Kaffir Boy: Chapter 28 Summary & Analysis

A few months later, Mathabane decides that he wants to die. The world seems too full of suffering and the future seems to hold no hope for him. Although he’s always been a fighter like his mother, on a particular winter afternoon he feels “unloved, unwanted, abandoned, and betrayed” by the world. Mathabane takes a long butterfly knife and contemplates how he will kill himself, thinking he will run himself through like a gladiator in a movie. As he thinks about this, doubts linger. His mother finds him, and though he tries to hide the knife from her, she’s already seen it.

In a fearful voice, Mathabane asks if anyone will miss him if he dies. His mother reminds him of how much his sisters and brother need an older sibling to look out for them, to care for and protect them. Mathabane realizes she is right. His mother tells him that most of all, she would miss him. He is her greatest hope in the world, and she would want to die if he died. Mathabane’s mother hugs him and he gives her the knife. She pays close attention to his moods from that day forward.