|
READ THIS
This story is about the conflict between two young women in a small South African town.
The older one has defined her territory as centre of attention of the young men. And then a rival appears
and invades her territory.
READ THIS PASSAGE:
I liked them to ask me to marry them, and to say, No. I despised them. The mother heart had not swelled
in me yet; I did not know all men were my children, as the large woman knows when her heart is grown.
I was too small to be tender. I liked my power. I was like a child with a new whip, which it goes about
cracking everywhere, not caring against what. I could not wind it up and put it away. Men were curious
creatures, who liked me, I could never tell why. Only one thing took from my pleasure; I could not bear
that they had deserted her for me. I liked her great dreamy blue eyes, I liked her slow walk and drawl;
when I saw her sitting among men, she seemed to me much too good to be among them; I would have
given all their compliments if she would once have smiled at me as she smiled at them, with all her face
breaking into radiance, with her dimples and flashing teeth. But I knew it never could be; I felt sure she
hated me; that she wished I was dead; that she wished I had never come to the village.
Have you looked at the questions
in the right column?
|
TEST YOURSELF!
Read the left column and then answer
the following questions:
"I liked them to ask me to marry them, and to say, No. I despised them."
- Why did the speaker appear to despise men? (4)
[Need help?]
She despised them because they showed no backbone. They were all too busy competing with each other
for the affections of a pretty girl.
They were not attracted to the inner beauty of the girl but purely to shallow outward beauty. In fact, she
felt that there was something demeaning in the way in which they behaved.
|
"The mother heart had not swelled in me yet; I did not know all men were my children, as the large
woman knows when her heart is grown. I was too small to be tender."
- What does the narrator mean when she says that "the mother heart had not swelled in me
yet"? (4)
[Need help?]
The speaker sees the grown woman as the mother. A mother has love for her children, looks after them,
nurtures them.
The heart of the grown woman is therefore one that is swollen in love for all people.
On the other hand, she describes herself as a teenage girl who is young and immature, who has not yet
entered this condition of motherly love. Her mother heart has therefore not yet swelled with motherly love
and affection.
|
- What does she mean when she says, "I was too small to be tender"? (4)
[Need help?]
The speaker sees womanhood as having a special meaning, when the woman's heart is swollen in love
for all creatures.
The girl at this stage, however, is still a teenager whose heart is still young, who hasn't yet matured into
knowing the purpose of her life.
She was therefore too small to be tender, too young for her heart to have become full.
|
The writer says that "men were curious creatures, who liked me, I could never tell why".
- Why did men like her? (4)
[Need help?]
The author did not think she was as pretty as the other girl. She was more attractive simply because she
was new in the village.
She was also younger and therefore more full of life.
|
Eventually the whole town held a party in the narrator's honour.
- Why was the party held? (2)
[Need help?]
The girl was to leave the village and someone arranged a farewell party in her honour.
|
- Why is it important that the "other girl" is so very white: her dress that was "pure white",
her "great white arms and shoulders", the "white rose" fastened at her
breast? (4)
[Need help?]
Whiteness is often presented as an image of purity.
Despite the older girl's being sought after by men, the speaker takes pains to point to the fact that she is
still pure, still a virgin.
Her dress is white, her skin is white, the rose at her breast is white. Everything about the girl is innocent,
pure and virginal.
|
- Why, on the other hand, would the narrator have been dressed totally in black? (4)
[Need help?]
Black is the symbol of death.
The younger girl is about to leave the village where she was very happy. Her leaving is her symbolic death.
Her clothes therefore are all black. She is dressed for mourning.
|
How did it come about that the two girls finally spoke to each other? (4)
[Need help?]
The younger girl, by leaving the village, is no longer a threat to the older girl. The older girl responds by
pinning her white rose to her breast.
|
Is there any significance in the graphic image of the other girl pinning her white rose to the narrator's
breast? (4)
[Need help?]
If whiteness is a symbol of purity, is there any significance in the older girl's removing her white rose and
handing it onto the younger girl?
It is mentioned, for instance, that the older girl then married. Does the passing on of the rose represent
the passing on of her purity?
|
"When my faith in woman grows dim, and it seems that for want of love and magnanimity she can play
no part in any future heaven; then the scent of that small withered thing comes back -- spring cannot
fail us."
- Why does the narrator use "woman" and not "women"? (4)
[Need help?]
The author is not interested in women as such, but rather in womanhood.
She therefore does not speak of "women" but of "woman". "Woman" means the
female as a species.
|
- What does the narrator mean when she says that "spring cannot fail us"? (4)
[Need help?]
The narrator means that there is an eternal cycle.
Winter will always be followed by spring. It will always happen.
After a time of sorrow, there will always be joy.
Spring represents everything vibrant in life, it represents a time of new life, a fresh beginning. It will always
happen, says the author.
|
|
