“The Black man must enter the white man’s house through the back door. The Black man does most of the dirty work…”
In his memoir, Mphahlele explores the segregation of the apartheid rule in South Africa as a young man growing up. He focuses on the maltreatment of black people during the second half of the 20th century through enforcements that aimed to put non-whites down. Black Africans were subjugated by strict policing through curfews, carrying documentations, and racist programs. The apartheid law subdued the blacks by allowing for harassment, police violence, and extrajudicial killings against them. Moreover, the segregation pushing them into poverty and low-income jobs that barely sustained the families.
“You’ll come back and be able to look after yourself and the two you’re leaving behind.”
Growing up, Mphahlele and his family had to survive in the harsh environment of poverty and racial discrimination during the regime. Therefore, the children who manage to garner enough academic achievements would go on to secure a better life for them too. Es’kia managed to attend good institutions and pursued training in teaching and literature nurturing his career. Hence, the quote is the choices the families had to make to educate one child who would consequently take the mantle of nurturing the younger ones.
“When they were not working they had children without being able to secure a man they could really call a husband.”
Essentially raised by his mother for the most part, Mphahlele highlights the social dynamic of the nuclear families during the apartheid rule. The surge of single mothers and absent fathers were possibly fostered by the strict rules that persecuted and imprisoned the males for minor infractions. Furthermore, the women had to work harder to provide therefore the author shows how their aunts, mothers, and grandmothers were hardworking and selfless. The novel demonstrates the sacrifice made by the women to nurture the next generation in a demanding and intolerant environ without men in their lives.
