Chapter Analysis
Chapter 10
In this chapter, Tsotsi comes to terms with the significant turning point in his life.
He has a clearer memory of his past: The riddle of the yellow dog has been
solved and he remembers the details of the night he lost his loving mother and
his secure home and entered a pain-filled existence, which was dominated by
merciless cruelty and the need to survive at all costs.
Tsotsi wakes up to an insistent knocking on his door. At first, he is confused, and
then his first comprehensive thoughts are of Miriam and then of the baby.
The fact that he only thinks of his knife after thinking about Miriam and the baby
shows that he no longer thinks of killing as his first priority.
The insistent knocking is from Die Aap and Tsotsi does not want him there.
Nontheless, Tsotsi ‘gently hid the baby under the bed’ – this shows his growing
compassion.
Tsotsi cannot think of a clear reason to give Die Aap about why he does not
want him there, except to utter the words ‘My mother’. Die Aap does not
understand, but Tsotsi comes to the realisation that everyone has a mother. This is
suggestive of Tsotsi’s growing humanity.
Die Aap informs Tsotsi that Butcher is gone and will not return. He was angry at
Tsotsi for doing a job alone. This brings another realization: Both Boston and
Butcher are gone, therefore the gang is finished.
Tsotsi has a momentary thought about starting a new gang, but then remembers
the life he had before his life of gangs.
Die Aap seems to have some sort of blind loyalty (‘Two years Tsotsi’) towards
Tsotsi and would probably be lost without the gang as it provides him with
security and an identity.
Tsotsi has named the baby David. He waits for Miriam to go to the water point
again and then finds her to feed the baby. Miriam comes prepared and Tsotsi
realises that she wants to be there.
Miriam asks Tsotsi to give her the baby so that she can take care of him, but Tsotsi
refuses because he realizes the baby is enabling him to remember his past.
Also, Tsotsi identifies strongly with baby David – the baby’s vulnerability reminds
him of his own precarious and fragile childhood.
Tsotsi goes in search of Boston, presumably because he wants to ask him about
his – Tsotsi’s – strange new thoughts and feelings.
Contextual Questions
1. Chapter 3 describes Tsotsi’s rules for survival. What indication is there now that
those rules no longer apply?
2. How does the author show that Tsotsi is struggling to adjust to the fact that he
has remembered his childhood?
3. The author uses comic relief to ease the tension at the beginning of this
chapter. How does he do this?
4. Explain why the word “rejoiced” is such a strange word to use in relation to
Tsotsi.
5. Look carefully at the way in which Tsotsi expresses himself in this chapter. How is
it different from the way in which the author structured sentences in the
previous chapters, and what does it signify?
6. Tsotsi’s changing psyche is also revealed in his interaction with
Miriam. What do you notice about his observations of her as she
stands in the water queue?
7. Why do you think Tsotsi wants to call the baby David?
8. Analyse Tsotsi’s flashback to the game he and the lost boys play in
the dusty old car in the river.
9. Tsotsi shows a desire to keep the baby. Why do you think he wants
to do this?
10. What is revealed about the timeline of the events in the novel?
