Battle for Daughter's Affection

Ma’Shingayi grows a hardened, bitter heart after Nhamo’s death. Due to the only life she knows, she accepts her limitations and refuses to see past them. She is entrapped because she is a woman and will not be seen more than just a household organizer. She is bitter because she is not educated and this dwell’s on her self esteem. Ma’Shingayi is fed up with the all of the issues of colonialism and womanhood. Ma’Shingayi’s speech on pages 142-143 shows her catharsis after the issue of Lucia and Takesure. She does not like that Maiguru is educated and that others choose to listen to her. It is ignorance on Ma’Shingayi’s part because she chooses to settle in her cultural lifestyle. She treats the ‘Englishness’ of Maiguru and Tambu as if it were a spell that the ‘witch’ Maiguru is trying to cast on the ones Ma’Shingayi loves. She says that Maiguru is “not decent because first she killed my son and now she has taken my Tambudzai away from me” (143). Maiguru did not kill her son but her ignorance will not lead her to believe otherwise. She wants to scar Maiguru’s name in front of the other women by saying she is not decent. In the end, she is trying to get Tambu to see that Maiguru is the antagonist and that Maiguru has poisoned Tambu’s ways African ways with European ways. Ma’Shingayi is ultimately saying colonialism equals death and because we know she is ignorant of other ways; we almost sort of sympathize with her. Ma’Shingayi really just wants to be loved by her daughter and to have a voice within her family.