Themes
Key
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in Mother to Mother, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
The Legacy of Colonialism and Apartheid
Family, Tradition, and Obligation
Language, Storytelling, and History
Summary
Analysis
Mandisa jolts awake early in the morning. She still feels tired, having slept nervously and fitfully. She wonders what woke her up, and realizes it was the sound of a car door being quietly shut. She wonders if Mxolisi has arrived by car. She comforts herself by asserting her son “is not a bad boy,” just a student caught up in politics. She reasons that two weeks ago he saved a girl from an attempted rape, proving he’s not a bad person.
Mandisa tries to use anecdotal evidence to prove to herself that her son “is not a bad boy,” but doesn’t seem fully convinced. Her thoughts reveal that there is a blurry line between being “a bad boy” and a politically active one in apartheid-era South Africa, as political action feels necessarily tied up in violence in the face of a cruel and corrupt government.
Themes
Mandisa stands in silence for a moment, before she is startled by banding on the windows, walls, and doors. Her house has been surrounded by police officers. Dwadwa jumps out of bed and pulls on a pair of pants. Siziwe runs into her parents’ room and hides in their bed. Mandisa comforts her, as the police announce themselves and demand the family “open up.” Mandisa worries about Mxolisi again, but knows the police wouldn’t come to announce that something bad happened to him.
The fact that the police wouldn’t come to personally deliver bad news further paints the police force as callous and cruel—they care little about what happens to the people they’re supposed to serve and protect and only prioritize an in-person meeting when they’re trying to intimidate people in the community, as they do here to Mandisa’s family.
Themes
Dwadwa goes to open the door, but the police break it down before they have a chance. The police accuse the family of taking too long to open the door because they are hiding something, and retaliate by breaking apart the furniture in the house. Even as the police destroy Mandisa’s home, she is relieved they are really are law enforcement, and not some anonymous mob. Still, she wonders why they’re here. The police don’t help black South Africans in Guguletu, and have even been responsible for several deaths.
The police prove to be small-minded and sadistic, as they are clearly anxious to get Mandisa’s family in trouble for something. They settle on the idea that the family must be hiding something since they took so long to open the door—even though everyone was asleep and thus foggy and bewildered—and use that excuse to inflict further violence by trashing their house.
Themes
Police pull Mandisa from the bedroom by her collar, dragging along the floor to the kitchen, where a man questions her, shouting “where is he?” over and over, finally clarifying he’s looking for her son. When she asks which one, the police officer has to ask a black policeman, who tells Mandisa they’re looking for Mxolisi. Mandisa truthfully explains she doesn’t know where Mxolisi is, and the white police officer slaps her.
This passage reveals that the police force isn’t made up of only white people. However, given Mxolisi’s gang’s earlier description of the police as “pigs,” it seems like the community sees the police officers as the despicable hands and feet of the government, regardless of their race. The white police officers treat Mandisa terribly, knowing that they will face no repercussions for their actions.
Themes
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The police continue to dismantle the house. They destroy the hokkie where Mxolisi and Lunga slept, look in the rafters, in closets, and under beds. As they leave, although they know Lunga is not Mxolisi, they beat him anyway, joking that “you must be your brother’s keeper.” Finally, the police leave. However, Mandisa knows that even though the police have left, she and her family will never be the same again, and are now in “the eye of a raging storm.”
In referring to Lunga as his “brother’s keeper,” the police officers suggest that Lunga is responsible for Mxolisi and thus deserves to be beaten up since he doesn’t know where his brother is—yet another excuse to enact more violence. The phrase comes from the biblical Book of Genesis; after murdering his brother, Abel, Cain tells God that he’s not his “brother’s keeper,” thus trying to evade responsibility for not taking care of him. This is an interesting offshoot to the novel’s more central question of whether or not parents should be held accountable for their children’s decisions.
Themes
