Previous
Boston
Miriam Ngidi is an 18-year-old mother of an infant son who gets her water from a public tap down the street from Tsotsi’s room. During her pregnancy, her husband Simon, who was participating in a bus boycott, vanished while walking to work one morning. Because, during apartheid, bus boycotts were associated with Black South Africans’ protest against their political oppression and economic exploitation, the novel may be implying that white supremacists—perhaps policemen—killed Simon for participating. In that case, Miriam’s family is another example of apartheid destroying Black families and taking Black parents away from their children. After her husband’s disappearance, Miriam becomes antisocial and stingy, caring only for her own child. Tsotsi coerces Miriam into cleaning and breastfeeding the baby he has adopted by threatening her infant son. At this point, her chance comment (that a dog would treat its puppies better than this baby’s mother treated him) triggers Tsotsi to regain his memories. Though at first Tsotsi’s sickly, dirty adoptive son repulses Miriam, she has a change of heart after praying and hearing a voice ask why it should grant her prayer if she won’t feed babies—an episode suggesting that Miriam’s new generosity and sympathy are religiously motivated. After hearing the voice, Miriam offers to adopt and care for Tsotsi’s baby. Although Tsotsi may be developing feelings for Miriam—toward the novel’s end, he resolves to tell her his birth name, David Madondo—he fears she will take the baby and so hides him in the ruins, an untrusting decision that ultimately leads to his own death and likely the baby’s as well.
Miriam Ngidi Quotes in Tsotsi
The Tsotsi quotes below are all either spoken by Miriam Ngidi or refer to Miriam Ngidi. 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:
).
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:
Page Number and Citation:
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 10
Quotes
‘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.’
‘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:
Related Symbols:
Page Number and Citation:
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 11
Quotes
‘Why Boston? What did do it?’
A sudden elation lit up Boston’s face; he tried to smile, but his lips wouldn’t move, and his nose started throbbing, but despite the pain he whispered back at Tsotsi: ‘You are asking me about God.’
‘God.’
‘You are asking me about God, Tsotsi. About God, about God.’
Chapter 12
Quotes
It was a new day and what he had thought out last night was still there, inside him. Only one thing was important to him now. ‘Come back,’ the woman had said. ‘Come back, Tsotsi.’
I must correct her, he thought. ‘My name is David Madondo.’
He said it aloud in the almost empty street, and laughed. The man delivering milk heard him, and looking up said, ‘Peace my brother.’
‘Peace be with you’, David Madondo replied and carried on his way.
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.
Get the entire Tsotsi LitChart as a printable PDF.
Miriam Ngidi Quotes in Tsotsi
The Tsotsi quotes below are all either spoken by Miriam Ngidi or refer to Miriam Ngidi. 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:
).
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:
Page Number and Citation:
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 10
Quotes
‘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.’
‘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:
Related Symbols:
Page Number and Citation:
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 11
Quotes
‘Why Boston? What did do it?’
A sudden elation lit up Boston’s face; he tried to smile, but his lips wouldn’t move, and his nose started throbbing, but despite the pain he whispered back at Tsotsi: ‘You are asking me about God.’
‘God.’
‘You are asking me about God, Tsotsi. About God, about God.’
Chapter 12
Quotes
It was a new day and what he had thought out last night was still there, inside him. Only one thing was important to him now. ‘Come back,’ the woman had said. ‘Come back, Tsotsi.’
I must correct her, he thought. ‘My name is David Madondo.’
He said it aloud in the almost empty street, and laughed. The man delivering milk heard him, and looking up said, ‘Peace my brother.’
‘Peace be with you’, David Madondo replied and carried on his way.
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.
