The Sun Will Rise Again

Synopsis of the story
THIS week we take a break from William Shakespeare’s Merchant of Venice and introduce another text in the O-level Literature syllabus. Schools not studying this text should not panic because it is just one of the offered texts in a selection. They can opt not to study it. My mission this week is to give the summary of the story without really discussing the deeper issues such as the suitability of the novel to the students, in terms of the appropriateness of the language used and other things. However, having said this, it is suffice to state that the author uses flashback in his writing. This means he gives us the end of certain issues before we come to know how those endings came about.

One thing which is quite obvious about this text is that it takes place before independence. There is talk of pre-independence events, that is talk of people being killed for collaborating with the Rhodesian army, colonial holidays such as Rhodes and Founders Days which used to be observed in July. There is also talk of Salisbury now Harare. Our discussion begins with the story of Fatima, wife to the late Joseph Takundwa. These had children, namely, their late first-born son, Lovemore, six-year-old Tabitha, who disappeared and Sophia who is languishing in a remand cell awaiting trial for the murder of her husband.

Fatima is a woman facing many problems. She is in pain and wishes to die. She sees no purpose of living when everything seems to be upside down. Fatima questions the act of living when she has heard that in prison they cut off the heads of murderers and throw them to the dogs. How can she live carrying such a heavy weight? How can she live on knowing that she is a mother of a child whose head and dreams were cut off and thrown to the dogs.

She says she will often curse the day she met her husband, Joseph Takundwa. His incurable greed has been the source of all her problems. The chain of events that have triggered off this darkness can be traced back to Takundwa’s insatiable lust for money. He spent his whole life in pursuit of wealth. For all his efforts, he left behind nothing except a chain of graves that have been dug very close to her heart. Joseph Takundwa has left his wife miserable.

She relates that her first-born son, Lovemore, was the first to be swallowed by Takundwa’s greed. She calls Lovemore the sacrificial lamb who died for the sins of his father. She puts it bluntly asking: “What does it feel like to be roasted to death while people are singing and dancing to freedom songs? My six-year-old daughter Tabitha was the next. Sophia will most probably be sent to jail, or even get hanged, all because of him.” Joseph Takundwa has been a good-for-nothing husband to Fatima.

In the first chapter, we get to know Fatima’s background. She was born in a family of 26, or is it 27 or 28. She is no longer sure now but can still vividly remember that there were so many half-naked toddlers crammed into three round huts belonging to a different wife. Her father, Mr Marume, was one of the most feared n’angas throughout Nharira. Important looking people with beautiful cars would drive from far and wide to come and consult Fatima’s father.

It was said most of those people came to buy lucky charms so that they could become richer. Like many other n’angas, Fatima says she was never able to understand why her father could not use the same charms that he sold to others to make himself rich. None of the children were allowed to enter the fourth hut, referred to as sacred. That is where her father kept his charms and they were strongly cautioned never to enter that hut no matter what. We come face to face with male chauvinism for the first time in this text.

Fatima tells us that the first thing taught to her and other little girls was the art of good womanhood. The virtues of good motherhood were clearly spelt out from the word go. Of all these virtues, obedience and submission to anyone who was male was the most emphasised. Good girls had to cook for, wash for and serve properly and promptly, every male being that hung around them. The question of age did not matter. That way, girls would grow to become fully groomed productive and responsible wives worth paying lobola for. Such a girl would not put her people to shame if she became fortunate enough to get married.

Marriage and bearing of children seemed therefore to be the only purpose of womanhood. The worst thing that could ever happen to a woman was to go about without a proper husband. That kind of woman was looked at as an incomplete person and a major threat to other properly married women who would always look at her freedom with grave suspicion. More is to come on this subject in later series.

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