Tsotsi

by

Athol Fugard

David’s Mother (Tondi) Character Analysis

Tondi is the mother of David (i.e., Tsotsi when he is 10 years old). She is a comforting presence who likes to hum and sing. She takes care of David and shares the family’s food with an elderly woman who is economically and socially dependent on her. All David’s life, his mother has been telling him about his absent father and promising him that his father would return. The night before David’s father returns, however, white police raid David’s neighborhood, arrest his mother for not having a pass required of her by apartheid law, and take her away in a van. Her arrest precipitates David’s homelessness, memory loss, and eventual membership in a child gang, which leads to David becoming Tsotsi.

David’s Mother (Tondi) Quotes in Tsotsi

The Tsotsi quotes below are all either spoken by David’s Mother (Tondi) or refer to David’s Mother (Tondi). For each quote, you can also see the other characters and themes related to it (each theme is indicated by its own dot and icon, like this one:
Apartheid and Racism Theme Icon
).
Chapter 6 Quotes

Are his hands soft? he would ask himself, and then shake his head in anger and desperation at the futility of the question. But no sooner did he stop asking it than another would occur. Has he got a mother? This question was persistent. Hasn’t he got a mother? Didn’t she love him? Didn’t she sing him songs? He was really asking how do men come to be what they become. For all he knew others might have asked the same question about himself. There were times when he didn’t feel human. He knew he didn’t look it.

Related Characters: Tsotsi (David), Morris Tshabalala , David’s Mother (Tondi)
Page Number: 88
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 7 Quotes

I must give him something, he thought. I must give this strange and terrible night something back for all it has given me. With the instinct of his kind, he turned to beauty and gave back the most beautiful thing he knew.

‘Mothers love their children. I know. I remember. They sing us songs when we are small. I’m telling you, tsotsi. Mothers love their children.’

After this there was silence for the words to register and make their meaning, for Tsotsi to stand up and say in reply: ‘They don’t. I’m telling you, I know they don’t,’ and then he walked away.

Related Characters: Tsotsi (David), Morris Tshabalala , David’s Mother (Tondi)
Page Number: 115
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 8 Quotes

So she carried on, outwardly adjusting the pattern of her life as best she could, like taking in washing, doing odd cleaning jobs in the nearby white suburb. Inwardly she had fallen into something like a possessive sleep where the same dream is dreamt over and over again. She seldom smiled now, kept to herself and her baby, asked no favours and gave none, hoarding as it were the moments and things in her life.

Related Characters: Tsotsi (David), The Baby, Miriam Ngidi, David’s Mother (Tondi)
Page Number: 135
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 9 Quotes

On she came, until a foot or so away the chain stopped her, and although she pulled at this with her teeth until her breathing was tense and rattled she could go no further, so she lay down there, twisting her body so that the hindquarters fell apart and, like that, fighting all the time, her ribs heaving, she gave birth to the stillborn litter, and then died beside them.

Related Characters: Tsotsi (David), The Baby, David’s Mother (Tondi)
Related Symbols: Yellow Dog
Page Number: 161
Explanation and Analysis:

Petah turned to David. ‘Willie no good. You not Willie. What is your name? Talk! Trust me, man. I help you.’

David’s eyes grew round and vacant, stared at the darkness. A tiny sound, a thin squeaking voice, struggled out: ‘David…’ it said, ‘David! But no more! He dead! He dead too, like Willie, like Joji.’

Related Characters: Tsotsi (David) (speaker), Petah (speaker), David’s Mother (Tondi)
Page Number: 166-167
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 10 Quotes

The baby and David, himself that is, at first confused, had now merged into one and the same person. The police raid, the river, and Petah, the spider spinning his web, the grey day and the smell of damp newspapers were a future awaiting the baby. It was outside itself. He could sympathize with it in its defencelessness against the terrible events awaiting it.

Related Characters: Tsotsi (David), The Baby, David’s Mother (Tondi)
Page Number: 175
Explanation and Analysis:

‘Last night I was sad and I bent on my knees and did pray for something and a voice said, “Why should I give you what you ask me for, when you got no milk for babies.” Please give him to me.’

Related Characters: Miriam Ngidi (speaker), Tsotsi (David), The Baby, David’s Mother (Tondi)
Page Number: 181
Explanation and Analysis:

‘What are you going to do with him?’

‘Keep him.’

‘Why?’

He threw back his head, and she saw the shine of desperation on his forehead as he struggled with that mighty word. Why, why was he? No more revenge. No more hate. The riddle of the yellow bitch was solved—all of this in a few days and in as short a time the hold on his life by the blind, black, minute hands had grown tighter. Why?

‘Because I must find out,’ he said.

Related Characters: Tsotsi (David) (speaker), Miriam Ngidi (speaker), The Baby, Boston, David’s Mother (Tondi)
Related Symbols: Yellow Dog
Page Number: 182
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 12 Quotes

To an incredible extent a peaceful existence was dependent upon knowing just when to say no or yes to the white man.

Related Characters: Tsotsi (David), Morris Tshabalala , Isaiah, David’s Mother (Tondi), Miss Marriot
Page Number: 211
Explanation and Analysis:

The slum clearance had entered a second and decisive stage. The white township had grown impatient. The ruins, they said, were being built up again and as many were still coming in as they carried off in lorries to the new locations or in vans to the jails. So they had sent in the bulldozers to raze the buildings completely to the ground.

Related Characters: Tsotsi (David), The Baby, Miriam Ngidi, David’s Mother (Tondi)
Page Number: 225
Explanation and Analysis:
Get the entire Tsotsi LitChart as a printable PDF.
Tsotsi PDF

David’s Mother (Tondi) Quotes in Tsotsi

The Tsotsi quotes below are all either spoken by David’s Mother (Tondi) or refer to David’s Mother (Tondi). For each quote, you can also see the other characters and themes related to it (each theme is indicated by its own dot and icon, like this one:
Apartheid and Racism Theme Icon
).
Chapter 6 Quotes

Are his hands soft? he would ask himself, and then shake his head in anger and desperation at the futility of the question. But no sooner did he stop asking it than another would occur. Has he got a mother? This question was persistent. Hasn’t he got a mother? Didn’t she love him? Didn’t she sing him songs? He was really asking how do men come to be what they become. For all he knew others might have asked the same question about himself. There were times when he didn’t feel human. He knew he didn’t look it.

Related Characters: Tsotsi (David), Morris Tshabalala , David’s Mother (Tondi)
Page Number: 88
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 7 Quotes

I must give him something, he thought. I must give this strange and terrible night something back for all it has given me. With the instinct of his kind, he turned to beauty and gave back the most beautiful thing he knew.

‘Mothers love their children. I know. I remember. They sing us songs when we are small. I’m telling you, tsotsi. Mothers love their children.’

After this there was silence for the words to register and make their meaning, for Tsotsi to stand up and say in reply: ‘They don’t. I’m telling you, I know they don’t,’ and then he walked away.

Related Characters: Tsotsi (David), Morris Tshabalala , David’s Mother (Tondi)
Page Number: 115
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 8 Quotes

So she carried on, outwardly adjusting the pattern of her life as best she could, like taking in washing, doing odd cleaning jobs in the nearby white suburb. Inwardly she had fallen into something like a possessive sleep where the same dream is dreamt over and over again. She seldom smiled now, kept to herself and her baby, asked no favours and gave none, hoarding as it were the moments and things in her life.

Related Characters: Tsotsi (David), The Baby, Miriam Ngidi, David’s Mother (Tondi)
Page Number: 135
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 9 Quotes

On she came, until a foot or so away the chain stopped her, and although she pulled at this with her teeth until her breathing was tense and rattled she could go no further, so she lay down there, twisting her body so that the hindquarters fell apart and, like that, fighting all the time, her ribs heaving, she gave birth to the stillborn litter, and then died beside them.

Related Characters: Tsotsi (David), The Baby, David’s Mother (Tondi)
Related Symbols: Yellow Dog
Page Number: 161
Explanation and Analysis:

Petah turned to David. ‘Willie no good. You not Willie. What is your name? Talk! Trust me, man. I help you.’

David’s eyes grew round and vacant, stared at the darkness. A tiny sound, a thin squeaking voice, struggled out: ‘David…’ it said, ‘David! But no more! He dead! He dead too, like Willie, like Joji.’

Related Characters: Tsotsi (David) (speaker), Petah (speaker), David’s Mother (Tondi)
Page Number: 166-167
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 10 Quotes

The baby and David, himself that is, at first confused, had now merged into one and the same person. The police raid, the river, and Petah, the spider spinning his web, the grey day and the smell of damp newspapers were a future awaiting the baby. It was outside itself. He could sympathize with it in its defencelessness against the terrible events awaiting it.

Related Characters: Tsotsi (David), The Baby, David’s Mother (Tondi)
Page Number: 175
Explanation and Analysis:

‘Last night I was sad and I bent on my knees and did pray for something and a voice said, “Why should I give you what you ask me for, when you got no milk for babies.” Please give him to me.’

Related Characters: Miriam Ngidi (speaker), Tsotsi (David), The Baby, David’s Mother (Tondi)
Page Number: 181
Explanation and Analysis:

‘What are you going to do with him?’

‘Keep him.’

‘Why?’

He threw back his head, and she saw the shine of desperation on his forehead as he struggled with that mighty word. Why, why was he? No more revenge. No more hate. The riddle of the yellow bitch was solved—all of this in a few days and in as short a time the hold on his life by the blind, black, minute hands had grown tighter. Why?

‘Because I must find out,’ he said.

Related Characters: Tsotsi (David) (speaker), Miriam Ngidi (speaker), The Baby, Boston, David’s Mother (Tondi)
Related Symbols: Yellow Dog
Page Number: 182
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 12 Quotes

To an incredible extent a peaceful existence was dependent upon knowing just when to say no or yes to the white man.

Related Characters: Tsotsi (David), Morris Tshabalala , Isaiah, David’s Mother (Tondi), Miss Marriot
Page Number: 211
Explanation and Analysis:

The slum clearance had entered a second and decisive stage. The white township had grown impatient. The ruins, they said, were being built up again and as many were still coming in as they carried off in lorries to the new locations or in vans to the jails. So they had sent in the bulldozers to raze the buildings completely to the ground.

Related Characters: Tsotsi (David), The Baby, Miriam Ngidi, David’s Mother (Tondi)
Page Number: 225
Explanation and Analysis: