When Rain Clouds Gather

CHAPTER 8
Paulina revealed
ANALYSIS

This chapter talks mainly about Paulina, her character, her thoughts etc. Along with it there is emphasis on certain themes. We, the readers, also get to know the other personalities more like Maria and Makhaya. There are no antagonistic acts in this chapter and so I would like to call the chapter Paulina revealed.

Being a person with strong mental and physical abilities she has a strong personality. This was clearly visible in this chapter because she was leading the tobacco plantation along with Makhaya and also it was her who made the plantation stable, as gilbert thinks: ‘she was invaluable to him, and without her energy and initiative nothing would start,’(page 123, 2^nd paragraph). However she was weak in one aspect in her life which was love affairs. This was depicted from the lines ‘she was physically alive woman and she was also physically frustrated, and what she needed was someone who could end this frustrations” (page 116, 1^st paragraph) other than this she was also good in arguing with people and would always win at last. Other than this she was a caring mother as she knit up a complete cap for her son as soon as she got to know he would cough every day. Like everyone else in Golema Mmidi, she had her own views regarding foreigners. She says that when you are in a different place, you have to blend in. This was understood from the quote she gave ‘When you are in Rome, you must do as the Romans do?’ (pg. 113).

In this chapter we also come across other personalities like Maria and Makhaya. Within this chapter there are no antagonists as stated before, however this chapter tells us about the hard work the protagonists are doing and also about their characters. We learn more about Maria in this chapter. We can see that she is a smart person, because she handles situations greatly. This was proved when we see, she withdraws from the verbal fight between her and Paulina and also when we said “I haven’t smoked cigarettes… and women who do aren’t brave. They are only boaster.”(pg. 122). This statement proves that she doesn’t believe in false pride or bravery whereas Pauline believes in it because she says she is one of the smokers and is brave for she smokes. Maria however has changes in thoughts often, that’s why it was described in the book that “she had been known to say grass is green one day and then flatly announce that it was yellow on the next”(pg. 121). But it is also know that she understands men, because she explained the truth to Pauline that Makhaya doesn’t like goat meat and sour milk, even though he disagrees to that statement.

Few themes are also shown in this chapter; especially the topic of the relationship between a man and woman is repeated constantly by Paulina. Women were regarded inferior to men and that’s why all ladies were startled when Makhaya spoke to them equally. More-over we can also notice that Paulina was addressing Makhaya as Sir when she asked him for lunch. However we can even see one more aspect that Paulina stated was about hard work. She said “No men ever worked harder than Botswana women”(pg. 108) this also depicts the theme of Hard work done by the village people for their living,, and this is also connected to their main attitude of working hard to make life better. That’s why all the ladies together are working for tobacco plantation.

Slight glimpse of another them was noticed which the child’s role in their daily lives was. First we see a girl who would happily accept money for mistreating her, then we can see in other chapters that a small girl created a connection between a man and woman and now we can see that a small girl is making a miniature village treeless, like barren land like the conditions of Golema Mmidi where Makhaya and Gilbert make up some trees which foreshadows that they would be responsible for the day when the village is a green, happy village with no poverty or mistreatment.

However Bessie Heads’ general theme is still portrayed here where the protagonist is very good and pure. Makhaya in this case is told have a magical personality, who takes away the sadness in us even though himself he has a flat motionless hardworking body. He has a good goal of a happy ending of having children and a family. He is responsible for teaching all the ladies the plantation techniques and also helps them in it. The second protagonist also is shown to have great thoughts, like “this shed meant the difference between having no money and capital to set up a network of bone holes reservoir in Golema Mmidi.”(pg. 118).

There are not many changes in the settings. It was the tobacco plantation and Paulina’s house. The only place which was interesting was the miniature village which was the view of the complete village all together. With all this improvement in characters and settings we hope to read a better tomorrow for all the characters and their ambitions.  Thank you all for listening.

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