Daniel Apatiga
Reading Response #11
11/13/2014
Regarding the
first epigraph at the beginning of the novel, we see that Phaswane Mpe provides
an analepsis and a prolepsis throughout that chapter, because we see him foretelling
the story of how Refentse dies and providing the background story to Refentse’s
past. In Danticat’s essay, “Creating
Dangerously,” I see a similar story developing: that of two or more characters
who are going to die, as explained in prolepsis, and for similar reasons. Like the two American rebel fighters who
fought for the Haitians, Refentse fights for love and opposes death until the
notion of suicide overwhelms him. The
reasons for ending his life appear to be because of failed relationships with
his multiple lovers: Lerato and Refilwe. In a lot of ways, the notion of xenophobia,
which is a central theme to the novel, is similar to Danticat’s “Creating
Dangerously” in that the Haitians who were in power were xenophobic to the
Americans. We know for instance that
Refentse loves soccer, and we know that even though he’s dead, he would have loved to know that “Bafana Bafana
lost to France in the 1998 Soccer World Cup fiasco” (Mpe, page 1). In the first epigraph, furthermore, the
historical fact of AIDS provides the necessary background story to what’s to
come in the novel, where AIDS affects Refilwe’s life detrimentally.
The second
epigraph, which I presume you mean and refer to the second chapter—“Notes From
Heaven”—I think most of the chapter is almost as if the narrator is talking
from heaven, as Prof. Kruger wisely points out. We see motifs of death throughout the chapter:
the death of relationships between Refilwe and Refentse, Refentse mourning the
fact that Lerato cheats on him with Sammy. He’s seeing it all for what actually happened,
and in that way, it is factual since I can see this happening. However, I believe the author stylistically
wrote it in a realistic way and that the notion of viewing things from heaven
for what the events actually are is a stretch for me.
The characters
play an observational role in that they cannot affect the lives of their loved
ones on Earth, even though Refentse wants to.
In life, one can change the way things are and make things better (or
worse), and in death, these abilities cease to exist; and, in heaven, one can
only observe the rest of the planet and hope for the best. Whether one believes in heaven or not, or a
God, does not necessarily impact whether you will go to heaven, the novel seems
to suggest.
An important sentence
for me, during “Refentse’s short story,” was: “love across racial boundaries
became mental instability” (Mpe, page 57). It is a self-reflection on himself of when he
wasn’t contemplating suicide, were everything to happen just right. Nothing did turn out right though.
It seems like
gossip and rumor helped people in the end, because had people not gossiped
about Sammy’s drug addiction, they would not have attempted to help him. This was before Refentse committed suicide. Terror was a merely what it was—a rapist—and,
to me, it was a metonymy for who he was along with “child of Tiragalong,”
except it was a complicating of something that was already simply, a reminder
of who he was.
