Key matenge s personality sketch essay

This kind of assignment is founded on Bessie Head’s classic book, When Rainfall Clouds Gather. It gives an assessment of one of the novel’s main personas, Chief Matenge and in the procedure exposes him as a great undoubtedly tainted leader. This is supported by the countless intertwined information and quotations that show his figure as such an innovator and these are generally selected and presented from your novel.

Byrne, Kalua, Scheepers and Sl?de (2012: 100) provide the foundation for the reader’s agreement that Chief Matenge can be described as corrupt head which in turn styles the whole negative perspective of his personality when they identify him because representing the “Old Africa at its worst ” moral degeneration.

Under-going the whole book the reader struggles and eventually seems to lose the battle in finding anywhere where virtually any positive thoughts are connected with Chief Matenge. Bryne ou al (2012: 100) present Matenge as being a “villain, a bad person who is definitely openly corrupt.

He is indubitably the antagonist and the opposer of Gilbert Balfour and Makhaya who also generally stand for good in the name of progress and development in the novel.

Head (1987: 18) introduces Chief Matenge as Very important Chief Sekoto’s “troublesome and unpopular young brother. This already gives the reader a thought of what sort of personality Main Matenge provides. This description of him sets the tone in the whole novel when he is further more described applying such adjectives and phrases as “overwhelming avariciousness and “unpleasant personality, (Head 1987: 18).

It quickly becomes obvious that Primary Matenge’s close friend, Paramount Chief Sekoto would not like his own buddy, as the statement “nothing upset Key Sekoto higher than a visit by his buddy, whom he had long categorized as of the insane component to mankind (Head 1987: 48) clearly displays. Paramount Chief Sekoto has been said to have constantly sided with villagers who also his brother constantly disappointed. Head (1987: 18) gives Matenge since having a “devil that forced him and would settle down after some chastising coming from Chief Sekoto only to wake up its “clamouring and howling a few several weeks later.

Matenge’s wickedness is definitely further open for use in the would like of Chief Sekoto to destroy him for “all the relatives feuds and intrigues he had instigated (Head 1987: 20). Ironically, Vital Chief Sekoto was not what one would contact a glowing example of morality. Chief Sekoto, “although having been widely known as being a good chief (Head 1987: 19) exactly like his sibling Matenge “lived off the slave labour in the poor wonderful lands were ploughed cost-free by the poor, and he was washed, bathed and given by the poor (Head 1987: 19). In return Matenge likewise strongly despised his sibling Paramount Primary Sekoto.

Mind (1987: 42) discloses this when the lady reveals his thoughts about his buddy who this individual secretly believed was “an amicable, pleasurable nitwit of the brother in the supreme location. Matenge desired is brother’s position of Paramount Chief. Matenge is known as “evil many times inside the novel. Dinorego further exposes this evilness or corruptness when he confides in Makhaya that he (Matenge) was your evil pressure delaying improvement in the community. Dinorego discloses Matenge’s aventure to “damage and “delay the starting of the farmville farm and the cows co-operative which are projects which might be supposed to push development inside the village.

Matenge is said to obtain particularly sabotaged Gilbert Balfour on the cows co-operative as they was privately benefitting via buying the poor villagers’ cows at a low price and making enormous profits at that time selling these people at a much higher value. Matenge had taken advantage of the poor villagers’ failure to hire train trucks to move their own cows because they will could not afford it. Matenge fought Gilbert Balfour’s cattle co-operative because it would set him bankrupt. Matenge’s falsehoods and cunningness are obviously portrayed when he lies to the villagers that Gilbert desired to enslave all of them

“Was this true that they wanted to find out, that Gilbert had privately purchased property from the paramount Chief and was using the name co-operative to enslave the people? That was what Chief Matenge had informed them (Head 1987: 35). The reader probably would not hesitate to label Matenge as greedy and self-centered. Head (1987: 41) reveals that Matenge lived alone (before Joas Tsepe joined him) within a “big cream-painted mansion. The other villagers are believed to have lived in small and old fashioned mud huts and had been in fact prohibited to build brick houses without permission through the Chief that was rarely presented, if at all.

Mind (1987: 41) goes on to mention that the central village in which Matenge’s estate was situated contained “one very poor basic dealer’s shop which provided the villagers with the “bare necessities like sugar, tea and “cheap materials and shoes between other items. The location of Matenge’s “big mansion was also in proximity to a “three-roomed shack which is the town primary college. The jarring contrast of Matenge’s apparently luxurious lifestyle and his natural environment nauseates you and echoes loudly of his greediness and selfishness.

The reader can safely imply Matenge to be a tribalist. Byrne et al (1987: 100) identify tribalism because the practice of progressing one’s own tribe previously mentioned others and judging others on the basis of their tribal beginnings. Matenge is described as a “die hard traditionalist (Head 1987: 42). He needed things to continue to be the same. He’s said to possess understood tribalism and that it was “essentially the rule from the illiterate man who if he was in most, feared and despised anything that was not an integral part of the unfathomable darkness by which he lived.

(Head 1987: 65) additional portrays his disgust to get other people when he is said to have terminated Dinorego’s handmade at some point with a “slight motion of the brain which contained in it a great inheritance of centuries of contempt intended for the ordinary gentleman.  His shaky and opportunistic marriage with Joas Tsepe is another revelation of Matenge’s lopsided and damaged character. Joas Tsepe was also damaged and this is definitely revealed in the sponsor that was shrouded in puzzle who offered him with money which in turn enabled him to remain out of work and to travel and leisure every 6 months by atmosphere as a very important person. Matenge also has xenophobic tendencies.

His wish to pursue Makhaya out from the village quite definitely smelt on this. This is exposed when George Apple-by confides in Makhaya that Matenge wants him “removed from the village because he is a renardière. Refugees had been generally not really liked in Botswana in the time the book’s setting the moment many originated in South Africa jogging away from Racisme, but Matenge’s particular hatred for Makhaya as a refugee and all just like him comes out if he referred to him as a “South African swine who always needs to run after his master (Head 1987: 66), talking about Makhaya’s close association with Gilbert Balfour.

To say Makhaya was thoroughly offended at this time is an understatement to get unbeknown to Matenge, this individual secretly formed thoughts of murdering him. In conclusion Head (1987: 43) could not include summed up Chief Matenge’s character better when the girl described him as “the epitome of night with his extended gloomy, melancholy, suspicious deal with and his ceaseless intrigues, nasty jealousy and hatred.

Makhaya also translates him to many unsavoury items such as a “lout, cheat, doggie and swine and he reckoned the “Matenges all over the place got themselves into a position over the poor (Head 1987: 136) The reader agrees with Training for mma Millipede when ever she gently but unsuspectingly accurately anticipates Chief Matenge’s demise. Your woman tries to calm Makhaya after his dramatic encounter with Chief Matenge where he can be labeled a South Africa swine and says, “People who go overboard against man life like each of our Chief and the white gentleman (referring to Apartheid in South Africa) do so because they are even more blind than others towards the mystery of life.

A little while life will certainly catch up with them and put all of them away forever or alter them (Head 169: 137). In Key Matenge’s circumstance, he was unfortunate to not suffer the later of these predictions, but the past. After he comes back via a rather very long absence through the village, this individual immediately gets back to what he is aware of best and summons Pauline and six village parents to be attempted. Unbeknown to him, the complete village was excited that the day got arrived that they can would encounter their “persecutor of many years (Head 169: 184).

Since Matenge has not been expecting a large group, he panics, retreats into the house, and rather than facing the masses, commits suicide, and the reader discovers an additional hidden persona that was lurking in Matenge all along, cowardice. Not even his servants prepare him at his moments of need; they will beat a hasty retreat and keep him to manage his concerns alone and his eyes are exposed and perhaps this individual finally views himself to get the huge that he can. The saddest part is definitely not even his brother is quiet disappointed by his demise. Key Sekoto’s digestion is said to obtain been “upset the whole day by Matenge’s death, Head (1987: 189).

The reader is sure it is not as they is grieving for his brother yet he is unappreciative of the fuss and difficulty that the loss of life causes. These kinds of is the fortune of the villain of When rain atmosphere gather. Someone applauds Bessie Head on successfully creating a fitted villain who have one are unable to help nevertheless hate. OPTIONS CONSULTED Byrne, D, Kalua, F & Scheepers, Ur. 2012. Foundations in English language Literary Studies. Only research Guide for ENG1501. Pretoria: University of South Africa Head, B. 1987. When Rainfall Clouds Gather. Heinemann.

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