Tsotsi Novel Summary

Posted By admin On 01/08/22

Tsotsi Novel Summary Example
Tsotsi Book Summary Chapter 3
Tsotsi Novel Summary Novel

Tsotsi Novel Summary Example

Tsotsi is set in 1956, give or take, in Sophiatown, a township on the outskirts of Johannesburg, South Africa. It was written by Fugard in the early months of 1960 after Sophiatown had been destroyed by the white community in Johannesburg and, therefore, there is an inevitability to its destruction. This inevitability is expressed in the gangs of slum clearance workers and in the language where, for example, the remnants of broken houses are described as being like”skulls”. Tsotsi – Chapter Summaries. Tsotsi, Boston, Butcher and Die Aap sit around the Tsotsi’s room drinking beer in silence, waiting for him to specify what job they will do that night. Tsotsi decides they will head to the train station where their unsuspecting victim, Gumboot Dhlamini, begins to head home to his wife.

Tsotsi Book Summary Chapter 3

The Tsotsi we meet at the beginning of the novel is a heartless killer who preys on the most vulnerable of his fellow beings. He is a nihilist, that is, someone who believes that human values are worthless and that life is a pointless charade. He has a “basic horror of existence”.
Tsotsi (Presley Chweneyagae) is a petty-crime gang leader. He and his friends Boston, Aap and Butcher (Mothusi Magano, Kenneth Nkosi, Zenzo Ngqobe) rob a older man on a crowded subway then Butcher stabs him quietly and they flee once the subway is empty. Boston is sick afterwards.

Tsotsi Novel Summary Novel

The novel Tsotsi, by Athol Fugard, is a story of redemption and reconciliation, facing the past, and confronts the core elements of human nature. The character going through this journey, who the novel is named after, is a young man who is part of the lowest level of society in a poor shanty town in South Africa. Tsotsi is a thug, someone who kills for money and suffers no remorse. But he starts changing when circumstance finds him in possession of a baby, which acts as a catalyst in his life. A chain of events leads him to regain memories of his childhood and discover why he is the way he is. The novel sets parameters of being “human” and brings these to the consideration of the reader. The reader’s limits of redemption are challenged as…show more content…
It is from this inhumane being that the novel begins the story of change.
At the start of the novel Tsotsi knows very little about himself and endeavours to keep it that way. It is a rule of his to not think about his past or raise any questions about it. “His second rule which operated then on through every other moment of the day was never to disturb his inward darkness with the light of a thought about himself or the attempt at a memory” (36). This is because he doesn’t know the answers to questions about his past and instinctually fears memories, the reason of which is revealed later. But it is Boston, a member of his gang who is the one to raise questions, which initiates a thought process. He became conscious of the fact that he does not know very much about himself. It is in this mind state that he discovers a catalyst in his life.
By chance Tsotsi is given a baby. The effect that this baby has on him is life changing, because rather than abandoning it he cares for it. This involves him learning to look after it, against everything that he previously knew about himself and at the risk of his reputation. He doesn’t know at first why he cares for it but gradually learns. The baby evokes unknown feelings in Tsotsi, but more importantly it brings forth the memory of a yellow bitch. This memory has a powerful effect on Tsotsi and for once he found that “he was curious” (59) about his