Bessie Head's story, Maru, looks at the affects of colonialism on African people .

One of those affects was the forced divisions and racial categories set in pla ce between the Bushmen people and other Botswanians. The story begins with the b irth of a Bushmen child whose mother dies during childbirth. When the child and its mother is sent to the hospital run by local missionaries, the Botswanian nur ses disregard the mother's body. The missionary's wife, Margaret Cadmore, notice s this and records her own disgust at the prejudices. She decides to take on the caring and rearing of the infant child, but Cadmore d oesn't bother to name the girl (the girl adopts Cadmore's name) and treats her m ore like a "semi-servant," one albeit with certain equalities, but certainly not like a daughter. Nevertheless, Cadmore is educated by her benefactor and learns to sketch like her as well. Yet, Cadmore's childhood is unhappy. She is teased and mocked by other children because of her background and leads a very lonely e xistence. She is alienated from her own people and does not have a close relatio nship with her caretaker. When Cadmore is an adult, she becomes a teacher and is sent out to a village to teach in a missionary school. This provides Margaret with an opportunity to become someone. Because of her lig ht skin, many of the people think she is "colored," but Margaret refuses to be d ishonest and honestly tells people her real background if asked. For a while, th e only person who knows Margaret is a Bushmen is her colleague, Dikeledi. But so on, word gets out in the village that Margaret is a Bushmen and the villagers tr eated her disdainly. During class, her young students cause a disruption during her lesson by chanting ugly things at her. But the story is really about how Margaret's presence changes the village. Two y oung men, friends since childhood, who are or will become chiefs of their villag es, are the most affected. Moleka, whom Dikeledi loves, has fallen in love with Margaret, though he hardly knows her. Moleka wants to marry Margaret, but when t he truth of her background is revealed, he is fearful of going against the preju dices in his village. Maru, the novel's namesake, also falls in love with Margar et and uses his friends hesitance in pursuing her to his advantage. He provides Margeret with a bed, which is taken from her after it is revealed th at she is a Bushmen, then uses his sister, Dikiledi, to commission sketches, whi ch he keeps for himself. Maru's actions causes a rift with his friend. Maru sees a chance in a marriage with Margaret to change the prejudices and racial divisi ons among the people in Botswana. Since he will be chief, he feels this is his r esponsibility to break away from the chains of colonialism and bring in a new da y for his people. In the end, Moleka gets Dikiledi pregnant and marries her, though he still loves Margaret. But his refusal to be as daring and visionary as his friend prevents him from following his heart. Meanwhile, Maru proposes marriage to Margaret, who accepts, though she does not love Maru. Yet, she sees in this marriage as chanc e to become a part of the community from which she has been alienated. Maru offers an optimistic vision of what liberated south Africans can face as lo ng as they break away from the destructive and divisive affects of colonialism.

Maru, the well-written and revered novel by Bessie Head, is primarily concerned with two themes: that of love, and prejudice. Set in the rural and unforgiving v illage of Dilepe, Maru sets about exploring the ability of people to love others , despite their palpable differences. Moving in a circular sequence, the story b egins at the end of the novel, where readers are introduced to the main characte rs, Maru (who gives the novel its title) and Margaret, his new wife. Thereafter,

the story moves back in time examining all the past events that have led up to this point. Finally starting at the real beginning , readers are first exposed to t he harsh prejudices of the Batswana tribe against the Masarwa people. A dead Mas arwa woman and her live baby are found, yet no Batswana person wishes to bury he r, and so English Missionaries are called upon to perform the task. Margaret Cad more arrives, and is utterly disgusted by the discriminative attitudes of the Ba tswana nurses who have been forced to help prepare the body for burial. Moved by the true plight of the Masarwa people, Margaret Cadmore decides to adopt the ba by, and name her after herself- Margaret Cadmore. She believes by giving this ch ild the gift of education and a privileged upbringing, she will defy the prejudi ced minds that surround her. Instead, she leads a withdrawn and troubled life of ridicule and rejection. Realizing she has failed her, Margaret Cadmore returns to England, leaving a young and newly graduated Margaret behind, encouraging her to stay and help her own people. And so Margaret nervously travels to Dilepe, t o take up a teaching post at Leseding School. There she meets and befriends anot her teacher- the beautiful and confident Dikeledi, who is surprised by Margaret s candidness when she tells her that she is a Masarwa woman. Having nowhere to sta y, Dikeledi arranges for Moleka, a tribal superior, and the man that she in fact loves, to provide Margaret with accommodation. At first Margaret is fearful of him, but after he shows her kindness, she soon feels that she may love him. Mole ka shares these feelings, and despite her origins, believes that he may love her too. The School Administration however, is racist towards Margaret, and plot to have thrown out. Yet Dikeledi, who protects Margaret, thwarts the plan. Later, Dikeledi s highly admired brother Maru, returns from a business trip and learns fr om his spy, Ranko, that his great friend and rival, Moleka, has fallen for the l ikes of a Masarwa woman- Margaret. Never wanting to be challenged in any way by Moleka, Maru plots to take Margaret for himself, and trick Moleka into marrying his sister Dikeledi, who is unaware of Moleka s love for Margaret. As the story progresses, Moleka and Margaret both become deeply, but secretly affected by their love for each other. Maru, a dream er, realizes that Margaret would have a profound impact on his vision for a worl d of freedom and equality, and so proceeds with a plan to marry her himself. By pretending to be against the idea of the equal treatment of a Masarwa woman, Mar u cleverly fools Moleka into portraying himself to Margaret as one of the same w eak, prejudiced followers of the Batswana mindset. Though she still furtively lo ves Moleka, Margaret begins sharing Maru s dreams. As Maru had hoped he would, Mol eka turns to Dikeledi, feeling he has lost Margaret forever. He is forced to mar ry Dikeledi when she becomes pregnant with his child. All the while Margaret and Dikeledi are entirely unaware that they both love Moleka, but when she eventual ly hears of their marriage and Dikeledi s pregnancy, Margaret is utterly devastate d and takes to her bed. Maru has succeeded in his betrayal of Moleka, and moves to claim Margaret as his wife. Suffering painfully over her loss of Moleka, Marg aret turns to Maru and accepts his offer of marriage. Maru rejects his chieftain ship of the Batswana, and defiantly leaves the village to start anew life with M argaret. This leaves the Batswana feeling bitterly defeated, and the Masarwa tri umphant as they now believe that the power of freedom lies closely before them i n the new world that Maru and Margaret have begun laying the foundations for. Th rough her creativity and excellent use of metaphors, Bessie Head has accomplishe d both a sensitive yet honest analysis of unconditional love and the prejudices that are faced in life. Published: February 16, 2006 Bessie Head s Maru and the ideological pleasures of the text Maru's mixed-marriage, to a San woman, a Bushwoman, is the marriage plot of Maru , and a highly emotive notion in Southern Africa. I m an American, with blond hair and blue eyes. I m Germanic in descent, and I look it. When I lived in South Afri ca in 2001, I started dating a South African woman of Indian descent. The import

ant thing here is that we were a mixed couple, which, I later discovered, was st ill quite rare in South Africa in 2001. I lived in a small Afrikaner community, and to my surprise and horror, it became quite scandalous among the white commun ity, that I was dating her. I did not entirely anticipate how negatively the com munity would react, partly because the woman was a popular person in town. Her f ather was a soccer star, in a nation obsessed with soccer. Also, I didn t anticipa te it because I had many idealistic notions about the Rainbow Nation, the New So uth Africa. To make a long story short, the white community paid close attention to the skin tone of whom I slept with. Southern Africa is a place where other p eople mind your personal business. This was all the more so during Apartheid, wh en Head writes, when race was an even bigger issue than it is now. It was a bigg er issue then because of the white supremacist governments in Southern Africa, a nd a widespread ethnic war. I would like to discuss this in relation to Maru, di scuss how the mixed-marriage plot is central to plotting, and what critical beau ty we can see in its message or moral. I want to discuss how a certain ideologic al pleasure comes enacted in the dialogue about racial ideology. The South African Saturday Star writes, "Most people think we're get ting to be a rainbow nation but some still see South Africa as black and white." Probably the most complex cultural issue, and the most important one in South Af rica and Zimbabwe, is racism and racialism (a local term referring to notions of a ny kind premised on race). I use the two terms synonymously. Racialism overwhelm ingly co-ops both the criticism and the literary cannon in many ways. We can nev er underestimate ideological racialism s pervasiveness across all sectors of socie ty, and how racialism informs upon literally all text and discourse. It might se em a gross generalization unless you are directly engaged with Southern African culture, but it is not a generalization by any means. In my experience, most Sou th Africans would be the first to agree with the following statement: To some ex tent, literally everything in South Africa is about race. There can be little debate that the idea of racial ideology dominate d Southern African culture for 350 years, and remains the most emotive and salie nt tension in contemporary South African and Zimbabwean society. In the beginnin g of the 20th century, white-supremacist legislation grew increasingly draconian . As the other ethnic groups could not bear this injustice, in the second part o f the century, the liberation movements grew, and the idea of resistance to whit es grew into outright ethnic warfare. We sometimes overlook the fact that the li beration war was also an ethnic war. We overlook it because Mandela tried hard t o make the ANC movement pluralist, and representative of South Africa demographi cally. In the same token, black informants, collaborators, Coloured and Indian s ympathizers, and often-corrupt black policemen served to "colour" the Apartheid government. At the same time, from the 1950s to the early 1990s, various ideological tension s swept through Southern African culture and letters, and not coincidentally the criticism of Southern African literature, which made the idea of racial ideolog y take on new, overwhelming significance, in a society already collectively obse ssed with the question of race. This continues into the present. One ideological movement that arose during the liberation struggle, growing to i ncreasing prominence because of the Soviet Union s many proxy wars in Africa, was a sort of Africanized Marxist view. This resulted in the criticism of South Afri can literature, a view that all text is ideology, and that the value of the text i s ultimately to be gleaned as an allegory to the utopian state. In this, the cri ticism and the literature are seen as directly involved in the creation of utopi a. Thus, we have a stream of thinking in the criticism, that all art is ideologi cal. Irele in African Literature and Ideology is quick to call upon Achebe for v alidation, on the first page of his text, in claiming that All art is propaganda . One of my professors at the University of Wisconsin once remarked to me, in all seriousness, How can you speak of African literature without speaking of ideology

? This statement leaves little room for a graduate student to respond. It seemed t o me, at the time, that it was quite easy to speak of African literature without speaking of ideology. It seems even more so to me today. Suffice it to say that , in the very least, the discipline is dominated by the view of South African li terature and criticism as active ideology. This view is seen as normative, and a ny criticism outside it must struggle to legitimize itself, or, more commonly, s ink into the oblivion of not being read, not being important . And in Southern Afri ca, the most important ideology is racial ideology. Race informs upon any and al l ideological endeavor in Southern Africa. There is simply no escaping this fact . To be engaged with ideology of any kind in Southern Africa, you have to be eng aged with racial ideology. There is a definite politics, historicity, and esthetics to the criticism of Sou thern African literature. It is beyond the parameters of this essay to trace the m here, but we will sketch out some of the historical movements that led to the rise of racial ideological discourse in South African art and criticism. What re sults in contemporary criticism is an insistence on ideological criticism in man y ways; which becomes, of course, in the South African experience, an insistence that we must speak about racial ideology. Furthermore, to make the situation mo re complex in the criticism of South African literature, old Marxist notions suc h as everything is political and the personal is the political are not only accepted implicitly, but dissent from such notions is little tolerated, in what Barthes would call a repressive tolerance". The crux of what I want to say here is that the criticism of Southern African Li terature has been deliberately and systematically co-opted as an agent or actor in the actual lived dramas of Southern African tribalism and ethnic warfare. Thi s is to view racism in South Africa under the rubric of tribalism and ethnic vio lence, which is precisely what it is. What this highlights is, first, that the e thical domain of lived, historically-experienced ethnic struggle is highly conte sted, particularly within Southern Africa itself, and ethnic ideology throughout the Southern African sub-continent is highly contentious, emotive, and unclear. What tools does ethnic ideology really give us as critics? The many forms and f unctions of ethnic ideology in the criticism can only confer utility, identity, or freedom by (paradoxically) establishing a whole new set of controls. For exampl e, I have seen too many essays by young white University of Wisconsin undergradu ates that give a gloss of South African history under the rubric of the evil whi te man. This was a set of controls, a way of reading that served an ideological necessity until 1994. We know how this arose, what it means, and what it does. I 'd like to suggest that this is now, in the New South Africa, an ideological pro blem. Certainly we cannot collapse one term, South African Literature , onto another, ideo logy . The two are not the same. They share some characteristics, but it is sheer reductivism to suggest that one is the other. It is simply not so. Art is art, and ideology is ideology, in point of actual fact. It is high time we paid more att ention to this distinction, especially given that the liberation struggle is ove r, and thus so too are many of the overwhelming political necessities we had to face during Apartheid. We can now say, of a new political necessity, that all ar t is not propaganda. We can read for propaganda in art, and we can cull ideologi cal constructs from any text if we put our mind to it; but literature is not onl y or necessarily ideology. Often, ideology is not even the most meaningful or be autiful aspect of textually. To suggest otherwise reduces the text, and the crit icism, to one universalizing locus of significance. A question of freedom arises; a question of freedom from ideology, which is high ly problematic in a Southern African context. What if the reader does not wish t o read for racial ideology, for whatever reason? What if the authordoes not wish

to engage a certain ideology, for whatever reason? Unfortunately, the normative critical approach is to see no ideological position as an ideological position, universalizing and reducing discourse to one all-encompassing variable. This is to impose a prison-house of ideology on author, text, and reader, which ultimatel y becomes racial ideology in South Africa: This text is about race and ideology, and if you do not see this, then that tells us something about you. There is an o bvious fascist impulse here, inherited from the Apartheid police state, and the totalitarian impulse of Marxism. There is also the paradoxical Leftist impulse o f reactionary intolerance to any outside view, the totalitarian Leftist notion o f things "politically correct." There is also a disturbing circularity of reason operating here, one that points rather dramatically to a certain non-utility with ethnic ideology as a critical variable. "This ideological position on ethnicity is correct, because we say it is correct." It is hard to make precise statements when our frame of reasoning is circular, which is why ideology is sometimes not too terribly useful, theoret ically. Criticism in this respect becomes inherently solipsistic, a repetition. As does the discourse itself in culture; the never-ending discourse. Michael de Certeau observes in "The Arts of Theory" that "A particular problem arises when, instead of being a discourse on other discourses, as is usually the case, theor y has to advance over an area where there are no discourses" (61). As an inevita ble and perpetual repetition, as an obsession, a fetish, a perverse pleasure, ra cial ideology moves into a field where no discourse is actually possible; racial ideology is the already-said, the already-known, a discourse in a perpetual cir culating loop. An example of this is my own difficulty, which I experience as I type these words, of talking about race. As a white northern-European man, what do I know of race, what could I possibly know? What possible right do I have to speak? We have fallen suddenly into a sort of discursive void, where no discours e is possible. When taken to be an end in its own right, racial ideology ceases to be that, and transforms into something quite different: a passion, a desire, a pleasure, a w ay of being. Racial ideology becomes perverse, a type of fetish. There is a plea sure in critical hegemony that is particularly disturbing. And this underscores the fact that many critics of the older generation have a lot to lose if a new s chool of criticism arises. The generation that lived through the South African e mancipation struggle, which saw the worst abuses and degradations of Apartheid, paradoxically have a lot to lose in the New South Africa and the Rainbow Nation. This, because the shift from violent ethnic struggle, to the new status quo of pluralism and tolerance, is an extremely difficult and almost schismatic one. Al so, change is difficult for anybody, and while pluralism and tolerance were oste nsibly the notions behind the struggle, the very idea of ethnic confrontation, r evolution, and struggle, is a hard one to let go. It is a frame, a mind-set, a p assion, a way of being. Ethically, we must ask if we can stop the ethnic violence. Isn t there another fra me for our discourse? If there is (and we all know there is, Mandela for one poi nted to this path), then the question arises, what to say now? If we are not to speak of ethnic confrontation, revolution, and struggle, what purpose does the c riticism have? I would argue an admittedly formalist point of view, that it neve r really had much purpose to begin with. But more to the point for our purposes here: in the very least, ideological criticism should serve the cause of underst anding, tolerance, and integration in the Rainbow Nation, because this is precis ely what a wounded and troubled people most need at the moment. Mandela knew thi s, which might be why he and Desmond Tutu felt the need to coin a rather hokey n ew term, the "Rainbow Nation." I find Maru to be one of the most beautiful, moving novels ever writ ten. It is a masterpiece of pastoral narrative, and evokes the noblest aspiratio ns of humanity: to be like a god ( ...as though all the evils in human nature were

there by divine order and man need make no effort to become a god... [36]), to c reate a better new world. It is one of the most finely-crafted texts I know, its intricacies seemingly endless. I love this text very much, and it has changed m y life in many ways, which is not something you can often say. I also think this text the great masterpiece of the pastoral novel of the Apartheid era. Maru is a Tswana name meaning clouds , a pastoralism. The opening paragraph of Maru i s a masterpiece of pastoral narrative, figuring Maru into the Botswanan landscap e. Speaking of the clouds in the horizon, the narrator remarks, There seemed to b e a secret in their activity (5), which directly parallels a later description of Maru: But there was a depth of secret activity in him like that long, low line o f black, boiling cloud (7-8). Moleka s epithet, thundercloud brow , a pastoralism, is also figured into the landscape: ...sent soft rumbles of thunder... (5). Just as M aru is ultimately the main actor in the narrative, controlling the destinies of everyone else, so too is this expressed in the clouds: They were prisoners, pushe d back, in trapped coils of boiling cloud (5). The opening paragraph represents n ot only Maru and Moleka through signification on the land, but also the people o f Dilepe. The rains were so late that year (5) refers to how it is repeatedly que stioned in the community when, precisely, Maru will take the chieftainship. The text is characterized by parallelisms. For example, Margaret Jr. exceeds Mar garet Sr. after she goes away, and the same is implied of Moleka after Maru leav es. Maru and Dikeledi are unloved, breaking up the true love of Moleka and Marga ret. They are also siblings, whereas both Moleka and Margaret are outsiders (Mol eka is not a totem, and Margaret is a San). Parallelisms riddle the text: there are three totems, three spies for Maru, three men go into exile with Maru, and w e see three gods (Maru, Margaret, Moleka). Another parallelism arises in the flowe r motif (eg, 5, 65, 169, 103). Head worked for a while as a gardener, and later in her career, she supplemented her writing income by selling produce from her g arden. Margaret is figured as daisies: yellow dasies... were the only flowers whi ch resembled the face of his [Maru s] wife... (5). The rains were so late that year (5, 117). Rain makes flowers grow, and flowers gre w out of... love (69). Love changes everything; not only Margaret, Maru, and Mole ka, but also the village and the people. Maru has political vision, Margaret has love; so the two complement each other. Maru shows their complimentariness by a ppreciating her art and insinuating himself into it. This parallels Head s own pol itical vision; she locates political action in the sociable setting where healing , rather than incision (Chapman 380) causes social transformation. Head writes, It is preferable to change the world on the basis of love of mankind (12). Compare this with Ranko s thoughts on Maru: Every new and unacceptable idea had to be put a bruptly into practice, making no allowance for prejudice (6), and with the narrat or s later observations about Moleka: Moleka...could not make allowance for the slo w removal of prejudice. He removed it all in a day (53). We know ultimately this text is about racism in South Africa under Apartheid, and racism and tribalism t hroughout Southern Africa. Here, the text seems ideologically to be theorizing a discourse against prejudice, and the solution, or the mode of action we might s ay, is love, which becomes dramatized in the marriage plot. Maru was a king in their society... (6), but forsakes the chieftainship. Chapman w rites, Although the chief had ultimate authority, his power was restricted in tha t royalty was embodied in all the close members of the royal family and any one of them could become chief. Despite strict rules of succession, bad rule [ie mar rying a San in our context with Maru] could be challenged...Among the Southern B antu, it is said that a chief is a chief by birth, but is also a chief by the pe ople... (52). We see Maru's political dispossession in the end of the novel: When people of Dilepe village heard about the marriage of Maru, they began to talk a bout him as if he had died (126). Maru is also a type of fairy-tale god: He never doubted the voices of the gods in

his heart (8), Maru, who was a king of heaven... (35). Maru also performs seeming ly supernatural acts, such as his insinuating himself into Margaret s art, and his leaving his creation for a place far away (a trope of the gods in Southern Africa n fairy tale). But Maru also has an earthly self, bound to the deep center of the earth (7). Chapman writes, the consonance of earthly and mystical life is summari zed in the idea of the land as providing both physical and sacred roots of exist ence in binding the living to the ancestral living-dead (51). Moleka comes to surpass Maru. Moleka had a greater power than he had (10), and he also comes to assume godliness like Maru: It was as though he had always had God under his skin (57). His gods... talked to him in his heart (ibid). Maru, of course , sees this transformation: At first Maru blinked, thinking he almost saw a repli ca of himself... (ibid). Margaret is also a goddess: She looks like a goddess (15) . She marries Maru the god, and flees with him far away, for Who else made a god overnight but a goddess? (67). Southern African creation myths generally articula te a pattern where the gods create a New World (eg 7, 50, 68, 108, 110--one of t he primary motifs of the text). The gods then move on, becoming remote from thei r creation: They were heading... a thousand miles away where the sun rose new and new and new each day (125). Eg: Magona s To My Children s Children: would-be guardian angel always lived far, far away... (5). Note that the novel begins at the end; the temporal sequence has been altered. Ho w were they to know that... this was not an end of him, but a beginning? (126). T he story is not actually over. Maru is aware that his wife still loves Moleka (p erhaps even more than him), and also that Moleka had a greater power than he had ( 10). The novel actually concludes (in terms of temporal sequence) with Maru in br ooding and uncertainty (ibid--also c.f. the clouds of the opening paragraph: cloud s clung in thick folds of brooding darkness ). Not much has actually been resolved as far as Maru is concerned, but the temporal sequence of the novel has been ma nipulated to give the novel the appearance of conclusion. The marriage, it seems , is the central structure; and en the end, the marriage changes things. The mar riage itself becomes the ultimate outcome is in question, the future, the unknow n, the "that-which-is-being-theorized." The marriage, in this respect, figures s omething much bigger than marriage itself. Rachel M. Brownstein s Becoming a Heroine discusses the construction of the heroin e within the marriage plot. Maru is--among other plottings--a marriage plot. Bro wnstein writes that the heroine is formed by making herself unique (in beauty, i n morals) and preserving this uniqueness despite stresses, false suitors, and th e like. This uniqueness is affirmed (she becomes a heroine) when she marries; Br ownstein sees marriage (in the marriage plot) as a validation of the heroine s str iving to preserve her uniqueness. The marriage plot most novels depend on is abou t finding validation of one s uniqueness and importance by being singled out among all other women by a man. The man s love is proof of the girl s value, and payment for it... It is not megalomaniacal to want to be significant; it is only human (x v). Margaret's marriage to Maru does indeed make her significant: Who knew where life and destiny would take...[her] as long as their lives were attached to Maru? (6) . Dikeledi recognizes her uniqueness: I am not like you, Margaret... (24), as does the narrator: How did life prepare one for the unusual? (30). Being singled out b y Moleka validates her uniqueness and importance: Now something had stabilized he r (30-1). Moleka too recognizes her uniqueness: It was not like anything he had fe lt before, whereas with Dikeledi, It was a matter of the bloodstream ; Margaret has a bruptly arrested his life (32). Maru too only chooses women with some special qual ity (35). Ranko notices her uniqueness and is bewitched (55). Even the people of th e village notice her uniqueness: The next day people noticed that the new mistres s had dignity and respect for everyone (51). Margaret is the best woman in the world , while Maru had ensured that Moleka had the

next best woman in the world (9). The man s possession of the woman is a key dynam ic here: He walked in the door and said softly, My sweetheart. They were the most p recious words... (10). Brownstein writes, The paradigmatic heroine... is a creatur e of art and idea. She is unlike all other women, being important and unique, bu t she is also quintessentially feminine, therefore representative of her sex.... Beautiful and virtuous as real people never are, she is the Ideal incarnate. Th erefore, in romance, the Lover seeks her... (xxi). Margaret does seem to be an id ealization of love. She says, I can t understand beastliness because it would never occur to me to be beastly (18), and on p. 30 she raises her hand to her heart (i e love), and on p. 31 Moleka feels compelled to do the same. Margaret s beauty humb led and defeated (57) Moleka. Brownstein writes, The heroine at the center of the marriage plot is informed by the novelist s vision of character and destiny. She i s made in the image of an integral, aesthetically and morally coherent unique in dividual, a signifying self. Her special relation to this image distinguishes he r from other women; ... it is what makes her a heroine... The tenure and mainten ance of the integral self is a theme in novels about heroines (xvi). Margaret s foster mother told her, One day, you will help your people. This created a purpose and burden in... [her] mind (17). In light of the conclusion, this seems to be the real crux of Margaret's uniqueness and her heroism; it seems to be th e air of tolerance her marriage creates in Dilepi. Brownstein writes, As a studen t... I learned that the marriage plot... adumbrates a larger message... When I rer ead those novels later, in a feminist climate, the story about the girl s getting married seemed obviously the most important part (xvii). Is the marriage plot the most important part of Maru? Certainly marriage is a key plot dynamic in the sh aping of Maru s new world. Maru says, Moleka is only half a statement of his kingdo m. Someone else makes up the whole. It is the person he now loves (58). Brownstei n writes, The marriage plot poses questions about how the sexual is bound up in the moral life, about the coexistence of intimacy and identity, about how very odd it is t o choose another so as to chose a self, about whether one can be who one is whil e living a generic woman s life, about the possibility of managing and shaping and comprehending the point of a determined female destiny The novel heroine figures in a critical inquiry into absolutes... The novel heroine is both a representat ion... and a metaphor.... She is not only the image of a believable person but a lso the image of an ideal. This happens when she is identified with art, with a novel which often bears her name. In her metaphorical self, a heroine stands for an integral self that can be located, defined, defended. This image is outlined by the story about how her self realized. Therefore there is often some irony i nvolved in the relationship of the novel heroine to her story. The self-awarenes s that makes her see herself as other--as a heroine--leads her to chose a fate t hat, while perfectly a heroine s, is rather too simplifying to be perfectly hers (x xii). Margaret has chosen a fate that helps create a better world ( perfectly a heroine s [fate] ), rather than choosing her true love ( she totally loved Moleka [8]). This te nsion leaves Maru brooding and uncertain (10). In this, she becomes "a little bit of everything in the whole universe (20). Maru in this respect becomes an ideological inquiry into absolutes, and clearly these absolutes are about race. Maru becomes an inquiry into the theorizing of a pluralist, tolerant society, a place where absolutes turn into relative notions , a society where we can no longer assume things based on race. In the end, as I close the cover to Maru, I certainly feel some definite pleasure in the text; s omething good, something pleasurable, has been dramatized in the marriage plot. In many ways Maru is theorizing a discourse against racial ideology, but the tex t becomes more valuable in an ethical sense, in the sense of what is important t o the needs of the New South Africa. Maru theorizes the making of a pluralist, t olerant society, and seeks emotively to validate it, to make it beautiful, to ma

ke it pleasurable. The marriage becomes the first, key step in the construction of a new world, a New South Africa, and a new esthetic of what is beautiful, wha t is actually pleasurable in racial ideology. Bessie Head's ideological stance during the liberation was often criticized. If anything, our esthetic appraisal of what is meaningful, what is significant, wha t is beautiful in art, needs to be re-thought in the context of the New South Af rica. Describing Maru's ideology as liberal platitudes (as has been said) is a s ort of selective blindness to the realities of the New South Africa, and the con temporary goals of the Rainbow Nation. For one thing, this is the ideology that won the day, and the hearts and minds of the people. Moreover, it is not a liber al platitude to call for integration and tolerance in South Africa; these are ve ry hard things, especially for a culture that just stepped out of 350 years of i nstitutionalized racism. Maru's ideological call was, and still is in South Afri ca, quite revolutionary.