We are told in the last sentence of the opening paragraph that the murder of Life had this complicated undertone of rejection.[7] At this point, before we have any sense of who or what Life is, we know that Life is dead and, furthermore, that the murder of Life can be historicized as a representation of her rejection by a variety of imaginary homelands. In this way, the opening paragraphs voice the aspiration of this story of Life to move toward tragedy in the classical Western sense by confirming the inevitability of Lifes death at the storys conclusion. As in traditional tragic representation, there is no hope; regardless of what this woman might try to do, there is no alternative to the death sentence the text passes down upon her as a kind of narratological fate. Resigned, then, to the doom hanging over Life, the reader begins this story, prepared to focus upon what it was that made it impossible for Life to go on. Life is welcomed back by the village seventeen years after she moved with her parents to Johannesburg at the age of ten. In fact, the women in Lifes neighborhood are impressed with the smartness of this city girl and expect her to bring them a little light (38). When they have finished the two weeks of work they volunteered to do in order to get Lifes yard in shape, the women are saddened by the end of the festivities Life paid for with unstinting generosity. At the same time, they are uneasy because they assume that a young woman cannot be both well off and good in the big city. Even in their village, the women see that one could not be honest and rich at the same time (39). They predict that Life will eventually settle down and find a job in the post office, apparently one of the few jobs for intelligent girls. Life, however, is used to other options offered to black women in Johannesburg. She had been a singer, beauty queen, advertising model, and prostitute (39). This casually offered rsum of her varied career indicates that the value of Life in a capitalist, consumer culture defines her as one who feeds male appetites in a variety of forms. The narrative presents us with further analysis of female output in the village economy: with education, a woman can be a skilled worker such as a nurse, teacher, or clerk; without it, she must content herself with farming or housework. Obviously, the village lacks opportunities to support Life as a singer, beauty queeen, or advertising model; just as obviously, Life lacks the training as well as the inclination to farm or keep house, and it seems only logical that she should return to her former means of supporting herself. The structure of tragedy is grounded in reduced economic options and increasingly narrowed choices for Life to earn a living. Interestingly, the narrative further contextualizes Lifes tragedy by exploring the sexual mores of the community. As Life begins to commodify sexuality outside marriage, she alienates the more conservative women of the village, not so much, we are quickly assured, because she asks for money for sex but because the womens husbands are becoming Lifes clients. What is upsetting the community, then, is Lifes importation of a Western notion of turning into a business venture that which had been a less organized and makeshift arrangement of men and women making impromptu deals. The narrative indicates: Peoples attitude to sex was broad and generousit was recognized as a necessary part of human life, that it ought to be available whenever possible like food and water, or else ones life would be extinguished or one would get dreadfully ill. To prevent these catastrophes from happening, men and women generally had quite a lot of sex but

on a respectable and human level, with financial considerations coming in as an afterthought (39). The passage is crucial to Heads contextualizing of Lifes tragedy, for it stresses that this Prodigal Daughter is not stigmatized as a carrier of Western civilizations evil into a pure, traditional culture. Head makes clear that Lifes village has no sexual inhibitions and recognizes that sexuality will not always find expression within marriage. Instead, Life offers a reproduction of relationships between men and women forced upon the more traditional village culture by larger political forces outside their small community. If Life has been the carrier of anything, it can only be Western individuality. Life is no longer willing to abide by the mores of the community, as she might have continued to do had she not come of age in Johannesburg. Like everything else, unfortunately, this individuality is twoedged: it urges Life to deal with how she will fulfill herself, especially as her options become increasingly narrow and tragically constricted, and it also influences her to buy into the cash nexus at the foundation of Western consumer culture. Without any other obvious mode of production, Life chooses to commodify her own body as the site of male consumers desire. Interestingly, the men of the village seem drawn to this paradigm of consumer culturethe manufacturing of needs they had not recognized earlier. Once again, as the passage cited above makes clear, men and women had been enjoying sex as an everyday appetite before Life returned. What Life offers is not only an overt packaging of sexual exchange but also a public consumptionmen started turning up in an unending streamsuggesting the need that men have to perform their desire for others eyes and to enjoy the pleasure of a desire that violates conventional restraints upon desire. The village may be no Johannesburg, but there is no mistaking the effects of Western culture that have been accruing for some time. Even before Lifes homecoming, the beer-brewing women, who suddenly become attracted to her modeling of individuality, have shed any pretense of subscribing to traditional definitions of their roles as women. These women have already taken the first steps down the road toward liberation. Boyfriends, yes. Husbands, uh, uh, no. Do this! Do that! We want to rule ourselves, they proclaim. For these women, Life is an uncrowned Queen: they never attempted to extract money from the constant stream of men [who usually depart when informed they have to pay their share of household expenses] because they did not know how (40). Thus, for a time, Life becomes a Queen of Misrule, enjoying the adulation of these liberated women representing Western cultures celebration of individuality. Tragedy, the other side of that coin of individuality, approaches with an ominous hush of death, as one further site of Western culture gets duplicated in the community: the villages first pub. Life parts company with the beer-brewing women in whose adulation she has basked when she alone sets foot in the bar. If tragedy seems imminent, it is in part because Life begins to perform one of the attributes of the tragic subject: she becomes a tragic overreacher, one who seems self-consciously to make demands on her cultural context in order to point out that her world is too small for someone with the magnitude of her desire for fulfillment. Alternatively perhaps, Life has discovered what others have before her: one has only to slip away from the embrace of community life to discover a void opening up within existence, a void in which the human subject must continually seek new modes of self-construction. In her own case, Lifes construction of herself as a radically independent woman in a traditionally male-dominated culture is a selfconscious act of defiance for which she must know she will pay with her life. Much as we may be drawn to Life, we sense this tragedy is moving into its final acts when the narrative introduces a new character, Lesego, with dramatic abruptness: one evening death walked quietly into the bar. It was Lesego, the cattle-man (41). In some ways, the love of Lesego and Life with its tragic consequences seems to be replaying the Liebestodimplicit in countless Western tragedies from classic duos like Othello and Desdemona to contemporary lovers like Frankie and Johnny. Life astounds her followers by announcing that she will shed her old ways and become a woman by marrying Lesego. Similarly, the cattleman confounds his buddies by proposing to marry a prostitute; they do their

best to dissuade him: You cant marry that woman. Shes a terrible fuck-about (42), many of them presumably knowing first-hand the truth of which they speak. Thus, Lesego has been positioned in an intolerably narrow either/or stricture, like those we have come to expect in tragedy. He must command Lifes absolute fidelity or he will lose his male authority: either she will remain faithful or he must murder her. Life has chosen an even more constricted position: risk death by testing Lesegos fatal resolve, or embrace it more slowly in the suffocating domesticity which is becoming more each day like a death sentence. Because not even the beerbrewing women seem to understand the physical pain of her boredom, Life comes to see that she is going to have to serve her life sentence in solitary confinement. The tragic movement of Life toward her death is performed with such a sense of inevitability that it seems impossible to imagine any other outcome. Lesego must leave to tend his cattle. He must remind Life of her vows of fidelity. Life must turn him into the instrument of her tragic release. At the same time, the circumstances are reminiscent of a bedroom farceas tragedys final acts so often are. One has only to recall Othellos silly obsession with that handkerchief to approach the scene of Lesegos return. Life, who has returned to her old ways, offers him tea, then tells him he must wait while she shops for the sugar. She must know that he will trace her steps when he discovers the sugar canister is full and fulfill his threat to punish adultery with death. These last scenes have a kind of slow-motion effect as we watch in powerless horror the execution of Life. Sianana, the friend who had especially attempted to dissuade Lesego from marrying a woman he calls a fuck-about, moves into the role of tragic chorus. He asks Lesego why he could not have simply walked away from Life. He continues: Are you trying to show us that rivers never cross here? (46). That sentiment, the narrator adds, comes right out of a song by Jim Reeves that the beer-brewing women like to sing. The song is Thats What Happens When Two Worlds Collide. In this way, Head confirms the potential for traditional tragic representation in a most Western in this case, Americanexpression of popular culture, the country-western ballad of starcrossed lovers. The image of the rivers never crossing is a reminder of the opening story of this collection, The Deep River: A Story of Ancient Tribal Migration. If Life offers a good example of Heads attraction to traditional, Western modes of tragedy, The Deep River allows us to see her equally strong attraction to the revisionary notion of tragedy that Jameson is attempting to explain. The Deep River is clearly a village tale of how the Talaote tribe drew themselves out of the deep river of unself-conscious harmony and unity among the Monemapee, the tribe of their ancestor. When Monemapee dies at the beginning of Heads story, he leaves behind three wives and five sons. (Head doesnt make it clear that the dead chief started the tribe; perhaps Monemapee is the ancestor whose name each subsequent chief assumes to connect himself with the founding ancestor.) Sebembele, the oldest son and heir apparent, stuns his followers with the announcement that he will marry his fathers third wife, the young and beautiful Rankwana, whose son Makobi is the fruit of their secret love. Concerned that Makobi will supplant them in the succession, the young adult brothers gather enough supporters to confront Sebembele with a bitter and potentially tragic choice: abandon Rankwana and Makobi or renounce his claim to succeed their father as chief. Head seems to have no interest whatsoever in developing the implications of this blatantly Oedipal context of Sebembele taking his fathers wife. Instead, it is the brothers as collaterals and their followers who play that role. Head focuses upon what the Ortigueses would presumably point out in this situation: Sebembele is in a quintessentially tragic position. The collective is generating that anxiety of being abandoned by the group of which they speak. Sebembeles decision to renounce his claim to become the successor of the ancestor Monemapee threatens him with a tragedy of immense proportions. It is in a sense the tragedy of individualism; that is, to the tribe he leaves behind, Sebembele has died to the collective or polis, the greater social order that flows with the deep river of timeless harmony and unity. To Head, Sebembele gives

birth to himself as an individual in time, as one making personal choices about who will be his family. To counter that anxiety of abandonment, Head turns Sebembele into a new ancestor as he, his wife, and child are joined by collaterals of the old tribe who choose to throw in their lot with him. The Collector of Treasures, as Bessie Head has made clear, is very much a Botswana Village Tale. As Head informed an interviewer, it was the dead mans family who told her the story. What makes this story Western is that Head seems to be constructing it within a framework of traditional Western concepts of tragedy. In the opening paragraphs, the viewpoint character Dikeledi has just begun to serve a life sentence for having killed her husband, Garesego, and we even learn how she did it. In fact, she joins four other women who have also killed their husbands, and at least one admits to having done it in the same fashionby means of emasculation. Knowing this, the reader is led back through Dikeledis life to account for her desperate act. Thus, as in Lifes story, Head eliminates all hope that tragedy can be averted, and we know the outcome just as ancient Greek audiences were never in any doubt as to what lay in store for Oedipus. Dikeledis story is prefaced by the generalization that there are two sorts of men in postcolonial Botswana, and Dikeledi has encountered both. The first sort exploit women sexually and refuse to assume responsibility for any children they might produce. Dikeledis Garesego is of that ilk, which Head claims is the majority. After impregnating her three times, he has abandoned her and their three sons, aged four, three, and one, for the latest in a string of sexual conquests. Dikeledi is semi-literate, and Garesego has discovered that educated women are more exciting in these heady days of Botswanas independence. But Dikeledi has also had the good fortune to meet the second sort of man, Paul Thebolo, the husband of her neighbor and friend, Kenalepe. Head describes Paul as another kind of man in the society with the power to create himself anew. He turned all his resources, both emotional and material, towards his family life and he went on and on with his own quiet rhythm, like a river. He was a poem of tenderness (93). The trope of the river that Head uses to introduce Paul is no accidental echo of the river image of the first story in the collection. Indeed, Paul seems a reincarnation of the legendary Sebembele in his rare combination of passionate tenderness as a lover and nurturing love as a father. Furthermore, Paul offers Dikeledi and his own wife intellectual stimulation, when the two women sit at the fringes of his group as Paul and the other men talk politics. This is still an Africa in which the two women cannot participate, but when they are by themselves the next morning, they continue the debates. Contact with Pauls discussion group has opened up a completely new world, which seems to Dikeledi impossibly rich and happy (96). Her aspiration to reconstruct herself in a larger mode echoes Lifes more desperate desire. In addition, Paul seems clearly to be moving toward that older tradition of Sebembele predating the advent of colonization. Eight years later, tragedy beckons Dikeledi when her husband comes back into her life with the same dramatic abruptness of Lesegos entry on the stage of Lifes world. She is forced to appeal to him for help in paying for their sons education. Garesego refuses, directing his wife to seek support from Paul: Everyone knows hes keeping two homes and that you are his spare (99). What is worse, in this postcolonial context in which there are only two sorts of men, Garesego can sully Pauls reputation in public and get away with it. He confronts Paul on the street, accusing him on having sex with Dikeledi, whom he supplies with food: Men only do that for women they fuck! Paul is right when he responds: You defile life, Garesego Mokopi, for, as Dikeledi noted earlier, He thinks every man is like himself (100). Sad to say, many are willing to credit Garesegos slanders because Paul seems too good to be true. Ironically, it is the very masculinity Paul has constructed for himself that renders him vulnerable in a world where it is easier to believe the worst about men. To assert his rights, Garesego moves into Dikeledis

home after refusing to pay for his sons education, and she puts to use the knife she has been sharpening for his return. In an important sense, Dikeledis tragic experience reproduces Lifes own since her murder of Garesego seems the obverse of Lifes suicide at the hands of her husband. Dikeledi goes about the affairs of her last hours of freedom like a Medea honing the knives of her vengeance. It is not her sons, of course, whom Dikeledi murders; it is for her sons she murders their father. Indeed, she is in one sense fathering her sons by passing them on to Pauls care, to become their real father. Dikeledi calls down upon herself a tragedy outside Western culture by opening herself up to a kind of abandonment by the community, for her husband dies from the emasculation whether she intended to kill him or merely to make her symbolic statement. And yet even the consignment to imprisonment for life has another dimension, for Dikeledi joins a select society of her peers who have demonstrated their belief that men do not have the right to use women as sex objects; rather, men should recognize that sexual relations with women represent a privilege to be exercised responsibly. More than anything, Dikeledis killing of her husband is a tragic gesture toward the restoration of Paul as a variety of ancestor. Early in the story, the narrative is suspended for a bit of what the British would call potted history of Botswana. Heads intent is to establish in her readers consciousness a notion of a pre-colonial Africa in which the sexuality of a man like Garesego would have been controlled by the collective, embodied in the chief as the current representation of the ancestor. The colonial period of British rule in the Protectorate disrupted that traditional notion, replacing it with a system in which all African men became boys. In postcolonial Botswana women have no independence because there are no restraints upon sexual outlaws like Garesego. Unlike its counterparts Life and The Deep River, which pose quite polar notions of tragedy, The Collector of Treasures gains much of its energy from its attempts to balance that polarity. Like Life, Dikeledi chooses a path which can lead only to tragedy since the rules of her community insist that as a wife she must submit to her husbands sexual advances. In choosing her costly expression of freedom, she joins Life in positing an individuality traditionally associated with tragic experience. Dikeledi can also claim descent from Sebembele, like Paul Thebolo, for whom, in part, she kills her husband. Like Sebembele, she chooses to act in such a manner that abandonment by the community is inevitable and yet richly productive of a more genuine future for the community she saves through her tragic choice. Unless men like Paul Thebolo can be saved as future leaders, as sons of their progenitor Sebembele, it will be Garesego and his ilk who will inherit a permanently postcolonial world.

The Collector of Treasures Writing Response In Bessie Heads, The Collector of Treasures, it is interesting how the main character, Dikeledi Mokopi sacrifices a lot for the well being of her children despite all of the tragedy she has endured. From the very beginning of her life she has been associated with sadness and death of her father, due to her name meaning tears. Several years after her birth, her mother also died, leaving her an orphan. Though she moved in with her wealthy uncle, she was treated as a servant. Her marriage to Garesego Mokopi was her escape from her uncle. However, she did not escape a lot because Garesego was a cruel man. Through their marriage Dikeledi had three sons, and eventually Garesego left, leaving Dikeledi to raise their children alone. She was able to well care for her children. When it came to be time for secondary school for her eldest son, Dikeledi was left no choice but to ask Garesego for money to help pay for tuition. Her son had worked extremely hard and she felt that she owed it to him to do everything in her power to help him further expand his studies. Asking Garesego was a big thing for her because she feels

like a failure asking for money. By approaching Garesego she basically openly admits that she is not capable of completely caring for her children and this forces her to show weakness. She sacrifices her reputation of parenting by doing this. By killing Garesego, she sacrifices her childrens mother. Much like herself as a child, her children will grow up orphans and will be forced to live with someone else. Though this time, they will be living with a person who cares for them and does not treat them as outsiders and servants. She sacrifices her freedom for the well being of her children. When in jail, she doesnt show any regret for killing Garesego because though the short term effect on her children will be bad, in the long run, her children will have access to higher education, thus opening doors to many opportunities later in life, which Dikeledi herself, didnt have the opportunity to have. All in all, Dikeledis actions were all carefully planned out with her children as the main focus.

The Collector of Treasures The social imbalances between men and women are evident in the story The Collector of Treasures. While the woman struggles for her own individual freedom, the man embraces his and neglects his duties as a father and husband. Freedom is not being alone, without responsibility. It is being loved and storing treasures of friendship throughout life. A woman can never be free if she knows her husband is always getting drunk and sleeping around. Similarly, a man cannot experience freedom if his wife loves another or shows bitterness. The traditions of the tribes in this story have been shaken by an increase in wages; men now have more money to spend on alcohol and prostitutes. This separates the good from evil, and tests the bonds of marriage. The author, Bessie Head, compares evil men with good men, and believes that only these two types of men exist. Either the male is fully tainted and selfish, or completely caring and family-oriented. An example of the former is Garasego Mokopi, Dikeledis aloof husband. He left his wife and three children once his earnings increased to indulge in beer and concubines. More than eight years passed without so much as a hello between the two. However, in these eight years Dikeledi developed a sister-like bond with her neighbor, Kenalepe Thebolo. The two daily confided in one another, and Dikeledi supported her family with gifts and payment from Kenalepe. Their friendship was so close that Kenalepe, knowing Dikeledis loneliness, offered her husband Paul to her for a night. Dikeledi refused, but this act shows the strength of their intimate relationship.

Austin 2 Paul sees Kenalepe as an equal, unlike most men in the village. Also, Paul is devoted to his family, working hard to ensure they always have enough food. He shows tenderness to his wife and children. He was a poem of tenderness. (p. 93) The opposite is true of Garasego

An Analysis of Bessie Head's "The Collector of Treasures"

Bessie Head's "The Collector of Treasures" Commentary by Karen Bernardo Bessie Head's story "The Collector of Treasures" is a dramatic indictment of the oppressive attitudes of men in her culture toward the women and children they are supposed to care for and love. Head develops this theme through a contrast of the marriage of her protagonist, Dikeledi, and her husband Garesego, with the much more idyllic one of their neighbors, Kenalepe and Paul Thebolo. Before she actually even introduces the Thebolos, Head observes that there are two types of men: those who have sex with their women like dogs, out of pure carnal lust; and those who really care about women as human beings. The protagonist's husband, Garesego, is the first type of man. He got Dikeledi pregnant three times in four years and then left her, continuing to live in the same village but assuming no responsibility for either his wife or his sons. For many years thereafter, she never approaches him for assistance for either herself or her children, apparently regarding it as a matter of pride that she is able to feed and clothe them and pay for their primary school educations out of the small income she is able to earn sewing and knitting for others in the village. Her neighbor Kenalepe's husband, Paul, is completely different from Garesego. Kenalepe and Paul have a loving marriage and a wonderful sex life, which Kenalepe describes for her friend in great detail. Discovering that men like Paul exist is an eye-opening experience for Dikeledi. It shows her that there are men who do not act like sex-crazed dogs, and who respect their women. It induces her to try to approach Garesego again -- not for sex, but to try to convince him to pay the school fees so their oldest son can go to secondary school, which is more expensive than the primary school the youngest children attend. She only needs a small amount of money, having saved the rest herself, and knows that this would be no financial burden for him. Garesego, on the other hand, feels that any favor done for a woman should be done in recompense for sex. He proves this in his allegations about Paul; he assumes that if Paul has given Garesego's wife a sack of grain (which he has, in

payment for clothes Dikeledi made for his daughters) then Paul must be getting sex out of the deal as well. As for that, Garesego doesn't care -- he doesn't want Dikeledi any more, and has no problem with Paul having her -- but he simply cannot conceive that there could be any kind of relationship or even a transaction between males and females that doesn't involve some sexual component. Consequently, when he contacts Dikeledi about the possibility of giving her money for their son's education, he tells her he is coming back home and she should prepare a hot bath for him. Not being a total fool, Dikeledi knows what this means. After he bathes, he will want to have sex; and after he has sex, he might or might not consider giving her money. But this is not an acceptable tradeoff for Dikeledi, because she knows that Paul Thebolo would demand no such thing. Sex has nothing to do with school tuition; sex has everything to do with love, and Garesego doesn't love Dikeledi and she doesn't love him. But for Garesego, sex also has to do with power, and in this case having sex with Dikeledi when she needs something from him would express his power over her. Consequently, after Garesego has had his dinner and his bath and gotten comfortably drunk, he toddles off to bed expecting Dikeledi to follow. Once he has fallen asleep, Dikeledi pulls a butcher knife out from under the bed and cuts off what she delicately calls his "special parts." The fact that she will be convicted of manslaughter does not deter her, for she realizes she cannot live this way any longer. Paul promises to raise her children as he would his own, and Dikeledi goes on to a new stage in her life, this time in prison. Head's title, "The Collector of Treasures," is tremendously ironic on the surface, for it would seem that what Dikeledi has collected in her lifetime has been not treasure but heartbreak. Yet Head's opening passages, showing how well Dikeledi has adjusted to prison life and the closeness of the women who have been placed in prison for the same crime, shows that Dikeledi really doesn't feel her life has been that bad. She has learned much more from her hardships than Kenalepe has learned from her good fortune, and in her travels through life she has managed to earn the respect of men like Paul and women like Kebonye. The fact that her marriage was a disaster has actually made her strong, and she is much more centered in her sense of self than Kenalepe who has had it much easier. As Dikeledi observes, throughout her hard life she has looked beneath the surface and collected small treasures, and these give her the strength to go on. Collector of Treasures

"The Collector of Treasures" is if not the longest then certainly one of the longest narratives you will read this term. But take your time, for though the manner in which Dikeledi kills her husband is, to say the least, sensational (and provides a perhaps unintentional pun on jewels and treasures), the thematic

concerns appear in a great deal of the literature we will read this term, especially in the context of the gender issues raised. Dikeledi, "Tears," offers yet another strong and resilient character, not unlike the author of this story and many others, Bessie Head. And while the story is long and involved, these notes will not offer an exhaustive analysis. Instead, the commentary points to some of the central issues on which you should concentrate. If you choose to write your essay on this particular story (I do switch around each semester, so you might not have this choice this time around), discussion threads will provide an opportunity to consider the issues in greater detail. In addition, this week's central discussion thread concerns the role of women. And the secondary thread provides you a chance to talk about the issues with which you grapple on you paper. You can all help one another. All told and as usual, you will have plenty of opportunities to talk about your concerns. As various web sites suggest, Bessie Head led a short and trouble-filled life. But from all accounts, she was a remarkable and a loving person, but possessed of her demons, which which she grappled. Indeed, she could be and often was very difficult. Born in South African, her own experience underscores the insanity of the apartheid system about which you will read in greater detail in two weeks. Her mother was a white woman from a rather wealthy family, who got pregnant from her union with a black man. Considered insane for doing such a thing, the woman was placed in a mental institution, where Bessie was born. She eventually went to her beloved Botswana, where she became internationally recognized for her literary production. But despite considerable wealth, at least by the standards of the country in which she lived, Head continued to reside in a hut with the people she loved. And she gave greatly of her time and resources. Unfortunately the "refugee" disease, Hepatitis, coupled with heavy drinking afflicted her, and Head passed away at the early age of 47. Not all her stories are as sensational as this one, but this particular narrative concerns themes with which she grappled throughout her career, especially the roles of men and women in society and the struggle to rid the community/family of what she sees as evil, people such as Garesego Mokopi, who "created such misery and chaos that he could be broadly damned as evil" (29.43), a line that comes from a paragraph at which we will look closely. The story opens with Dikeledi's arrival at prison for the act she committed at the story's conclusion: I cut off his special parts with a knife (27.24).

The story begins with a rather sensational statement. But even more interesting is the fact that many other women, including her new found "treasure," Kebonye, have done the same thing: "You'll be in good company. We have four other women here for the same crime. It's becoming he fashion these days" (26.9). Grim humor, indeed, to underscore the seriousness of the problem. But instead of simply laughing at the joke, though it is funny, and the fact that for quite a while after Tears killed her husband men felt rather uncertain around their wives, consider the fact that a traditional woman like Tears would kill. Not only that, but she castrates her husband and willingly accepts the punishment. As she says to her eldest son, "I have killed him," she said, waving her hand in the air with a gesture that said--well that's that. Then she added sharply: `Banabothe, go and call the police' (40.115). What would drive a traditional woman like her to murder? As you read the story, you will discover in Dikeledi and Paul Thebolo ideals for men and women-Dikeledi embodies traditions worth preserving; note that despite all the struggles, she manages to raise three miracles. And Paul deals well with the challenges modernity poses, for he represents the antithesis of everything Garesego suggests; Paul is the man who "turned all his resources, both emotional and material, towards his family life and he went on and on with his own quiet rhythm, like a river. He was a poem of tenderness" (30.45). The contrast between the two is very evident, for example, in the manner in which the two men treat women and even make love--the former is all appetite, while the latter gives of himself. At the story's conclusion, for example, Paul assures Dikeledi, "You don't have to worry about the children, MmaBanabothe, I'll take them as my own and give them all a secondary school education" (40.116). Here he calls Dikeledi by her traditional name--not to put her in her place, but to honor her. We find a similar situation of mutual respect when Paul discovers Dikeledi in his kitchen washing the dishes. She had promised Paul's wife, who had offered to share her husband with Tears (Again, consider what you learn about how these very different men make love!), that she was not interested in making love with Paul, "But if you are ill I will wash for you and cook for you" (34.71). And so she does. When they first read the story, many just know that Tears will finally enjoy sex with a man who does not, like Kebonye's husband, get school girls pregnant (Consider, for example, what Paul does for a living, for you will discover an excellent contrast with Kebonye's deceased) or beat women as Garesego does: Two soft pools of cool liquid were in his eyes and something infinitely sweet passed between them: it was too beautiful to be love. (35.81). One doubts very much that Head means here to bash romantic love; but the bond that these two share transcends the self-interested aspects of romantic love. And they rather honor each other, these two Bessie Head ideals:

"You are a very good woman, Mma-Banabothe," he said softly. It was the truth and the gift was offered like a nugget of gold. Only men like Paul Thebolo could offer such gifts. She took it and stored another treasure in her heart. She bowed her knee in the traditional curtsy and walked quietly away to her own home. Both utilize traditional terms and actions that in no way work to limit the person--the best of tradition. Both, however, embrace the important role of education: Forced out of school at an early age, Tears works to send her children to school. And Paul is a school principal. As you read the story, note that both uphold community interests and place their emphasis on family. As Dikeledi tells Kenalepe, I am satisfied I have children. They are a blessing to me (32.56). Indeed, as Dikeledi tells Paul and her new-found treasure in prison, "I am the woman whose thatch does not leak" (28). Consider what that statement might mean in a metaphorical sense. Think about how tight are the bonds that this amazing and strong woman creates in all three phases of her life the narrative chronicles, her children, Paul and his wife, and then the women in prison, where, ironically, Dikeledi's numerous skills will provide enough money for her to help greatly with her children; prison becomes for her a place of liberation: Dikeledi had a number of skills--she could knit sew, and weave baskets (28.31). Contrast her, for example, with Samia. Dikeledi, to be sure, is a strong woman, a survivor. And the bonds she creates with the treasures she gathers are very strong--as you look at those with whom she comes in contact, you will see that she brings out the best in good people. Samia, however, lacks skills and perhaps lacks the ability to change her situation, for her parents pampered the beautiful child and protected her, preserving and raising her for a "good" husband. As the story indicates, Dikeledi begins Phase Three of her life in prison, where she will probably spend the rest of her life in the company of other women who, at least symbolically, have taken matters into their own hands. For men, at least as portrayed in this particular story, like Garesego are a cancer, if you will. The women cut out the offending tissue. See paragraph 43 for what might strike you as the thematic heart of the story. Here Head talks about what allows men like Garesego, an animal, to survive and even to thrive. Note, too, that the process of corruption also affects women, for Garesego has no trouble finding willing women. To this end, the story presents a rather terrible situation; the actions of Dikeledi suggests the state of despair and the need for care. Read the paragraph carefully. Note that Head talks about a certain kind of man, who in his actions resembles an animal, here a dog or a bull:

That kind of man lived near the animal level and behaved just the same. [. . . ] Since that kind of man was in the majority in the society, he needed a little analyzing as he was responsible for the complete breakdown of family life. (29.43) As you read through the paragraph, note that it does not argue that the coming of the Europeans caused the problems--after all, as Paul notes, "The British only ruled us for eighty years" (33). People such as Garesego have always been around. But the force of tradition, as pointed out previously, kept him in line. But see what happened when the British came, and so many people in the area left to work in the South African, white-owned mines that only the very young and the equally old remained in the villages. Family life suffered--and as the family sits at the center of the communal society, the social fabric tore. And, well, things fell apart. This very man whose penchants for abuse tradition kept in line thrives in the colonial chaos. And when independence came, his kind had become the majority, for such, in Head's thinking, is the power of appetite. Garesego and others like him become "just like a cock hopping from hen to hen" (33.67), as Kenalepe explains to Dikeledi. So read the paragraph and consider carefully the contrast between Garesego and Paul Thebolo, for the differences point to the despair the present situation causes and the fragile hope for the future. Readers often wonder about how Garesego operates and why he enjoys getting hit by Paul--and the reaction of the people also causes problems. When Garesego tells Dikeledi that she should get money from her lover, he means exactly what he says. In his world of thinking through his zipper, a man does things for a woman only for sex. Garesego knows no other way. He lives in a violent world, and so loves that Paul hits him, for the action proves that Garesego is right. Now, Paul is a good, good man. And people love to find some trash in everyone's living room. In other words, that Paul would be sleeping with Dikeledi makes people feel better about themselves because to be Paul requires a lot of work. If he is not as good as he seems, well, then one has a good excuse not to work all that hard. Throughout the story, Paul uses his abilities to help the community. People come to his house for him to read and write things for them; he is very involved in educating children; he is willing to help Dikeledi; he treats his wife with respect--the list is rather long. Perhaps in the long run, the story asks the reader to think about how to alter the situation. And Head does not provide any easy answers.

So that story was lived with for two weeks, mostly because people wanted to say that Paul Thebolo was part of life too and as uncertain of his morals as they were. But the story took such a dramatic turn that it made all the men shudder with horror. It was some weeks before they could find the courage to go to bed with women; they preferred to do something else. (37.102) The scene in which Dikeledi sharpens her knife with the stone makes one shudder, just as Garesego's sitting in the yard, drinking a beer and hoping to insult his wife's lover, causes readers to shake their heads in disbelief. As you complete the story, consider what would have saved Garesego's life--perhaps Dikeledi hoped for the miracle she knew would not occur? Remember, too, why she has the name "Tears" and all that she has overcome.