THE THEMES OF SOUTH AFRICAN PROSE

The Case of Mine Boy Peter Abrahams

Plot Summary
Mine Boy opens with Xuma arriving in the impoverished and mostly black Johannesburg
slum of Malay Camp. Xuma is a farm boy who has come from the economically depressed
north in search of work in a gold mine. With no money and nowhere to stay, Xuma is taken
in by Leah, an illicit beer seller. At Leah's, Xuma meets Daddy, Ma Plank, Joseph,
and Dladla, all of whom confuse him with their drunkenness, violence, and apparent lack of
beliefs. In exchange for a room and food, Leah expects Xuma to use his considerable size and
strength to assist her. Xuma is confused by her kindness, but appreciates that she takes a
shine to him.
Xuma wakes up to discover that two women are fighting out in front of Leah's while a crowd
watches eagerly. Leah breaks up the fight and takes the injured women to her house to rest.
An employee of Leah's named Joseph takes Xuma out walking; it is Saturday—a holiday for
black people in Johannesburg, who have received their wages and so are spending money on
shopping, drinking, and gambling. A police van suddenly arrives and people scatter. Xuma
refuses to move, saying that he has done nothing wrong. However, a white police officer
strikes Xuma with his stick, causing Xuma to knock the officer out with a punch. Xuma runs
away and is led to safety by a colored man (a mixed-race South African) who hides him in his
house until the police give up their search.

Xuma returns to Malay Camp later that day; Joseph and Leah are relieved, but they caution
him to run in the future. Leah takes Xuma for a walk and he witnesses her give a black
policeman a bribe to keep her updated about planned raids of beer sellers. That evening
Xuma meets Eliza, Leah's niece. He is immediately drawn to her beauty. They go out on a
walk together up a hill outside of town. In the distance Xuma sees a hill and Eliza explains
that it is a mine dump—white sand dug out of the gold mines. Xuma attempts to kiss her, but
she runs away, leaving Xuma confused and angry.
The next day Xuma and Johannes walk to the mine, where Johannes can get him a job. A
white man at the mine commands Xuma to push a truck full of sand that usually requires the
work of two men. Xuma manages to move the truck, but injures his leg on the axle. Xuma's
boss, a white Irishman with red hair named Paddy, brings him to the mine site doctor for
bandaging. Paddy tells Xuma that he will be his righthand man and will lead a group of
miners, whom he must threaten with violence if they do not cooperate.
Back at Malay Camp, Xuma finds Eliza has brought another man home—a fellow teacher
who dresses and speaks like a white man. Xuma meets Maisy, who takes a liking for him. He
goes out dancing with Maisy but his mind is preoccupied with thoughts of Eliza. That night,
Eliza goes to Xuma's room and they kiss. However, Eliza becomes conflicted and admits that
she has assimilationist aspirations: though she is black, she does not feel black inside. She
wants to be like white people, and wants a man who shares her aspiration.
Months pass. Xuma has his own room in Malay Camp, having needed to get away from
Leah's and his obsessive thoughts about Eliza. One night he meets his boss Paddy and his
girlfriend Di on the street. They invite him to dinner, but he is reluctant to be friends with a
white man. Reluctantly Xuma goes up, and he feels uncomfortable to be in such a nice
apartment full of white men's modern conveniences, such as electric lights and central
heating. While Paddy is out of the room, Xuma confides in Di about Eliza. After Xuma's
departure Paddy tells Di that Xuma will grow into a strong leader who will fight back against
racial oppression, but Di feels differently: she speaks of Xuma as though he is not fully
human.
One night Xuma returns to Leah's place, where he and Eliza confess their love for one
another before having sex. Xuma falls asleep happy, but in the morning Eliza is cold and tells
him that the night before was a mistake. Feeling blank and confused, Xuma turns to Maisy
for comfort. They travel to Hoopvlei, a town outside Johannesburg. During the pleasant
Sunday outing, Xuma contrasts Maisy's embrace of life with Eliza's cold, reserved nature.
After taking a taxi back to Malay Camp, Maisy puts Xuma to bed in her room at her
employer's house, where she works as a maid.

Maisy wakes Xuma very early in the morning and he leaves for work. Johannes tells him that
Dladla is informing on Leah to the police and Paddy informs Xuma that their crew will be on
shift for a month. Xuma and Paddy notice a trickle of water compromising the tunnel's
structure, but an engineer inspects it and says the mine shaft is safe to work in. Xuma notices
a worker is coughing up blood. The man explains that he needs to keep working because he is
in debt to a white man and is afraid of losing his family's property. To Xuma's surprise,
Paddy steps in and has the man assessed by the mine doctor. Having been diagnosed with
lung sickness, the man is entitled to a severance payout that covers his debts and a train ticket
back to his family. The man rejoices but immediately begins coughing up more blood.

After work Xuma and Maisy go to inform Leah about Dladla. At Malay Camp, he runs into
Eliza, who confesses her love for him. Xuma is delighted and agrees to take her in as his
woman. Leah throws a party that night to celebrate the couple and give them her blessing.
Thereafter, Eliza moves into Xuma's room and they establish a comfortable domestic life. But
the period of happiness does not last long: soon Daddy, another one of Leah's boarders, dies
from internal injuries after being struck by a car. Eliza does nothing to comfort Leah in her
grief, and after one more night of lovemaking with Xuma, she leaves him in the night to take
a train ride away from Malay Camp, asking Ma Plank to deliver the news to Xuma in the
morning. Soon after, Leah is arrested for beer selling after a successful sting operation by
local police.

The tragic and confusing events lead Xuma into a depression. After Leah's trial, Paddy
notices Xuma's anger and attempts to sympathize. However, Xuma does not believe a white
man could possibly understand the oppression and injustice he has dealt with. Paddy tries to
explain that he cares despite his race, and discusses the idea of thinking of himself as a man
first and a black or white man second. After some resistance, Xuma begins to imagine what it
would be like to live in a society without color, where people were people, and not divided
into a hierarchy by color. Xuma falls asleep inspired by the images and ideas passing through
his mind.

The next morning, Xuma returns to work at the mine, only to discover that the shaft has
collapsed. Chris and Johannes had held the roof while the workers escaped, and had become
trapped in the process. Xuma and Paddy go underground, returning soon after with Chris and
Johannes dead in their arms. The manager and the engineer try to attribute the losses to
unnecessary panics and order the remaining miners to go underground and work again. Xuma
grows furious and demands that repairs be made first; the workers side with Xuma and so
does Paddy. In response to the workers' strike, the mine management calls in the police, who
swarm in to attack the striking miners. In his panic, Xuma escapes, running all the way to
Maisy's employer's house to tell Maisy what has happened and how he imagines becoming a
man without color. Xuma says he will turn himself in, because it will be good for a black man
to tell the white people how he feels. He then promises Maisy that he loves her and asks her
to wait for him to be released from prison. Together, they walk toward the police station. The
novel ends with an ominous image of Malay Camp and Johannesburg going dark at night,
leaving the question of Xuma's fate unanswered.

Mine Boy Character List

Xuma
Xuma is the novel's protagonist. Xuma leaves his family farm in the economically depressed
north to work in a Johannesburg gold mine, where he encounters the social problems and
harsh living conditions that arise from racial and economic oppression. Xuma is characterized
as naïve and good-natured, and he is often confused by the behaviors and attitudes of the city
people he meets. Xuma is strong and good-looking, attracting the attention of multiple
women.
Leah
Leah is a middle-aged beer seller who takes Xuma in at the beginning of the novel. Leah is
also Eliza's aunt. She is depicted as strong and street-smart but ultimately kind. Though Leah
is adept at avoiding police raids, she is eventually caught and imprisoned toward the end of
the novel.
Eliza
Leah's niece Eliza is a schoolteacher and the object of Xuma's affection. Eliza is described as
beautiful and smart, but she is also often cold and conflicted in her thinking. Though Eliza is
attracted to Xuma, she admits she wishes to live as white people do. She says she feels as
though she is white inside, despite being black.
Maisy
Maisy is an outgoing young woman who occasionally works for Leah. She is in love with
Xuma, who goes to Maisy when Eliza rejects him. Maisy is a patient person who accepts
herself and treats other people with respect.
Dladla
Dladla is a violent, alcoholic man who Leah keeps around as a "plaything." After their
relationship sours and Leah assaults him, it is suspected that Dladla is informing on Leah to
the police. Dladla is found dead from stab wounds, and his death is never explained.
Ma Plank
Ma Plank is an elderly woman who lives at Leah's and works for her selling beer. Ma Plank is
generous and helpful, and occasionally makes rude jokes.
Daddy
Daddy is an elderly alcoholic man who Xuma only ever sees drunk or asleep. Though Daddy
has become a clownish figure, Ma Plank reveals that Daddy, when sober, was once respected
for his wisdom and class. After being hit by a car, Daddy dies from internal injuries.
Johannes
Johannes is a mine worker who Xuma meets at Leah's. Johannes's personality changes when
he drinks, turning him boastful and pugnacious. Johannes dies in a mine collapse at the end of
the novel.
Paddy O'Shea
Paddy is Xuma's direct boss at the gold mine, where he is nicknamed "The Red One" for his
red hair. While Paddy is initially portrayed as an unsympathetic character, Xuma eventually
learns of Paddy's progressive politics and opposition to the poor treatment of black South
Africans.
Joseph
Joseph is the brother of Leah's imprisoned partner. Joseph himself is imprisoned early in the
novel.
Di
Di is Paddy's girlfriend. Though she is apparently sympathetic to Xuma, she argues against
Paddy's progressive politics, revealing that she believes Xuma and black people generally are
less intelligent and capable than white people.
Lena
Lena is a woman who works for Leah and is romantically involved with Johannes. She is
described as thin and colored—i.e. mixed-race.

Mine Boy Themes

Violence

From Xuma's first interaction with the alcoholics at Leah's to the police attacks on the
striking mine workers, violence erupts repeatedly throughout Mine Boy. Drunken fights are a
common sight in Malay Camp—fights which the locals view as entertainment. Drunk men
also fight each other as a public spectacle on Saturdays in town, only to be disrupted by the
arrival of police vans full of policemen who start striking people indiscriminately. Johannes,
when drunk, has a tendency to grab men by the throat and lift them. Paddy also instructs
Xuma to use violence against workers if they question his authority. The casual violence
confuses Xuma: though not naturally violent himself, Xuma will strike back if struck. The
overt displays of violence speak to the lack of more humane forms of conflict resolution:
when there is no authority to trust to help solve conflicts, individuals lash out against each
other in order to survive.

Precarious Work

To survive in the city, most of the characters in Mine Boy undertake precarious work—jobs
that are either illegal or dangerous, and often both. The theme of precarious work is evident
in Leah's illegal beer selling, which involves secrecy, police bribery, threat of jail time, and
the need for violence to solve disputes that would otherwise be resolved by police. While the
work Xuma undertakes in the mine is legal, the drive for profits and lack of worker rights
allow for conditions that lead to lung sickness and unsafe working conditions.

Poverty

The theme of poverty undergirds much of the conflict in Mine Boy. The lack of economic
possibilities up north sends Xuma to the city, where he encounters desperately poor and
depressed people, whose need for money keeps them in dangerous and unsanitary conditions.
Though Xuma comes to the city to make an honest living, the white supremacist policies of
the South African government will bar him from ascending the social and economic ladder,
no matter how hard he works.

Assimilationist Ideals

Eliza's inability to acknowledge her love for Xuma stems from the fact that she has absorbed
assimilationist ideals from living in a colonial society that sees white people as superior.
Rather than accepting and appreciating herself for who she is, Eliza seeks to be and act like a
white person, whose way of speaking, dressing, and behaving she deems preferable. Even
though Eliza likens her assimilationist ideals to "a devil" inside her, she is helpless to rid
herself of the possession; ultimately, she rejects her culture and leaves Leah and Xuma,
intending to pursue her dreams of assimilating into white society.
Colonialism

Nearly all of the conflict in Mine Boy can be attributed to the settler colonialism that has
created such desperate conditions for the novel's characters. As a colonial nation, invaded and
taken over by white Dutch and British people whose descendants became the country's
minority rulers, South Africa is rife with injustice and exploitation. The theme of colonialism
pervades the novel: from the government's attempts to build camps outside the city for black
people to live in to Xuma's belief that he and Paddy can never be friends, the colonial project
puts barriers between people, both physical and invisible.
Kindness

In the darkness that surrounds the novel's oppressed characters, the theme of kindness
emerges as a beacon of hope. Leah, though tough, is consistently generous and respectful
when dealing with the people she keeps close. Ma Plank too is a figure of kindness, as she
never seems to mind helping others, and asks nothing for herself. At the novel's most trying
moments, kindness exists as an inverse to the discord that conflict would otherwise sow:
whether between Paddy and Xuma, or between Xuma and Johannes, or Maisy and Xuma,
kindness illuminates the characters' humanity in the midst of dehumanizing conditions.

Racial Segregation (Apartheid)

Though Mine Boy was published two years before the first official apartheid law was enacted,
the novel depicts the racial separation that would be increased during the apartheid era. The
illegal beer selling Leah engages in results from a law that made it legal for white people to
sell alcohol but prohibited black people from the business. The areas the characters live in
and walk through are also divided by income, which, as far as Xuma can see, corresponds to
race. Xuma also reflects on how white people have clean, open restaurants while black people
are packed into filthy, confined eating halls. The socially enforced separation of society into
black and white public spheres was legally entrenched in 1948 when the minority white
ruling party adopted apartheid as an official policy.