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CHAPTER 14:
Frances receives a letter from Victor who is clearly seeking to know whether or not she is pregnant.
Her reply is deliberately ambiguous but it drives Victor into a decision to use his influence to recruit people
from St Matthias for the mines as a quick way to earn money.
In the meantime, while Frances is ill, Helmina takes her place at Nolovini, hoping that her isolation with
Walter would cement their friendship.
CHAPTER 15:
Kobus Pumani returns from the initiation rites to find that his cattle are all dead. He is angry at his second
wife and decides to punish her by becoming a Christian.
In the meantime, the Farboroughs decide to go to the coast for Christmas, leaving Walter to look after the
mission.
ANGLICAN MISSIONARIES
Unlike the Catholic missionaries who took a vow of chastity, the Anglicans were able to marry and have
children. Their wives therefore tended to play an active role in mission activity.
Although the children grew up in a religious atmosphere, there was not necessarily pressure on them to
follow in their parents' footsteps by themselves taking the cloth.
The missionaries on the whole were not racists but they were certainly people of their time, and were
therefore usually colonialist by nature.
As such, they believed in the superiority not only of their religion and their church, but also of the whole
British culture.
As a result, English was the language which their children and acolytes were expected to use. Their
schools taught English, together with the classical subjects like Latin and Greek.
Xhosa was usually forbidden as a language of instruction.
To become a convert into the Anglican Church therefore meant that the Xhosa were forced to forgo their
own traditions.
A convert who had more than one wife was expected to keep only the first one while the others were
repudiated, often with shameful consequences.
Consider, for example, how Kobus Pumani was allowed to put aside his second wife by becoming a
Christian convert.
Traditional Xhosa initiation rituals were taboo, and circumcision initiates were not allowed to be seen in
public.
The missionaries glorified hard work and despised laziness. Because of this, many of the mission stations
established printing presses, as well as carpentry and metal industries.
Traditional subsistence farming, on the other hand, was frowned upon because the work tended to
devolve upon the females while the males were seen as loafing.
Have you looked at the questions
in the right column?
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TEST YOURSELF!
Read the left column and then answer
the following questions:
Why does Frances deliberately not tell Victor whether or not she is pregnant? (4)
[Need help?]
Frances wants to keep Victor worrying. She wishes to force him to share the distress and suffering that
he had inflicted on her by forcing sexual intercourse onto her, thus causing her both shame and worry.
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What words tell us that Frances is NOT pregnant. (4)
[Need help?]
- " . . . wept with weary relief that they had been reprieved;
- "exempt from what they'd done";
- "that instant of potential procreation had been barren".
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Why does Frances appear to regret not being pregnant? (The answer is complicated, so don't go for the
simple reply.) (10)
[Need help?]
Frances saw their act of sexual intercourse as a grievous sin. On the other hand, the good of the child
would have wiped away the sin of the action.
When she discovered that she was not pregnant, she was of course relieved -- and yet it meant that
there was now no forgiveness for the sin they had committed.
This is a philosophy which would have sprung right out of the writings of St Augustine, a 5th century
Christian bishop.
He argued that sex was always sinful, even in marriage. When it resulted in a pregnancy, however, then
the good of the child balanced off the sinfulness of the sexual act.
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Why is Walter tempted to open her letter to Victor? (4)
[Need help?]
Walter wanted to know -- does he not? -- what it was that was troubling Frances.
He probably wanted to know once and for all whether or not she had had sexual intercourse with Victor
because, if she had, then she now belonged to Victor.
In that case, Walter must step back and let her go. And he needed to know this -- to know whether or
not he had to let go.
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After receiving the letter, why does Victor decide to use his influence to recruit people for the
mines? (6)
[Need help?]
Victor had been waiting anxiously for news from Frances telling him whether or not she was pregnant.
Her letter, however, was deliberately ambiguous.
She told him that she was sick but didn't explain the nature of her illness, allowing Victor to jump to the
conclusion that she was indeed pregnant and therefore suffering from morning sickness.
Victor presumably concluded that she was indeed pregnant which meant that he needed money quickly
for he would soon have to support a wife and child.
He certainly did not wish his standards (and therefore his reputation) to diminish. Recruiting for the mines
was an easy option to bring in mega-bucks.
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Kobus Pumani converts to Christianity to punish his second wife.
- What had she done to deserve to be punished by him? (2)
[Need help?]
It was Kobus Pumani's second wife who had allowed the inspectors into his kraal to innoculate his cattle
-- which had then all died.
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- In what way would his conversion to Christianity punish her? (4)
[Need help?]
Christians were allowed to have only one wife which meant that, by converting to Christianity, he was given
the opportunity of ridding himself of this troublesome second wife.
By doing so, he would also condemn her to a life of poverty -- a dire punishment for what she had done
to him and his cattle.
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Why does Helmina wish to stay at the mission instead of going to the coast for Christmas? (2)
[Need help?]
Helmina wants the opportunity to be alone with Walter, does she not? A few weeks alone with Walter
would surely seal her marriage to him!
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