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Tsotsi’s Knife
In Tsotsi, the yellow dog represents Black families’ destruction by South African apartheid. The novel’s protagonist Tsotsi, a gang member who remembers nothing about his past, has his first flashback to the yellow dog after a desperate young Black woman gives him a baby in a shoebox and runs away. That an abandoned baby triggers the flashback clearly associates the dog with family separation. Later, when Tsotsi steps on the hand of Morris Tshabalala, a former mine worker who lost his legs in a tunnel collapse, Morris calls him “whelp of a yellow bitch.” Immediately, Tsotsi has another flashback to the yellow dog, who is female (literally a “bitch”). By having Morris call Tsotsi a yellow dog’s “whelp,” the novel mysteriously connects the yellow dog to Tsotsi’s own mother, whom Tsotsi cannot remember. When Miriam Ngidi, a young mother whom Tsotsi coerces into breastfeeding his adopted baby, criticizes the woman who abandoned the baby, saying, “a bitch in a backyard would look after its puppies better,” Tsotsi finally remembers his childhood. When he was 10 years old, his father was scheduled to return to him and his mother the next day after a long absence. The yellow dog was Tsotsi’s family pet, pregnant with puppies. The night before his father’s return, white police raided his neighborhood and arrested his mother for not having the pass required of Black people under apartheid law. The next day, his father knocked on the door, but Tsotsi, terrified, hid in the backyard. When his father came into the backyard, the yellow dog snarled at him, so the father kicked her, breaking her back legs. After his father left, Tsotsi saw the dog give birth to dead puppies and then die from her injuries. Thus, late in the novel, it is revealed that the yellow dog haunting Tsotsi’s memories symbolizes how apartheid destroyed Tsotsi’s family—stealing his mother and alienating him from his father.
Yellow Dog Quotes in Tsotsi
The Tsotsi quotes below all refer to the symbol of Yellow Dog. 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:
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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.
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Chapter 10
Quotes
‘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.
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Get the entire Tsotsi LitChart as a printable PDF.
Yellow Dog Symbol Timeline in Tsotsi
The timeline below shows where the symbol Yellow Dog appears in Tsotsi. The colored dots and icons indicate which themes are associated with that appearance.
Chapter 4
...baby. All of a sudden, Tsotsi had a memory of a “yellow bitch”—that is, a yellow dog , which is female—“crawling” at him and “whimper[ing].” Tsotsi came back from the memory kneeling...
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Chapter 5
...Boston because he has started thinking about milk, the baby, and his memory of the yellow dog . He realizes he can’t control his thoughts. He’s also become aware of Butcher and...
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Chapter 6
...hand, he cries out, “Whelp of a yellow bitch!”—in other words, puppy of a female yellow dog . He cries out not because of the pain but because he dislikes being seen....
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Chapter 7
...When Tsotsi steps on Morris’s hand—not on purpose—he’s been thinking about his memory of the yellow dog . Morris calling him “whelp of a yellow bitch” at that moment startles and terrifies...
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...Tsotsi follows Morris, engrossed by his disability. Eventually he realizes Morris carries himself like the yellow dog of Tsotsi’s memory, which leads Tsotsi to realize that the yellow dog’s back legs were...
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...and think, but his thoughts move so fast—from Boston cutting himself, to the baby, the yellow dog , Morris urinating, and so on—that he can’t make sense of them. Only when he...
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...continue to care for the baby and try to uncover his memories, starting with the yellow dog . Perhaps most importantly, he has realized that he has the choice to break with...
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Chapter 9
David goes into the yard and stops a “safe distance” from the yellow dog . David and the dog once played together, but now she snarls if he comes...
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...and she will come back. He listens for noise indicating she’s coming. He hears the yellow dog outside but not his mother. He begins to call out for her.
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...name. David hears “wild breaking noise” from the house. Footsteps travel into the yard. The yellow dog snarls, and then David hears her yell in pain. The footsteps move away, the voice...
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David looks at the yellow dog . Someone has kicked her and broken her back legs. She crawls toward the coop...
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Chapter 10
...he’s going to keep him. She asks why. Tsotsi considers the question, thinking of the yellow dog and the connection he feels to the baby, and says he “must find out.” Miriam,...
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Chapter 11
...his youth. He tries to catch the thread of Tsotsi’s story, hears something about a yellow dog and Tsotsi’s mother, and is surprised by Tsotsi having a mother. He recalls his own...
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