Tsotsi About the author Athol Fugard South African

Tsotsi

About the author • Athol Fugard: South African playwright, novelist, actor and director, best known for his political plays opposing apartheid. • Born in Middleburg in the Eastern cape and studied at UCT • In 1958 he moved to Johannesburg with his wife and worked in a Native Commissioner’s Court which made him keenly aware of the pass laws (injustices of Apartheid). • Fugard was 26 when he started writing Tsotsi and he left it to start writing plays. He was often in trouble with the aapartheid regime and was forced to write and publish outside South Africa. • In 1978 his researcher found the manuscript and prepared it for publication.

The gang

About the novel • The novel is set in an unnamed township outside Johannesburg. Why? . . • The time period is the 1950’s due to specific references to the bus boycott and the first manmade object to land on the moon. Find these references…………………………. • The novel describes the difficulties of living in the townships and it is critical of the actions taken by the apartheid government and of the society it created. Find two references to this…………………………………

The plot • The protagonist of the novel is a dangerous criminal called Tsotsi, who kills and steals for his survival. • The meaningless cycle of his life is interrupted when a woman he is about to attack hands him a baby. The baby’s fragility and simple need for milk awaken Tsotsi’s dormant soul. He finds it difficult to keep up his persona as a heartless criminal and discovers that he can “feel” for his victims. • He finds a lactating woman who can feed the baby. Seeing Miriam feed the baby brings up memories of his early childhood. • Confused, Tsotsi finds Boston, a gang member who he has virtually beaten to death, in the hope that Boston can enlighten him. Tsotsi is reintroduced to the concepts of God, mercy and redemption.

Themes, motifs and symbols 1. Apartheid : a system that led to moral and spiritual decline The world according to Tsotsi is : “an ugly place” where : “ the very effort of living is a pain” The purpose of Apartheid was the segregation of the races and the establishment of the superiority of the whites. Immorality Acts of 1927 and 1957 Townships had few amenities. David Madondo was 10 years old when his mother was forcibly removed from her one-roomed shack because she did not have a pass. He experiences terror “deep down inside of him” and runs away to a group of orphaned boys living in pipes by the river.

Theme 2. Redemption and mercy Tsotsi and his gang elicit fear in the community. He describes the “darkness” within his soul. This is linked to the numbness in his emotions, which Boston challenges. He insists that Tsotsi has feelings, memory and a soul. The baby forces Tsotsi to express feelings and nuturing, exposing him to his own childhood memories. The change in Tsotsi is governed by a godly force: he passes the church, sees a cross and remembers that : ”God moved among men. ” Pg 27 Confused, Tsotsi finds Boston to help explain what is happening to him and is introduced to God , mercy and redemption.

Chapter 1 We meet the four members of the gang as they wait for the right time to go on their rampage. It is a Friday night. It is clear that the community lives in fear of their viciousness. The reader witnesses the brutal attack and murder of Gumboot Dhlamini.

Chapter 1 - Class activity 1 1. Make spider diagrams of each of the gangsters, including every descriptive word used about them. You may use a table Tsotsi Butcher Boston De Aap

Chapter 1: Vocabulary toyed pendulous trundles interminable impotence meagre frailty brooding millipede exuberance cardinal

Class Activity 2 Youth crime soars as gang culture takes grip Write an article with the above title, as if you are the Daily Sun reporter in 1950. The stimulus for your article is Tsotsi’s gang outside Johannesburg.

Chapter 1: Homework Answer the questions on Pg 171. 1 -10 11. What is the narrative style of this novel?

Class activity 3: Contextual Answer the questions on Pg 195 -196 3. 1 -3. 4 Answer the questions on Pg 190 -191 3. 1 -3. 4 Tsotsi “To know nothing about yourself is to be constantly in danger of nothingness, those voids of non-being over which a man walks the tightrope of his life. ”

Miriam: in praise of motherhood

Chapter 2 It is later the same night and the gang members are drinking at Soekie’s place. Boston is visibly distrubed by the killing of Gumboot. Boston insists on questioning Tsotsi about his past. Tsotsi beats Boston nearly to death.

Chapter 2 Vocabulary vehemence filament gramophone palpable blasphemy irrational flinching precipitated

Homework Chapter 2 Complete questions 1 -10 on Pg 171 -172. 11. Comment on the effectiveness of the simile used to describe Boston on Page 15. 12. How does Boston assume the role of the “conscience” of the group? 13. What is important about Soekie wanting to know her birthday?

Chapter 3 Tsotsi is deeply affected by Boston’s words and runs away. He finds himself in a white suburb where he comes across a domestic worker carrying a child in a shoebox. He is distracted by the crying of the baby and the woman is able to escape. Vocabulary: eddies, unheeded, insensate, vaulted thunder, monoliths, prismatic, quicksilver, intermittently, obscurity, fetish, talisman, evocative, inexplicably, lope,

Chapter 3 Homework Questions 1 -10 Pg 172 11. Quote the reference to the idea that God is moving in Tsotsi’s heart. Pg 27. How does the gang leader react to this inner voice? 12. Comment on the effect of the symbols of light and darkness on Pg 28, paragraph 1, paragraph 4. 12. The knife is more than a weapon for Tsotsi. What does it symbolise? Pg 30 last 5 lines.

The motif of the baby Even though Tsotsi literally finds the baby, it is clearly of symbolic significance. The baby is described as “wrinkled with age beyond years” Pg 34 Tsotsi realises the baby has to stay alive “to work its alchemy again. (Pg 47) The baby is the catalyst to Tsotsi’s memory and begins his restoration to wholeness. Class activity 4: Find three other references to the baby’s restorative power.

Chapter 4: Tsotsi keeps the baby He realises the baby needs milk to survive. He goes to the General Dealer to buy milk. We learn that Tsotsi cannot read and is not as selfconfident as he seemed in earlier chapters. Vocabulary: odorous, gaudy, tickey, scrutinizing, cross-grained, malodorousness, convoluted, cloying, idiocy, intangible, improbability, discordancies, grimace, furtive.

Chapter 4 : Homework Answer the questions 1 -10 on Pg 173. 11. Write a detailed character sketch on Tsotsi, examining his self - discovery in Chapters 3 -4.

Gang dynamics

Chapter 5: Gang dynamics De Aap and Butcher are ready for the evenings work. Tsotsi is clearly less enthusiastic and is very vague. They decide to go to the city. Vocabulary: gravity, comely, enigma, elusive, ponderous presence, encumbrance, nebulous, repertoire, tampered. Homework: Complete the questions 1 -10 on Pg 133 -134.

Chapter 6: Tsotsi chooses his next victim. The gang arrive on the outskirts of the city. Tsotsi chooses his next victim, a paraplegic, Morris Tshabalala. Vocabulary: progeny, bantering, commiserated, calloused, eluded, nondescript, shyster, racketeer. Classwork exercise: Pg 191 -192 Extract 2 3. 5 -3. 8 Homework: Pg 174 Questions 1 -10

Chapter 7: Tsotsi and Morris meet In a surprisingly frank conversation, Morris realises that he wants to live. Tsotsi realises that he has power over his choices and chooses not to kill Morris. Vocabulary: perverse, grotesque anatomy of life, justification, lustrous, retribution, insubstantiality, paltry, indelible, precedents, presentiment, inkling Homework: Ch 7 Questions 1 -10 Pg 174 -175

Tsotsi’s inability to steal from Morris: discuss in groups the two things which stay his hand.

Chapter 8: Feeding the baby Tsotsi’s plan to feed the baby condensed milk fails and he forces Miriam Ngidi to feed the baby. It becomes clear that he has started to remember his past. Vocabulary: staid, Indispensible, melee, Rapacious, dispiritedly Homework: Pg 184 1 -10

Chapter 9: The truth about Tsotsi’s childhood He was separated from his mother during a raid and runs away from home when it becomes clear that she will not return. He is too scared to meet his father and runs away. He meets up with a gang of children living in waterpipes at the river. He changes his name to Tsotsi and decides to forget his past. Vocabulary: surreptitious, pandemonium implacably, pummelling, Classwork exercise : Contextual Pg 193 -194 Question 1. 1 -1. 5 Homework: Pg 178 1 -10

Chapter 10: Tsotsi reconnects with Miriam to feed the baby. It is clear that he is a changed man and has no need for anger, revenge and hatred in his life. He wants to keep the child so that he can somehow restore his life. Homework: Pg 176 1 -10

Ch 10 Vocab denunciation: criticism austere: plain/simple pacifying : making peace muzziness: confusion, lack of clarity

Chapter 11: Tsotsi’s quest Tsotsi finds Boston in a shebeen and brings him home. What transpires between them is not really a meaningful conversation, but Tsotsi’s suspicion that something huge and out of control is happening to him is confirmed. There are clear references to a godly or religious element guiding Tsotsi out of the darkness. Homework: Pg 177 1 -10

Chapter 12: Tsotsi goes to the church His conversations with Isaiah appear to give him some answers. The relationship between Tsotsi and Miriam become more relaxed, and Tsotsi trusts her instincts with the baby. Tsotsi casts off his old self and becomes David Madondo once again. He returns to the ruins to get the baby the following morning, but is killed as the bulldozers knock down a wall. Vocabulary: masochistic - gets pleasure out of pain. Classwork: Essay on Pg 192 Homework: Pg 178 1 -10

Essay 1 Tsotsi is more than a story about a man who finds mercy and redemption; it is a scathing attack on the apartheid system that ruined a society. Discuss the validity of this statement. Your response should take the form of a well -constructed essay of 350 -400 words.

Essay 2 The novel illustrates how humankind can be deeply and profoundly affected by events. Discuss this statement in the light of the character called Tsotsi. Your response should take the form of a well-constructed essay of 350 -400 words.

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