Thandi Hadebe Character Analysis

Wife to Dingani Masuku, mother to Marcus and Krystle, and adoptive mother to Genie, Thandi grows up on the Beauford Farm and Estate with strict parents. In adolescence, Thandi gets special treatment due to her beauty, and she becomes passive and unambitious. One teacher, Golide’s sister Minenhle, pushes Thandi to aspire to more, but Thandi interprets Minenhle’s encouragement as jealousy. During a conflict implied to be the Zimbabwe War of Independence (1964-1979), soldiers invade Minenhle’s classroom and demand that she point out the prettiest student. When Minenhle chooses Thandi, a soldier forces Thandi to jump into a latrine and leaves her to drown in sewage. Though Thandi survives, she is traumatized and conceives a deep hatred for Minenhle. Afterward, Thandi runs away to the city to pursue modeling and meets Dingani Masuku, who impregnates her. They marry, leave their baby, Marcus, with Thandi’s parents, and move to the U.S. for Dingani’s medical training. While in the U.S., they have a daughter, Krystle. They move home to fetch Marcus after hearing about political violence in the area around the Beauford Farm and Estates. After government soldiers massacre the farm’s residents, killing Thandi’s parents, Thandi and Dingani adopt orphaned Genie—though Thandi is motivated partly out of hatred for Minenhle, who also wants to adopt Genie. Later, Thandi suffers sexual harassment from The Man Himself, the country’s postcolonial leader, who tells her that he owns her husband and thus her. When Dingani acts resigned to the situation, Thandi becomes enraged. Once her children grow up, she divorces him and moves to Belgium. When Genie falls into a coma at age 39, Thandi blames Genie’s lover, Vida, for Genie’s refusal of additional medical interventions, and she wants to force Genie back into the hospital. Though other members of the Masuku family recognize that they have treated Genie badly, it’s not clear that Thandi ever does.