BIOGRAPHICAL N O T E
The widely acclaimed novelist Bessie Head was born in Pietermaritzburg in 1937. She was die illegitimate daughter of a wealthy white woman and a black stable hand. In an effort to hide their daughter's shame, her grandparents had the child put into a children's home, while their
daughter was condemned to a mental institute — from where she never returned.
Bessie was initially adopted by a white family, but when they discovered she was Coloured, they refused to keep her. She was then adopted by a Coloured family, whom she regarded as her own. When they fell on hard times, however, she returned to the orphanage, remaining there until she left school.
• She was unhappy in South Africa, but she was refused permission to leave. She eventually settled in Botswana but was never granted citizenship or a passport.
She died at a tragically early age in 1986 as the result of alcohol abuse. A topic she favoured in her writing was that of women entrapped in their particular society — as she seems to have been.
Her novels include Maru, When Rain Clouds Gather and A Question of I ower. She also wrote a number of short stories as well as other writings.
VOCABULARY enchanted (40)
condescended crouched(40) inordinate(40) captivate (40) indulged(41) spindly-legged gazelle(41) scandalised(42) scanty (42) thrashing(42) hypnotised(42) nuisance (42 emissaries(43 ) repertoire (43) churning(44) abode(44) chore(45) linger (46) vividly(46) embankment vigorously(46) preoccupation - status(47) decapitated(47) -
- magical
- grudgingly agreed - knelt
• excessive
• fascinate - took pleasure
• thin-legged graceful antelope - shocked
- little - hiding - fascinated - problem - messengers - collection - stirring - house - task - stay
- well remembered side
- quickly occupied social standing headless
CONTENT
Friedman grows up close to nature in his little village, hunting small animals with the other small boys. He is a child who had " a long wind blowing for him" - he experiences the freedom that only an unsophisticated village child could know.
His grandmother, Sejosenye, adores him:
he is the last child she will raise, as she is growing old.
The grandmother takes him home from hospital after he is b o m and names him after one of the doctors who had been friendly to her as she waited for his birth.
His mother goes to work in town. The community watches him grow up.
Sejosenye is a good farmer. When she was young she had attended a mission school where she had learned, amongst other things, the litde song about Robinson Crusoe. This remained in her memory and became confused with other stories in her memory.
Sejosenye tells Friedman the story of how Robinson Crusoe kills an elephant single- handed. This inspires Friedman to become a dare-devil like tiiis Robinson Crusoe of hers and he looks forward to the day when he can be the great hunter and bring home meat to the whole village.
These stories awaken in Friedman a "great tenderness" for life.
As he approaches his fourteenth year, Friedman becomes aware of his
responsibilities. The boy accompanies his grandmother to the lands she works some twenty miles from the village. He wants a bicycle so that he can help her by fetching supplies, or running messages. His mother sends him money for the bicycle.
Friedman is a "great hunter" for his grandmother as he traps wild rabbits or tortoises for die pot.
One day the grandmother sends Friedman to the village to buy some sugar and tea and milk. He goes on his bicycle. On his way to the village he stops at a friend of his grandmotiier who gives him a cup of tea and a plate of porridge. After the boy leaves, he rides to the main road where, out of the corner of his eye, he sees a fast- moving green truck approaching him.
With his daredevil attitude he swerves
right into die path of the truck, smiling at the driver. The truck hits him violendy and he is decapitated. When the
grandmother is told of Friedman's death, she lingers a short time and then dies of grief.
It is said that the truck was the property of one of die rich civil-servant class.
These people are in too much of a hurry to worry about anydiing except tiieir new social status. They don't even bother about driving licences. There is thus a collision between the new class and the simple village and it looks as if the destructive force of the new class will not stop here.
COMMENT
The theme of this story is the conflict between the natural environment and diat of the developed world. The boy is brought up in the land of the wind, which is natural and carefree. The wind implies a type of spiritual freedom, which is absent in die urban world.
All the evil that comes to the boy comes from this outside world. First of all, he loses his mother to this world as she goes there to live and work. Secondly, the story diat inspires him to be a daredevil is that of Robinson Crusoe, a remnant of a story his grandmother remembers from the mission school. Thirdly, he receives the money for the bicycle, on which he is to meet his deadi, from his modier who sends it from this world. Finally, die green truck, which so violendy brings about his death, is part of a world where people are trying to establish social status, without any thought to the safety of omers.
The boy is described as having eyes like a gazelle. They are innocent and appealing.
18
Even though the boy is not 'perfect' in Ms behaviour, in his world even stealing doesn't bring condemnation to him, since it is carried out with die freedom of the spirit of the gazelle. Compared with the violence of the new order, emphasised by
the fact that the boy is not just killed but decapitated, his mischievous stealing is harmless.
The story is a comment on the destructive nature of the new order where individuals are only interested in becoming rich and gaining status and one where the "wind"
is ignored. Everything is hard and material.
QUESTIONS
1. Comment on the significance of the title.
2. In what way is the boy caught
• between two cultures?
3. ;How does the mother contrast with , ; the grandmother?
4. 1;Why does the author describe the violence of the boy's death in such / g r a p h i c detail?
SUGGESTED ANSWERS
1. The tide 'The Wind and a Boy' -. conjures up the idea of the freedom
that the young boy experiences both in his imagination and in his
environment. This freedom is what is destroyed by the invasion of the Western world.
2. The boy is the result of a casual relationship, a practice introduced to Africa by Western culture. He is named after a foreign doctor. His mother is obviously ensconced in the modern world while he is brought up m the country, close to nature.
| However, he rides a bicycle and is
eventually killed by a vehicle driven by someone who is part of the new dispensation where status and money are all that count.
3. The mother is caught up in the Western world of work and money.
The only support she ever offers Friedman is material support. There is no mention of any affection corning from his mother. On the other hand, his grandmother dotes on him and spends time developing him as a person. She is the one who inspires him and tells him stories and devotes her life to his well-being. Indeed, when Friedman dies, she dies of grief, whereas we don't even hear of his modier's response to his death.
4. The author is pointing out just how ruthless and cruel this culture is. The truck doesn't just kill him, it actually decapitates him. This action makes any "bad" activities Friedman took part in seem insignificant. It also reflects the violence of the impact this new culture has on the African way of life.
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