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Chapter 2
Themes
Key
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in Tsotsi, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
Apartheid and Racism
Parents and Children
Identity and Memory
Hatred, Sympathy, and God
Habit vs. Choice
Summary
Analysis
Leaving Soekie’s, Tsotsi passes Rosie but ignores her. Boston’s words keep playing in his mind. Tsotsi watches a house party across the street and sees two girls run from the house chased by a drunk man. He almost manages to focus on the moment when the drunk man falls in a way that reminds him of Boston on the floor. Walking along, Tsotsi passes a church and begins to run “like a man possessed” out of the township toward the white suburb.
Tsotsi ignoring Rosie—when he knows Butcher and Die Aap have just raped her—emphasizes once again his lack of sympathy for his gang’s victims. Yet Boston’s argument for sympathy and his religious language have clearly affected Tsotsi: when he sees a church, he runs away “like a man possessed,” a figure of speech that refers to demonic possession and suggests that Tsotsi is in some sense opposed to or afraid of God.
Themes
Literary Devices
Tsotsi runs until his mind goes blank and then stops under a lamppost. Seeing headlights, he realizes it may be police—they prowl the white suburb—so he slips into the darkness. Walking aimlessly, he sees a stand of bluegum trees and decides to rest there. As soon as he sits under a tree, he remembers Boston again. Just as he recruited Die Aap for his strength and Butcher for his violence, Tsotsi recruited Boston for his intelligence, which helps the gang elude capture. Tsotsi wonders why the arrangement stopped working. He concludes that it’s because Boston asked questions Tsotsi didn’t know the answers to.
By mentioning that police prowl the white suburb—presumably to keep out non-white people—the novel reminds the reader that in apartheid South Africa, the law served primarily not to uphold justice or protect all citizens, but to enforce segregation and oppress young Black men like Tsotsi. Tsotsi’s conclusion that the gang is failing because Boston asked too many questions about Tsotsi’s forgotten past, meanwhile, reveals how frightened Tsotsi is of his own true identity.
Themes
Literary Devices
Tsotsi imagines his inner life as “darkness.” When he sleeps, he doesn’t dream, and both his outer and inner worlds are dark. To keep this from bothering him, he rigidly follows a few rules. First, every morning when he wakes up remembering nothing, he immediately checks his knife. He tests its sharpness and sharpens it if it’s dull. Otherwise, he plays with it. It makes him feel better: “The knife was not only his weapon, but also a fetish, a talisman that conjured away bad spirits and established him securely in his life.”
Second, Tsotsi refuses to think about himself or try to remember his own past. He finds this rule difficult to follow, because sometimes the external world elicits vague memories from him. For example, “the smell of wet newspaper” is suggestive to him. One time, he was playing dice on the street when a policeman walked by, and Tsotsi thought he recognized the beaten young man (later revealed to be Petah) in his custody. When the young man saw Tsotsi, he looked excited and smiled. When Tsotsi didn’t acknowledge him, the young man called Tsotsi “David,” identified himself as “Petah,” and asked for help. Tsotsi, ignoring him, continued to play dice.
Themes
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Third, Tsotsi won’t allow people to ask questions about him, because questions make him aware of “the vast depths of his darkness.” These empty depths threaten him with a “nothingness,” which he fears. Tsotsi believes that hiding beneath external reality, including “men’s prayers,” is nothingness. Violence allows Tsotsi to assert himself against this terrifying nothingness.
Themes
Literary Devices
Tsotsi, tired of thinking, stands to leave when he hears footsteps. Hiding behind a bluegum tree, he sees a young Black woman carrying something and glancing behind her. As she approaches, Tsotsi sees she’s carrying a shoebox. Heartbeat quickening, Tsotsi moves through the trees to intercept her. As she enters the trees, he grabs her, puts a hand over her mouth to muffle her scream, and shoves her against a tree.
Themes
Tsotsi puts his knee between her legs and, while she struggles and holds tighter to the shoebox, examines her. She pulls her mouth free and screams again. Something about the shoebox catches his attention, and he moves away. She looks at the shoebox “with a horror deeper than her fear of him.” She pushes the shoebox at him and, when he takes it, runs away. The shoebox lid falls off, and Tsotsi sees a baby inside. He recognizes that what made him move away from the woman was the sound of a baby crying.
Themes
Literary Devices
