Bessie Head's story, Maru, looks at the affects of colonialism on African people .

One of those affects

was the forced divisions and racial categories set in pla ce between the Bushmen people and other
Botswanians. The story begins with the b irth of a Bushmen child whose mother dies during
childbirth. When the child and its mother is sent to the hospital run by local missionaries, the
Botswanian nur ses disregard the mother's body. The missionary's wife, Margaret Cadmore, notice s
this and records her own disgust at the prejudices.

She decides to take on the caring and rearing of the infant child, but Cadmore d oesn't bother to
name the girl (the girl adopts Cadmore's name) and treats her m ore like a "semi-servant," one albeit
with certain equalities, but certainly not like a daughter. Nevertheless, Cadmore is educated by her
benefactor and learns to sketch like her as well. Yet, Cadmore's childhood is unhappy. She is teased
and mocked by other children because of her background and leads a very lonely e xistence. She is
alienated from her own people and does not have a close relatio nship with her caretaker. When
Cadmore is an adult, she becomes a teacher and is sent out to a village to teach in a missionary
school.

This provides Margaret with an opportunity to become someone. Because of her lig ht skin, many of
the people think she is "colored," but Margaret refuses to be d ishonest and honestly tells people her
real background if asked. For a while, th e only person who knows Margaret is a Bushmen is her
colleague, Dikeledi. But so on, word gets out in the village that Margaret is a Bushmen and the
villagers tr eated her disdainly. During class, her young students cause a disruption during her lesson
by chanting ugly things at her.

But the story is really about how Margaret's presence changes the village. Two y oung men, friends
since childhood, who are or will become chiefs of their villag es, are the most affected. Moleka,
whom Dikeledi loves, has fallen in love with Margaret, though he hardly knows her. Moleka wants to
marry Margaret, but when t he truth of her background is revealed, he is fearful of going against the
preju dices in his village. Maru, the novel's namesake, also falls in love with Margar et and uses his
friends hesitance in pursuing her to his advantage.

He provides Margeret with a bed, which is taken from her after it is revealed th at she is a Bushmen,
then uses his sister, Dikiledi, to commission sketches, whi ch he keeps for himself. Maru's actions
causes a rift with his friend. Maru sees a chance in a marriage with Margaret to change the
prejudices and racial divisi ons among the people in Botswana. Since he will be chief, he feels this is
his r esponsibility to break away from the chains of colonialism and bring in a new da y for his
people.

In the end, Moleka gets Dikiledi pregnant and marries her, though he still loves Margaret. But his
refusal to be as daring and visionary as his friend prevents him from following his heart. Meanwhile,
Maru proposes marriage to Margaret, who accepts, though she does not love Maru. Yet, she sees in
this marriage as chanc e to become a part of the community from which she has been alienated.
Maru offers an optimistic vision of what liberated south Africans can face as lo ng as they break away
from the destructive and divisive affects of colonialism.

Maru, the well-written and revered novel by Bessie Head, is primarily concerned with two themes:
that of love, and prejudice. Set in the rural and unforgiving v illage of Dilepe, Maru sets about
exploring the ability of people to love others , despite their palpable differences. Moving in a circular
sequence, the story b egins at the end of the novel, where readers are introduced to the main
characte rs, Maru (who gives the novel its title) and Margaret, his new wife. Thereafter,

the story moves back in time examining all the past events that have led up to this point. Finally
starting at the real beginning, readers are first exposed to t he harsh prejudices of the Batswana tribe
against the Masarwa people. A dead Mas arwa woman and her live baby are found, yet no Batswana
person wishes to bury he r, and so English Missionaries are called upon to perform the task. Margaret
Cad more arrives, and is utterly disgusted by the discriminative attitudes of the Ba tswana nurses
who have been forced to help prepare the body for burial. Moved by the true plight of the Masarwa
people, Margaret Cadmore decides to adopt the ba by, and name her after herself- Margaret
Cadmore. She believes by giving this ch ild the gift of education and a privileged upbringing, she will
defy the prejudi ced minds that surround her. Instead, she leads a withdrawn and troubled life of
ridicule and rejection. Realizing she has failed her, Margaret Cadmore returns to England, leaving a
young and newly graduated Margaret behind, encouraging her to stay and help her own people. And
so Margaret nervously travels to Dilepe, t o take up a teaching post at Leseding School. There she
meets and befriends anot her teacher- the beautiful and confident Dikeledi, who is surprised by
Margarets candidness when she tells her that she is a Masarwa woman. Having nowhere to sta y,
Dikeledi arranges for Moleka, a tribal superior, and the man that she in fact loves, to provide
Margaret with accommodation. At first Margaret is fearful of him, but after he shows her kindness,
she soon feels that she may love him. Mole ka shares these feelings, and despite her origins, believes
that he may love her too. The School Administration however, is racist towards Margaret, and plot to
have thrown out. Yet Dikeledi, who protects Margaret, thwarts the plan. Later, Dikeledis highly
admired brother Maru, returns from a business trip and learns fr om his spy, Ranko, that his great
friend and rival, Moleka, has fallen for the l ikes of a Masarwa woman- Margaret.

Never wanting to be challenged in any way by Moleka, Maru plots to take Margaret for himself, and
trick Moleka into marrying his sister Dikeledi, who is unaware of Molekas love for Margaret. As the
story progresses, Moleka and Margaret both become deeply, but secretly affected by their love for
each other. Maru, a dream er, realizes that Margaret would have a profound impact on his vision for
a worl d of freedom and equality, and so proceeds with a plan to marry her himself. By pretending to
be against the idea of the equal treatment of a Masarwa woman, Mar u cleverly fools Moleka into
portraying himself to Margaret as one of the same w eak, prejudiced followers of the Batswana
mindset. Though she still furtively lo ves Moleka, Margaret begins sharing Marus dreams. As Maru
had hoped he would, Mol eka turns to Dikeledi, feeling he has lost Margaret forever. He is forced to
mar ry Dikeledi when she becomes pregnant with his child. All the while Margaret and Dikeledi are
entirely unaware that they both love Moleka, but when she eventual ly hears of their marriage and
Dikeledis pregnancy, Margaret is utterly devastate d and takes to her bed. Maru has succeeded in his
betrayal of Moleka, and moves to claim Margaret as his wife. Suffering painfully over her loss of
Moleka, Marg aret turns to Maru and accepts his offer of marriage. Maru rejects his chieftain ship of
the Batswana, and defiantly leaves the village to start anew life with M argaret. This leaves the
Batswana feeling bitterly defeated, and the Masarwa tri umphant as they now believe that the power
of freedom lies closely before them i n the new world that Maru and Margaret have begun laying the
foundations for. Th rough her creativity and excellent use of metaphors, Bessie Head has accomplishe
d both a sensitive yet honest analysis of unconditional love and the prejudices that are faced in life.

Published: February 16, 2006

Bessie Heads Maru and the ideological pleasures of the text Maru's mixed-marriage, to a San
woman, a Bushwoman, is the marriage plot of Maru , and a highly emotive notion in Southern Africa.
Im an American, with blond hair and blue eyes. Im Germanic in descent, and I look it. When I lived in
South Afri ca in 2001, I started dating a South African woman of Indian descent. The import

ant thing here is that we were a mixed couple, which, I later discovered, was st ill quite rare in South
Africa in 2001. I lived in a small Afrikaner community, and to my surprise and horror, it became quite
scandalous among the white commun ity, that I was dating her. I did not entirely anticipate how
negatively the com munity would react, partly because the woman was a popular person in town.
Her f ather was a soccer star, in a nation obsessed with soccer. Also, I didnt anticipa te it because I
had many idealistic notions about the Rainbow Nation, the New So uth Africa. To make a long story
short, the white community paid close attention to the skin tone of whom I slept with. Southern
Africa is a place where other p eople mind your personal business. This was all the more so during
Apartheid, wh en Head writes, when race was an even bigger issue than it is now. It was a bigg er
issue then because of the white supremacist governments in Southern Africa, a nd a widespread
ethnic war. I would like to discuss this in relation to Maru, di scuss how the mixed-marriage plot is
central to plotting, and what critical beau ty we can see in its message or moral. I want to discuss
how a certain ideologic al pleasure comes enacted in the dialogue about racial ideology.

The South African Saturday Star writes, "Most people think we're get ting to be a rainbow
nation but some still see South Africa as black and white." Probably the most complex cultural issue,
and the most important one in South Af rica and Zimbabwe, is racism and racialism (a local term
referring to notions of a ny kind premised on race). I use the two terms synonymously. Racialism
overwhelm ingly co-ops both the criticism and the literary cannon in many ways. We can nev er
underestimate ideological racialisms pervasiveness across all sectors of socie ty, and how racialism
informs upon literally all text and discourse. It might se em a gross generalization unless you are
directly engaged with Southern African culture, but it is not a generalization by any means. In my
experience, most Sou th Africans would be the first to agree with the following statement: To some
ex tent, literally everything in South Africa is about race.

There can be little debate that the idea of racial ideology dominate d Southern African culture
for 350 years, and remains the most emotive and salie nt tension in contemporary South African and
Zimbabwean society. In the beginnin g of the 20th century, white-supremacist legislation grew
increasingly draconian . As the other ethnic groups could not bear this injustice, in the second part o
f the century, the liberation movements grew, and the idea of resistance to whit es grew into outright
ethnic warfare. We sometimes overlook the fact that the li beration war was also an ethnic war. We
overlook it because Mandela tried hard t o make the ANC movement pluralist, and representative of
South Africa demographi cally. In the same token, black informants, collaborators, Coloured and
Indian s ympathizers, and often-corrupt black policemen served to "colour" the Apartheid
government.

At the same time, from the 1950s to the early 1990s, various ideological tension s swept through
Southern African culture and letters, and not coincidentally the criticism of Southern African
literature, which made the idea of racial ideolog y take on new, overwhelming significance, in a
society already collectively obse ssed with the question of race. This continues into the present.

One ideological movement that arose during the liberation struggle, growing to i ncreasing
prominence because of the Soviet Unions many proxy wars in Africa, was a sort of Africanized
Marxist view. This resulted in the criticism of South Afri can literature, a view that all text is ideology,
and that the value of the text i s ultimately to be gleaned as an allegory to the utopian state. In this,
the cri ticism and the literature are seen as directly involved in the creation of utopi a. Thus, we have
a stream of thinking in the criticism, that all art is ideologi cal. Irele in African Literature and Ideology
is quick to call upon Achebe for v alidation, on the first page of his text, in claiming that All art is
propaganda. One of my professors at the University of Wisconsin once remarked to me, in all
seriousness, How can you speak of African literature without speaking of ideology

This statement leaves little room for a graduate student to respond. It seemed t o me, at the time,
that it was quite easy to speak of African literature without speaking of ideology. It seems even more
so to me today. Suffice it to say that , in the very least, the discipline is dominated by the view of
South African li terature and criticism as active ideology. This view is seen as normative, and a ny
criticism outside it must struggle to legitimize itself, or, more commonly, s ink into the oblivion of not
being read, not being important. And in Southern Afri ca, the most important ideology is racial
ideology. Race informs upon any and al l ideological endeavor in Southern Africa. There is simply no
escaping this fact . To be engaged with ideology of any kind in Southern Africa, you have to be eng
aged with racial ideology.

There is a definite politics, historicity, and esthetics to the criticism of Sou thern African literature. It
is beyond the parameters of this essay to trace the m here, but we will sketch out some of the
historical movements that led to the rise of racial ideological discourse in South African art and
criticism. What re sults in contemporary criticism is an insistence on ideological criticism in man y
ways; which becomes, of course, in the South African experience, an insistence that we must speak
about racial ideology. Furthermore, to make the situation mo re complex in the criticism of South
African literature, old Marxist notions suc h as everything is political and the personal is the political
are not only accepted implicitly, but dissent from such notions is little tolerated, in what Barthes
would call a repressive tolerance".

The crux of what I want to say here is that the criticism of Southern African Li terature has been
deliberately and systematically co-opted as an agent or actor in the actual lived dramas of Southern
African tribalism and ethnic warfare. Thi s is to view racism in South Africa under the rubric of
tribalism and ethnic vio lence, which is precisely what it is. What this highlights is, first, that the e
thical domain of lived, historically-experienced ethnic struggle is highly conte sted, particularly within
Southern Africa itself, and ethnic ideology throughout the Southern African sub-continent is highly
contentious, emotive, and unclear. What tools does ethnic ideology really give us as critics? The
many forms and f unctions of ethnic ideology in the criticism can only confer utility, identity, or
freedom by (paradoxically) establishing a whole new set of controls. For exampl e, I have seen too
many essays by young white University of Wisconsin undergradu ates that give a gloss of South
African history under the rubric of the evil whi te man. This was a set of controls, a way of reading
that served an ideological necessity until 1994. We know how this arose, what it means, and what it
does. I 'd like to suggest that this is now, in the New South Africa, an ideological pro blem.

Certainly we cannot collapse one term, South African Literature, onto another, ideo logy. The two are
not the same. They share some characteristics, but it is sheer reductivism to suggest that one is the
other. It is simply not so. Art is art, and ideology is ideology, in point of actual fact. It is high time we
paid more att ention to this distinction, especially given that the liberation struggle is ove r, and thus
so too are many of the overwhelming political necessities we had to face during Apartheid. We can
now say, of a new political necessity, that all ar t is not propaganda. We can read for propaganda in
art, and we can cull ideologi cal constructs from any text if we put our mind to it; but literature is not
onl y or necessarily ideology. Often, ideology is not even the most meaningful or be autiful aspect of
textually. To suggest otherwise reduces the text, and the crit icism, to one universalizing locus of
significance.

A question of freedom arises; a question of freedom from ideology, which is high ly problematic in a
Southern African context. What if the reader does not wish t o read for racial ideology, for whatever
reason? What if the authordoes not wish

to engage a certain ideology, for whatever reason? Unfortunately, the normative critical approach is
to see no ideological position as an ideological position, universalizing and reducing discourse to one
all-encompassing variable. This is to impose a prison-house of ideology on author, text, and reader,
which ultimatel y becomes racial ideology in South Africa: This text is about race and ideology, and if
you do not see this, then that tells us something about you. There is an o bvious fascist impulse here,
inherited from the Apartheid police state, and the totalitarian impulse of Marxism. There is also the
paradoxical Leftist impulse o f reactionary intolerance to any outside view, the totalitarian Leftist
notion o f things "politically correct."

There is also a disturbing circularity of reason operating here, one that points rather dramatically to a
certain non-utility with ethnic ideology as a critical variable. "This ideological position on ethnicity is
correct, because we say it is correct." It is hard to make precise statements when our frame of
reasoning is circular, which is why ideology is sometimes not too terribly useful, theoret ically.
Criticism in this respect becomes inherently solipsistic, a repetition. As does the discourse itself in
culture; the never-ending discourse. Michael de Certeau observes in "The Arts of Theory" that "A
particular problem arises when, instead of being a discourse on other discourses, as is usually the
case, theor y has to advance over an area where there are no discourses" (61). As an inevita ble and
perpetual repetition, as an obsession, a fetish, a perverse pleasure, ra cial ideology moves into a field
where no discourse is actually possible; racial ideology is the already-said, the already-known, a
discourse in a perpetual cir culating loop. An example of this is my own difficulty, which I experience
as I type these words, of talking about race. As a white northern-European man, what do I know of
race, what could I possibly know? What possible right do I have to speak? We have fallen suddenly
into a sort of discursive void, where no discours e is possible.

When taken to be an end in its own right, racial ideology ceases to be that, and transforms into
something quite different: a passion, a desire, a pleasure, a w ay of being. Racial ideology becomes
perverse, a type of fetish. There is a plea sure in critical hegemony that is particularly disturbing. And
this underscores the fact that many critics of the older generation have a lot to lose if a new s chool
of criticism arises. The generation that lived through the South African e mancipation struggle, which
saw the worst abuses and degradations of Apartheid, paradoxically have a lot to lose in the New
South Africa and the Rainbow Nation. This, because the shift from violent ethnic struggle, to the new
status quo of pluralism and tolerance, is an extremely difficult and almost schismatic one. Al so,
change is difficult for anybody, and while pluralism and tolerance were oste nsibly the notions behind
the struggle, the very idea of ethnic confrontation, r evolution, and struggle, is a hard one to let go. It
is a frame, a mind-set, a p assion, a way of being.
Ethically, we must ask if we can stop the ethnic violence. Isnt there another fra me for our discourse?
If there is (and we all know there is, Mandela for one poi nted to this path), then the question arises,
what to say now? If we are not to speak of ethnic confrontation, revolution, and struggle, what
purpose does the c riticism have? I would argue an admittedly formalist point of view, that it neve r
really had much purpose to begin with. But more to the point for our purposes here: in the very
least, ideological criticism should serve the cause of underst anding, tolerance, and integration in the
Rainbow Nation, because this is precis ely what a wounded and troubled people most need at the
moment. Mandela knew thi s, which might be why he and Desmond Tutu felt the need to coin a
rather hokey n ew term, the "Rainbow Nation."

I find Maru to be one of the most beautiful, moving novels ever writ ten. It is a masterpiece of
pastoral narrative, and evokes the noblest aspiratio ns of humanity: to be like a god (...as though all
the evils in human nature were

there by divine order and man need make no effort to become a god... [36]), to c reate a better new
world. It is one of the most finely-crafted texts I know, its intricacies seemingly endless. I love this
text very much, and it has changed m y life in many ways, which is not something you can often say. I
also think this text the great masterpiece of the pastoral novel of the Apartheid era.

Maru is a Tswana name meaning clouds, a pastoralism. The opening paragraph of Maru i s a
masterpiece of pastoral narrative, figuring Maru into the Botswanan landscap e. Speaking of the
clouds in the horizon, the narrator remarks, There seemed to b e a secret in their activity (5), which
directly parallels a later description of Maru: But there was a depth of secret activity in him like that
long, low line o f black, boiling cloud (7-8). Molekas epithet, thundercloud brow, a pastoralism, is also
figured into the landscape: ...sent soft rumbles of thunder... (5). Just as M aru is ultimately the main
actor in the narrative, controlling the destinies of everyone else, so too is this expressed in the
clouds: They were prisoners, pushe d back, in trapped coils of boiling cloud (5). The opening
paragraph represents n ot only Maru and Moleka through signification on the land, but also the
people o f Dilepe. The rains were so late that year (5) refers to how it is repeatedly que stioned in
the community when, precisely, Maru will take the chieftainship.

The text is characterized by parallelisms. For example, Margaret Jr. exceeds Mar garet Sr. after she
goes away, and the same is implied of Moleka after Maru leav es. Maru and Dikeledi are unloved,
breaking up the true love of Moleka and Marga ret. They are also siblings, whereas both Moleka and
Margaret are outsiders (Mol eka is not a totem, and Margaret is a San). Parallelisms riddle the text:
there are three totems, three spies for Maru, three men go into exile with Maru, and w e see three
gods (Maru, Margaret, Moleka). Another parallelism arises in the flowe r motif (eg, 5, 65, 169, 103).
Head worked for a while as a gardener, and later in her career, she supplemented her writing income
by selling produce from her g arden. Margaret is figured as daisies: yellow dasies... were the only
flowers whi ch resembled the face of his [Marus] wife... (5).

The rains were so late that year (5, 117). Rain makes flowers grow, and flowers gre w out of... love
(69). Love changes everything; not only Margaret, Maru, and Mole ka, but also the village and the
people. Maru has political vision, Margaret has love; so the two complement each other. Maru shows
their complimentariness by a ppreciating her art and insinuating himself into it. This parallels Heads
own pol itical vision; she locates political action in the sociable setting where healing , rather than
incision (Chapman 380) causes social transformation. Head writes, It is preferable to change the
world on the basis of love of mankind (12). Compare this with Rankos thoughts on Maru: Every new
and unacceptable idea had to be put a bruptly into practice, making no allowance for prejudice (6),
and with the narrat ors later observations about Moleka: Moleka...could not make allowance for the
slo w removal of prejudice. He removed it all in a day (53). We know ultimately this text is about
racism in South Africa under Apartheid, and racism and tribalism t hroughout Southern Africa. Here,
the text seems ideologically to be theorizing a discourse against prejudice, and the solution, or the
mode of action we might s ay, is love, which becomes dramatized in the marriage plot.

Maru was a king in their society... (6), but forsakes the chieftainship. Chapman w rites, Although the
chief had ultimate authority, his power was restricted in tha t royalty was embodied in all the close
members of the royal family and any one of them could become chief. Despite strict rules of
succession, bad rule [ie mar rying a San in our context with Maru] could be challenged...Among the
Southern B antu, it is said that a chief is a chief by birth, but is also a chief by the pe ople... (52). We
see Maru's political dispossession in the end of the novel: When people of Dilepe village heard about
the marriage of Maru, they began to talk a bout him as if he had died (126).

Maru is also a type of fairy-tale god: He never doubted the voices of the gods in

his heart (8), Maru, who was a king of heaven... (35). Maru also performs seeming ly supernatural
acts, such as his insinuating himself into Margarets art, and his leaving his creation for a place far
away (a trope of the gods in Southern Africa n fairy tale). But Maru also has an earthly self, bound to
the deep center of the earth (7). Chapman writes, the consonance of earthly and mystical life is
summari zed in the idea of the land as providing both physical and sacred roots of exist ence in
binding the living to the ancestral living-dead (51).

Moleka comes to surpass Maru. Moleka had a greater power than he had (10), and he also comes to
assume godliness like Maru: It was as though he had always had God under his skin (57). His gods...
talked to him in his heart (ibid). Maru, of course , sees this transformation: At first Maru blinked,
thinking he almost saw a repli ca of himself... (ibid). Margaret is also a goddess: She looks like a
goddess (15) . She marries Maru the god, and flees with him far away, for Who else made a god
overnight but a goddess? (67). Southern African creation myths generally articula te a pattern where
the gods create a New World (eg 7, 50, 68, 108, 110--one of t he primary motifs of the text). The
gods then move on, becoming remote from thei r creation: They were heading... a thousand miles
away where the sun rose new and new and new each day (125). Eg: Magonas To My Childrens
Children: would-be guardian angel always lived far, far away... (5).

Note that the novel begins at the end; the temporal sequence has been altered. Ho w were they to
know that... this was not an end of him, but a beginning? (126). T he story is not actually over. Maru
is aware that his wife still loves Moleka (p erhaps even more than him), and also that Moleka had a
greater power than he had ( 10). The novel actually concludes (in terms of temporal sequence) with
Maru in br ooding and uncertainty (ibid--also c.f. the clouds of the opening paragraph: cloud s clung
in thick folds of brooding darkness). Not much has actually been resolved as far as Maru is
concerned, but the temporal sequence of the novel has been ma nipulated to give the novel the
appearance of conclusion. The marriage, it seems , is the central structure; and en the end, the
marriage changes things. The mar riage itself becomes the ultimate outcome is in question, the
future, the unknow n, the "that-which-is-being-theorized." The marriage, in this respect, figures s
omething much bigger than marriage itself.

Rachel M. Brownsteins Becoming a Heroine discusses the construction of the heroin e within the
marriage plot. Maru is--among other plottings--a marriage plot. Bro wnstein writes that the heroine
is formed by making herself unique (in beauty, i n morals) and preserving this uniqueness despite
stresses, false suitors, and th e like. This uniqueness is affirmed (she becomes a heroine) when she
marries; Br ownstein sees marriage (in the marriage plot) as a validation of the heroines str iving to
preserve her uniqueness. The marriage plot most novels depend on is abou t finding validation of
ones uniqueness and importance by being singled out among all other women by a man. The mans
love is proof of the girls value, and payment for it... It is not megalomaniacal to want to be
significant; it is only human (x v).

Margaret's marriage to Maru does indeed make her significant: Who knew where life and destiny
would take...[her] as long as their lives were attached to Maru? (6) . Dikeledi recognizes her
uniqueness: I am not like you, Margaret... (24), as does the narrator: How did life prepare one for the
unusual? (30). Being singled out b y Moleka validates her uniqueness and importance: Now
something had stabilized he r (30-1). Moleka too recognizes her uniqueness: It was not like anything
he had fe lt before, whereas with Dikeledi, It was a matter of the bloodstream; Margaret has a
bruptly arrested his life (32). Maru too only chooses women with some special qual ity (35). Ranko
notices her uniqueness and is bewitched (55). Even the people of th e village notice her uniqueness:
The next day people noticed that the new mistres s had dignity and respect for everyone (51).

Margaret is the best woman in the world, while Maru had ensured that Moleka had the

next best woman in the world (9). The mans possession of the woman is a key dynam ic here: He
walked in the door and said softly, My sweetheart. They were the most p recious words... (10).
Brownstein writes, The paradigmatic heroine... is a creatur e of art and idea. She is unlike all other
women, being important and unique, bu t she is also quintessentially feminine, therefore
representative of her sex.... Beautiful and virtuous as real people never are, she is the Ideal
incarnate. Th erefore, in romance, the Lover seeks her... (xxi). Margaret does seem to be an id
ealization of love. She says, I cant understand beastliness because it would never occur to me to be
beastly (18), and on p. 30 she raises her hand to her heart (i e love), and on p. 31 Moleka feels
compelled to do the same. Margarets beauty humb led and defeated (57) Moleka. Brownstein
writes, The heroine at the center of the marriage plot is informed by the novelists vision of character
and destiny. She i s made in the image of an integral, aesthetically and morally coherent unique in
dividual, a signifying self. Her special relation to this image distinguishes he r from other women; ... it
is what makes her a heroine... The tenure and mainten ance of the integral self is a theme in novels
about heroines (xvi).

Margarets foster mother told her, One day, you will help your people. This created a purpose and
burden in... [her] mind (17). In light of the conclusion, this seems to be the real crux of Margaret's
uniqueness and her heroism; it seems to be th e air of tolerance her marriage creates in Dilepi.
Brownstein writes, As a studen t... I learned that the marriage plot... adumbrates a larger message...
When I rer ead those novels later, in a feminist climate, the story about the girls getting married
seemed obviously the most important part (xvii). Is the marriage plot the most important part of
Maru? Certainly marriage is a key plot dynamic in the sh aping of Marus new world. Maru says,
Moleka is only half a statement of his kingdo m. Someone else makes up the whole. It is the person
he now loves (58). Brownstei n writes,

The marriage plot poses questions about how the sexual is bound up in the moral life, about the
coexistence of intimacy and identity, about how very odd it is t o choose another so as to chose a
self, about whether one can be who one is whil e living a generic womans life, about the possibility of
managing and shaping and comprehending the point of a determined female destiny The novel
heroine figures in a critical inquiry into absolutes... The novel heroine is both a representat ion... and
a metaphor.... She is not only the image of a believable person but a lso the image of an ideal. This
happens when she is identified with art, with a novel which often bears her name. In her
metaphorical self, a heroine stands for an integral self that can be located, defined, defended. This
image is outlined by the story about how her self realized. Therefore there is often some irony i
nvolved in the relationship of the novel heroine to her story. The self-awarenes s that makes her see
herself as other--as a heroine--leads her to chose a fate t hat, while perfectly a heroines, is rather too
simplifying to be perfectly hers (x xii).

Margaret has chosen a fate that helps create a better world (perfectly a heroines [fate]), rather than
choosing her true love (she totally loved Moleka [8]). This te nsion leaves Maru brooding and
uncertain (10). In this, she becomes "a little bit of everything in the whole universe (20).

Maru in this respect becomes an ideological inquiry into absolutes, and clearly these absolutes are
about race. Maru becomes an inquiry into the theorizing of a pluralist, tolerant society, a place where
absolutes turn into relative notions , a society where we can no longer assume things based on race.
In the end, as I close the cover to Maru, I certainly feel some definite pleasure in the text; s omething
good, something pleasurable, has been dramatized in the marriage plot. In many ways Maru is
theorizing a discourse against racial ideology, but the tex t becomes more valuable in an ethical
sense, in the sense of what is important t o the needs of the New South Africa. Maru theorizes the
making of a pluralist, t olerant society, and seeks emotively to validate it, to make it beautiful, to ma

ke it pleasurable. The marriage becomes the first, key step in the construction of a new world, a New
South Africa, and a new esthetic of what is beautiful, wha t is actually pleasurable in racial ideology.

Bessie Head's ideological stance during the liberation was often criticized. If anything, our esthetic
appraisal of what is meaningful, what is significant, wha t is beautiful in art, needs to be re-thought in
the context of the New South Af rica. Describing Maru's ideology as liberal platitudes (as has been
said) is a s ort of selective blindness to the realities of the New South Africa, and the con temporary
goals of the Rainbow Nation. For one thing, this is the ideology that won the day, and the hearts and
minds of the people. Moreover, it is not a liber al platitude to call for integration and tolerance in
South Africa; these are ve ry hard things, especially for a culture that just stepped out of 350 years of
i nstitutionalized racism. Maru's ideological call was, and still is in South Africa, quite revolutionary