Compiled and Circulated by Samir Kuilya, Faculty Member, Dept.

of English, Narajole Raj College

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z

Bessie Emery Head was born on 6 th July, 1937 in Pietermaritzburg, South Africa. She
was the African writer who described the contradictions and shortcomings of pre- and
postcolonial African society in morally didactic novels and stories.

Head was born of an illegal union between her white mother who was placed in a
mental asylum during her pregnancy and black father who then mysteriously disappeared.
She suffered rejection and alienation at an early age. After moving from foster parents to an
orphanage school to an early marriage, she abandoned her homeland, her teaching job, and
her husband and took her small son to Botswana, seeking personal asylum and tranquility in
simple village life.

Head’s remarkable novels are When Rain Clouds Gather (1969) , Maru (1971), A Question
of Power (1973) etc. The Collector of Treasures (1977), a volume of short fiction, includes
brief vignettes of traditional Botswanan village life, terrible tales of witchcraft, and passionate attacks
on African male chauvinism.

Head said that literature must be a reflection of daily encounters with undistinguished people.
Her works reveal empathy with children, with women treated as “dead things” in South Africa, and
with idealistic planners who meet indifference and greed at the marketplace.

Head continued her writing till to the death . She died on 17 th April, 1986, at the age of 48.

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Characters in the short story:-

1.) Dikeledi Mokipi- Housewife and protagonist of the short story .She murders her husband.

(2.) Garesego – Dikeledi’s Husband.

(3.) Paul Theoblo – Dikeledi’s neighbor

SEM –V , Paper-C11T :Post-Colonial Literature, Topic- Besie Head’s ‘The Collector of the Treasures’
 Compiled and Circulated by Samir Kuilya, Faculty Member, Dept. of English, Narajole Raj College
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(4.) Kenalepe – Paul’s wife

(5.) Kebonye – Dikeledi’s friend in prison.

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The Collector of Treasures is a short story which is written by South African-

Botswanan author Bessie Head. There are thirteen short stories that revolve around the character
Botswanan people who go through number of changes. It focuses on the problems and oppression
faced by women in Botswana and how it shapes their life and characters as individuals and as Africans
living in Botawania.
**The Story in a nutshell
The short story is about a South African woman named Dikeledi who was married
to Garesego who was a knave and not a good husband or father. He made Dikeledi pregnant three
times after which Garesego left her.

Her husband who had destroyed her family was murdered by Dikiledi and towards the end of
the story, Dikiledi found some forms of happiness in the darkest moment. she did not think about her
past and the different negative aspects of her life.

She found happiness even in her prison life. The story, ends with a man named Paul Thebolo who
helped her by taking care of her children while she was in the prison and there was her husband
who tried at his best to destroy her family.

SEM –V , Paper-C11T :Post-Colonial Literature, Topic- Besie Head’s ‘The Collector of the Treasures’
 Compiled and Circulated by Samir Kuilya, Faculty Member, Dept. of English, Narajole Raj College
==============================================

Q.) Significance of the title of the short story,’The Collector of the Treasures’

Bessie Head’s story “The Collector of Treasures” is a dramatic reflection of the oppressive
attitudes of men in her culture towards the women and children they are supposed to care for and love.
Head establishes this theme by contrasting the marriage of her protagonist, Dikeledi, and her husband
Garesego, with the much more tender one of their neighbours, Kenalepe and Paul Thebolo.

Before she actually even introduces the Thebolos, Head observes that there are two types of men:
those who have sex with their women like dogs, out of pure carnal lust; and those who really care about
women as human beings.

The protagonist’s husband, Garesego, is the first type of man. He got Dikeledi pregnant three
times in four years and then left her, continuing to live in the same village but assuming no
responsibility for either his wife or his sons. For many years thereafter, she never approaches him for
cooperation for either herself or her children, apparently regarding it as a matter of pride that she is able
to feed and clothe them and pay for their primary school educations out of the small income she is able
to earn sewing and knitting for others in the village.

Her neighbour Kenalepe’s husband, Paul, is completely different from Garesego. Kenalepe and
Paul have a loving marriage and a wonderful sex life, which Kenalepe describes for her friend in great
detail. Discovering that men like Paul exist is an eye-opening experience for Dikeledi. It shows her that
there are men who do not act like sex-crazed dogs, and who respect their women. It induces her to try to
approach Garesego again—not for sex, but to try to convince him to pay the school fees so their oldest
son can go to secondary school, which is more expensive than the primary school the youngest children
attend. She only needs a small amount of money, having saved the rest herself, and knows that this
would be no financial burden for him.

SEM –V , Paper-C11T :Post-Colonial Literature, Topic- Besie Head’s ‘The Collector of the Treasures’
 Compiled and Circulated by Samir Kuilya, Faculty Member, Dept. of English, Narajole Raj College
==============================================
Garesego, on the other hand, thinks that any favour done for a woman should be done in
recompense for sex. He proves this in his allegations about Paul; he assumes that if Paul has given
Garesego’s wife a sack of grain (which he has, in payment for clothes Dikeledi made for his daughters)
then Paul must be getting sex out of the deal as well. As for that, Garesego doesn’t care—he doesn’t
want Dikeledi any more, and has no problem with Paul having her—but he simply cannot conceive that
there could be any kind of relationship or even a transaction between males and females that doesn’t
involve some sexual component.

Consequently, when he contacts Dikeledi about the possibility of giving her money for their son’s
education, he tells her he is coming back home and she should prepare a hot bath for him. Not being a
total fool, Dikeledi knows what this means. After he bathes, he will want to have sex; and after he has
sex, he might or might not consider giving her money. But this is not an acceptable tradeoff for
Dikeledi, because she knows that Paul Thebolo would demand no such thing. Sex has nothing to do with
school tuition; sex has everything to do with love, and Garesego doesn’t love Dikeledi and she doesn’t
love him. But for Garesego, sex also has to do with power, and in this case having sex with Dikeledi
when she needs something from him would express his power over her.

Please mark it as an brainlist answer

Consequently, after Garesego has had his dinner and his bath and gotten comfortably drunk, he
toddles off to bed expecting Dikeledi to follow. Once he has fallen asleep, Dikeledi pulls a butcher knife
out from under the bed and cuts off what she delicately calls his “special parts.” The fact that she will be
convicted of manslaughter does not deter her, for she realizes she cannot live this way any longer. Paul
promises to raise her children as he would his own, and Dikeledi goes on to a new stage in her life, this
time in prison.

Head’s title, “The Collector of Treasures,” is tremendously ironic on the surface, for it would
seem that what Dikeledi has collected in her lifetime is not treasure but heartbreak. Yet Head’s opening
passages, showing how well Dikeledi has adjusted to prison life and the closeness of the women who
SEM –V , Paper-C11T :Post-Colonial Literature, Topic- Besie Head’s ‘The Collector of the Treasures’
 Compiled and Circulated by Samir Kuilya, Faculty Member, Dept. of English, Narajole Raj College
==============================================
have been placed in prison for the same crime, shows that Dikeledi really doesn’t feel her life has been
that bad. She has learned much more from her hardships than Kenalepe has learned from her good
fortune, and in her travels through life she has managed to earn the respect of men like Paul and women
like Kebonye. The fact that her marriage was a disaster has actually made her strong, and she is much
more centered in her sense of self than Kenalepe who has had a much easier life. As Dikeledi observes,
throughout her hard life she has looked beneath the surface and collected small treasures, and these give
her the strength to go on.

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SEM –V , Paper-C11T :Post-Colonial Literature, Topic- Besie Head’s ‘The Collector of the Treasures’