![]() ![]() Her eyes happened to fall on a candlebox under the table, where the scrubbing brushes and soap were kept, and she said to the boy: “Scrub this floor.” She was shocked when she heard her own voice, for she had not known she was going to speak. She felt that she must do something, and at once, to restore her poise. ![]() What had happened was that the formal pattern of black-and-white, mistress-and-servant, had been broken by the personal relation and when a white man in Africa by accident looks into the eyes of a native and sees the human being (which it is his chief preoccupation to avoid), his sense of guilt, which he denies, fumes up in resentment and he brings down the whip. ![]() And since so many white women are like her, turning with relief to the bottle, she was in good company, and did not think of herself, but rather of these black women, as strange they were alien and primitive creatures with ugly desires she could not bear to think about. The idea of a child’s lips on her breasts made her feel quite sick at the thought of it she would involuntarily clasp her hands over her breasts, as if protecting them from a violation. "Their babies hanging on to them like leeches," she said to herself shuddering, for she thought with horror of suckling a child. Above all, she hated the way they suckled their babies, with their breasts hanging down for everyone to see there was something in their calm satisfied maternity that made her blood boil. She could not bear to see them sitting there on the grass, their legs tucked under them in that traditional timeless pose, as peaceful and uncaring as if it did not matter whether the store was opened, or whether it remained shut all day and they would have to return tomorrow. She hated the exposed fleshiness of them, their soft brown bodies and soft bashful faces that were also insolent and inquisitive, and their chattering voices that held a brazen fleshy undertone. If she disliked native men, she loathed the women. They are nothing but savages after all.” Thus Dick, who had never stopped to reflect that these same savages had cooked for him better than his wife did, had run his house, had given him a comfortable existence, as far as his pinched life could be comfortable, for years. If you want to get work out of them you have to know how to manage them. I won't come back home to this damned fight, fight, fight in the house. “Listen to me,” said Dick curtly, “I work hard enough, don't I? All day I am down on the lands with these lazy black savages, fighting them to get some work out of them. Why must that bath be done all at once? It can be done over several days, if it means all that to you.” “He’s a human being, isn't he? He's got to eat. “If you must do these things, then you must take the consequences,” said Dick wearily. Despite (or perhaps because of) this, she accurately predicts the fact that Moses will murder her. Mary suffers several nervous breakdowns over the course of the novel and by the final chapter is severely mentally incapacitated. At the same time, she harbors a perverse fascination with native people, and particularly Moses, a farm worker she strikes with a sambok and with whom, two years later, she develops an intimate, possibly sexual relationship. For reasons that are never made entirely clear, Mary’s racism is unusually intense and sadistic, even for a white South African. However, the biggest source of conflict in Mary’s life comes from her treatment of native people. She is a strong-willed, independent, and remarkably feminist woman who resents having to live on someone else’s terms. Mary marries Dick Turner as a result of social pressure, and it is clear almost immediately that she is ill-suited to Dick’s rural life. (There is also a strong suggestion that Mary’s father sexually abused her, although this is never stated explicitly however, it is made clear that events from her childhood leave her repulsed by sex.) Once Mary’s parents die, she embarks on a joyful and fulfilling life in an unnamed town, working as a secretary, living in a club for single women, and attending social events every night. The daughter of white South African-born parents, Mary’s childhood is blighted by her father’s alcoholism and her mother’s endless misery. ![]() The novel begins with Mary Turner’s death, and the plot largely revolves around her character. ![]()
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