Díkeledí’s revenge: A reading of Bessie Head’s

“The collector of treasures”'

Marius Crous
Department o f Germanic & Romance Languages
University o f Namibia
WINDHOEK

That’s not where I am cut.

- John Wayne Bobbitt

Abstract
Dikeledi’s revenge: A reading of Bessie Head’s “The collector
of treasures”
This essay focuses on the title story o f Bessie H ead's collection The
collector o f treasures and pays particular attention to the role o f the
phallus in the text. The fem a le protagonist's cutting o ff o f her
husband's genitals is seen as a de(con)struction o f phallocratic
society. The subsequent incarceration o f D ikeledi is an attempt by
patriarchy to reaffirm its control over her.

1. Introduction
On the m orning o f June 23, 1991 Lorena Bobbitt entered the bedroom where
her husband, John Wayne Bobbitt, was sleeping. She then took his penis and
cut it off with one quick slash o f an eight-inch carving knife. She ran out o f the
apartment and tossed the severed appendage out o f the window o f her car. This
deed is described by Kim M asters (1993:118) as “perhaps the ultimate,
escalation in the battle between the sexes”. Lorena Bobbitt’s conduct is also
seen as “an act o f perfect vengeance against an oppressor”. The main reason
for having committed this deed was “m arital sexual assault”, although Lorena
Bobbitt afterwards said to M asters (1993:149) that she “can’t say exactly why
she cut John the way she did” and that it has now turned into a nightm are for
her.

1 This article is based on research undertaken for my Ph.D.: “The feminised h ero -
feminist perspectives on men in the novels o f Bessie Head”.

Literator 17(1) April 1996:133-142 ISSN 0258-2279 133

Dikeledi ’s revenge: a reading o f Bessie Head's “The collector o f treasures "
Following the court case and the subsequent acquittal o f Lorena Bobbitt
Camille Paglia (1994:419) describes the deed as “a cruel and barbarous act, and
a cowardly one, by attacking her husband while he was asleep”. Yet, she also
regards this deed equivalent to the revolutionary act committed by Charlotte
Corday when she killed M arat in the bath. Paglia (1994:420) draws the
conclusion that this deed is “a wonderful dem onstration o f the darkness,
irrationality and turbulence o f sex relations and the inadequacy o f the normal
victimization rhetoric o f feminism ”. There is a lack o f understanding the
complex, psychological relationships between the sexes, something which the
Fem inist movement does not want to adm it and that is why Paglia calls it “a
love-hate relationship o f ambivalence”.

In 1977 the South African writer Bessie Head published her first collection o f
short stories called The collector o f treasures - prior to this she had published
three novels: When rain clouds gather (1966), M aru (1971) and A question o f
pow er (1973). A rthur Ravenscroft (1976:175) has remarked that the three
novels form a trilogy because they are “very closely related to one another, and
the third in many ways helps to explicate the first and second” . Craig
M acKenzie (1989:19) describes H ead’s novels as “intensely private, remarkable
works” and all her works o f fiction “are fashioned in some way from the
author’s experiences”. W hereas the first three works are attempts to come to
term s with her position as an alien in Botswana society, the collection o f short
stories is a definite attem pt to focus on the community at large, a period
described by MacKenzie (1989:35) as her “socially-oriented period”.

The title story, “The collector o f treasures”, deals with a situation very closely
related to the saga o f John and Lorena Bobbitt. The story is set in post-colonial
Botswana and deals with the life o f Dikeledi Mokopi and her estranged
husband Garesego Mokopi. He has left her and their three children and she has
to take care o f them, while he has set o ff in his pursuit o f sexual gratification
with other women. Dikeledi gets on very well with her neiglibours Paul and
Kenalepe Thobolo. Garesego, however, is jealous o f the relationship between
Paul and Dikeledi. W hen Dikeledi is in need o f money to pay for their eldest
child’s school fees, she invites Garesego over to her house to discuss it. He is
under the impression that she wants to have sexual intercourse. Dikeledi,
however, takes a kitchen knife and cuts o ff his genitals. For this deed she is
imprisoned for life. In jail she befriends three other women who have
committed the same offence.

Taiwo (1984:198-9) summarises the essence o f The collector o f treasures as

follows: (1) a woman plays the leading role in each o f the stories, (2) it focuses
on the status o f women in a m odem African society and (3) the village becomes
a microcosm o f traditional Africa at large. Femi Ojo-Ade (1990:81) examines
134 ISSN 0258-2279 Literator 17(1) April 1996:133-142
 Marius Crous
the collection and concludes that the male-female relationship is primary in the
text because “the community cherishes life and the continuity o f the race ...
Bessie Head takes sides with the woman, the silent partner whose story must be
told”. Concomitant to that Craig MacKenzie (1989:16) describes “the hardship
women o f the village experience” as the main focus o f the stories.

In her discussion o f The collector o f treasures Susan Gardner (1989:231)

alludes that this collection “has a discernible feminist content” because it
focuses on “the insistence that women have suffered systematic social injustice
because o f their sex”. Following a discussion o f Dikeledi’s deed Bessie Head
mentioned towards Susan G ardner (1989:14) that the story was so shocking to
hear: “I’ve never heard o f a m an being murdered by his genitals being slit oflF.
But it showed the deep psychological trauma the woman had lived with”.

The question o f whether Bessie Head is a feminist writer is somehow

problematic. She herself refuted the claim that she is a feminist writer. The
problem o f a definition o f feminism is also discomfiting. Cecily Lx)ckett
(1993:330) delineates the following as the common denominator o f any
feminist project.

The common denominator is the concept of gender; women are subject to

control and the oppression on the basis of their gender. This is something
that functions to unite women across divisions o f race or religion; the
common experience of oppression: based on gender identity.

Mohanty (1991:4) contemplates the relation between feminism and the Third
World and concludes:

The very notion of addressing what are often internally conflictual histories
of Third World women’s feminisms under a single rubric ... may seem
ludicrous - especially since the very meaning o f the term feminism is
continually contested. For, it can be argued, there are no simple ways of
representing these diverse struggles and histories.

A central m etaphor within psychoanalytic and feminist literary criticism is the

phallus and concomitant to that are words such as “phallic”, “phallocratic” and
“phallocentric”. Toril Moi (1985: 179n) explains phallocentrism as “a system
that privileges the phallus as the symbol or source o f power”. Following Lacan
one should always realise that “phallus” does not merely refer to the penis itself
but it is also a symbolic construct signifying male dominance in society. Jones
(1985:83) points out that since women lack the phallus, which she regards as
“tlie positive symbol o f gender, self-possession and worldly authority”, they not
only occupy a negative position in society but also within m an-made language.

Literator 17(1) April 1996:133-142 ISSN 0258-2279 135

Dikeledi 's revenge: a reading o f Bessie Head's “The collector o f treasures "_________
Masculine desire dominates speech and m en as the phallus-bearers thus also
dominate language and discursive utterances.

Teresa Dovey (1988:373) makes the point that there is an absence o f the phallus
in women and as a result o f that m en “project their own sense o f loss, or lack,
onto women, who become ‘negatives’ in relation to the positives constituted by
men, symbols o f absence providing proof o f m en’s absence”. M en feel that
there is this constant lack in the hves o f women because the latter do not
possess the transcendental signifier o f masculine superiority.

The following theses inform my reading o f the title story from Bessie H ead’s
The collection o f treasures:

- Garesego Mokopi represents the phaliocratic misogynist.

- Dikeledi Mokopi deconstructs African phallocracy by dismembering her

husband.

- Paul Thebolo signifies the Other, the liberated man.

O ther aspects o f the text will also come under scrutiny but these are the three
m ain theses under discussion. Central to the contemporary reading process is
the notion o f m ultiple readings and therefore this analysis ought to be regarded
as one possible reading o f the text which definitely does not aim to be the final
reading o f it. M y interpretation is open to new readings o f the text.

2. Discussion
2.1 Garesego
Garesego M okopi is the representative o f the phaliocratic supremacy o f men in
society. He is also one o f the m en described by the narrator as “evil” and
sim ilar to a dog who “im agined he was the only penis in the world and that
there had to be a scramble for it” (p. 91). Femi Ojo-Ade (1990:82) describes
these men as the worst in H ead’s stories because they “make babies like
m achines and turn their backs upon the poor women” . Ojo-Ade (1990:83)
regards Garesego as someone who has “all the essentials to feed his hunger for
sex and alcohol”.

The narrator in the text blames this on both the colonial system and the code of
conduct am ongst the ancestors. Because the colonial system never prepared the
people for independence and the adm inistration o f the country, the post-colonial
man becomes “a broken wreck with no inner resources” and the women become
“an inferior form o f hum an life” (p.92).

136 ISSN 0258-2279 Literator 17(1) Aprill996:133-I42

 Marius Crous
In pre-colonial societies women played an im portant role as “an agricultural
producer within her husband’s homestead; ‘fertility’ meant that she had to
produce children whose labour would, in time, be used for the benefit o f the
homestead” (Guy, 1990:39). During the colonial period everything changed
and men often had to perform domestic chores in the colonial homes - tasks
that were usually that o f the women. De Marigny (1990:18) finds that African
male writers often betray in their writing “a yearning for the pre-colonial
patriarchal past where he was definitely king as father, husband and r u le r ...” .
W ithin contemporary white society black women often play the role o f
substitute mother and within their own communities the sons who are supposed
to fend for the household have either been killed in detention or are in exile.
De Marigny (1990:72) thus describes the role o f m odem African women as
follows: “M odem African women are thus obliged to take over traditionally
male roles in the present even when men do not credit them with so doing” .

In post-colonial Botswana, the setting o f Head’s short story, the men are
conftised because they are unfam iliar with the changes and responsibilities they
have to adhere to. That explains why Ngugi wa (1993:90-91) describes post­
colonial societies as perfect replicas o f colonial practices. The new govenmient
is not used to a democratic culture and therefore only allows one viewpoint, that
o f “the m ling regim e”.

Garesego’s life is to return home and have sexual intercourse with Dikeledi.
That explains the reason for his letter:

Dear Mother, I am coming home again so that we may settle our differences.
Will you prepare a meal for me and some hot water that I might take a bath.
Gare.

Not only does he try to be affectionate (he calls him self “Gare”) but he plays on
her emotions by calling her “M other”. He immediately places her in the
inferior position o f a caring and supporting wife who will look after his needs.
Dikeledi interprets the letter as an expression o f his sexual desires, namely that
he is “com ing home for some sex” (p. 101). The only way in which he feels
that he can manipulate Dikeledi is to act as if she is his m aternal superior and
he is like the prodigal son returning home. Perhaps he tries to force her into
the position o f an Oedipal mother; the strong maternal power.

In contrast to his “ M other” she opts for “Sir” when she answers his letter:

Sir, 1 shall prepare everything as you have said.

Dikeledi.

From her letter it seems as if Dikeledi accepts his demand without questioning
it. She is, however, aware o f the real intention behind the words. “(P)repare”

Literator 17(1) April 1996:133-142 ISSN 0258-2279 137

Dikeledi ’s revenge: a reading o f Bessie Head's "The collector o f treasures ”_________
is an ironic choice o f words in this case, because she also plans her final act.
The patriarchal association o f women with the preparers o f food in the kitchen
is thus undermined. The castration o f Garesego Mokopi was thus a
premeditated deed o f vengeance. Kenalepe had seen Dikeledi sharpen the knife
on the afternoon prior to Garesego’s arrival (pp. 101-102) and she detected “a
final and tragic expression on the upturned face o f her friend”.

Chetin (1989:135) comments on the reasons why Dikeledi had decided not to
leave her husband:

She couldn’t walk away from her husband for she had children to care for,
and the forced compromise she ends up with - a life in prison for murdering
him - hardly suggests a solution ... Dikeledi, named after her mother’s tears,
symbolizes the struggle of a people who have a long way to go before the
cycle of violence can be replaced by a spiral o f peace.

The women suffer even more than the m en in this new post-colonial society.
The change in society and its structure has also brought about a false sense of
liberation to the men. The new signs o f masculine pride such as jobs in the
administration, money and power have resulted in fickle anarchy. Men are like
a proverbial pack o f wolves on the prowl and women suffer because o f this.
This attitude fits Paglia’s (1993:63) rem ark, namely that “male lust and male
aggression are two uncontrollable forces o f nature in society”. Years o f colonial
repression now result in sexist bestiality. Garesego is an example to support
this because he has substituted his m arital relationship for a fi-ee-ranging,
carefi-ee chase o f women.

Once he has entered Dikeledi’s yard Garesego reaffirms his position as

phallocratic m an and he scans the environm ent for the presence o f his rival,
Paul Thebolo. There is no challenge o f his phallic supremacy because Paul
Thebolo is in his own yard. Garesego, however, feels that he could reaffirm his
erstwhile position as the patriarch o f the family when he enters his own yard.

The cutting o ff o f G aresego’s genitals is an attem pt by the oppressed woman to

deconstruct the phallocratic society in which beastlike men dominate.
Garesego’s anguished bellows are signifiers o f his loss o f phallic supremacy
and the end o f m ale rule. The beastlike cry substitutes language. He is no
longer the supreme representative o f the Law-of-the-Father and the language o f
patriarchal dominance.

Dikeledi does not want to m iss “one detail o f it” (p. 103) because she has to
experience her newly-established position as phallic ruler - she is in possession
o f the substitute phallus (the kitchen knife). Her position emulates the same
responses people had following the Bobbitt case: “It’s a universal no-no”; “it

138 ISSN 0258-2279 Literator 17(1) April 1996:133-142

 Marius Crous
has to send a chill through every m an in the world” and “Men feel emasculated
by the story while women feel empowered” (Masters, 1993; 118).

2.2 Paul Thebolo

Paul Thebolo is in direct contrast to Garesego Mokopi. He is the mythical man
in Head’s writing, the so-called new African man. Driver (1990:246) describes
the new African community inhabited by men such as Paul Thebolo as one
marked by “gentle, loving, responsible men, with the standard gendered role
divisions otherwise unchanged”.

Sarah Chetin (1989:135) is o f the opinion that Paul is perhaps named after the
Christian St. Paul who was “a symbol o f charity and visionary hope”.

Paul is responsible for taking care o f Dikeledi and her family once they have
been left alone by Garesego and he is also w illing to take care o f her family
when she has to go to jail: “You don’t have to worry about the children, Mma-
Banabothe. I’ll take them as my own and give them all a secondary school
education” (p. 103).

As a male m ember o f this patriarchal society Paul is also a bearer o f the phallus
and inevitably personifies phallic power and supremacy. He, however, differs
from Garesego in that he does not oppress women in order to affirm his
position; he is gentle, kind and caring. He impressed Dikeledi immediately
when she met him. He was so “peaceftil as a person that the sunlight and
shadow played all kinds o f tricks with his eyes” (p. 93). He is in the traditional
role o f patriarch who has to care for his family but not to such an extent as was
the case with Garesego.

Apart from this Paul is also sexually liberated and innovative. The description
o f his sexual prowess and his ability to surprise his wife every night (p. 94)
contrasts him to Garesego who has a totally different opinion about sex and the
sexual satisfaction o f women. For Paul Thebolo sexual intercourse means
something pleasurable to be enjoyed by both husband and wife, whereas it is
ju st the opposite with Garesego. He needs a different woman every night in
order to satisfy his lust. He sees sex as a display o f masculine power,
domination and the oppression o f women.

Kenalepe, Paul’s wife, is even w illing to share him sexually with Dikeledi (p.
98). In this new idealised African community which Head tries to establish in
her w riting the man becomes a sexual object shared by women for sexual
pleasures. Ezenwa-Ohaeto (1990:129) describes the female characters
inappropriately as “strong women who attem pt to redefine their lives, who
break acceptable social codes o f behaviour, become outcasts, and who are
ultimately destroyed for this act o f controlling their personal^iological selves”.
Literator 17(1) April 1996:I33-]42 ISSN 0258-2279 139
Dikeledi ’s revenge: a reading o f Bessie Head’s “The collector o f treasures "
This perspective underm ines the gist o f H ead’s story. The women in this story
are definitely not “destroyed” because they have gone against sexism in society.
Ezenwa-Ohaeto’s perspective in itself turns out to be sexist too. He does not
want women to fight traditional assumptions about sex and sexuality.

According to Camille Paglia (1990:10) sexual objectification is “the highest

hum an faculty”: “Turning people into sex objects is one o f the specialities of
our species” . This is a paradoxical statement because men turn women into sex
objects merely to force them to ascribe to patriarchal notions o f submission,
control and sexist oppression. In the case o f Kenalepe these assumptions are
transferred onto the male body as a sex object and it is an example o f the
deconstruction o f sexual objectification. The male body is gazed upon as a
pleasurable object. Kenalepe gains phallic power because she is now also in
possession o f a substitute phallus, the glorified body o f her husband which she
wants to share with other women.

Paul is a liberator to Dikeledi. He is the one who has helped to rescue her from
an existence “that had been ashen in its loneliness and unhappiness” (p. 91).

3. Conclusion
The final question, however, comes to mind: what significance would
D ikeledi’s im prisonm ent then have? O ne feels some sense o f dissatisfaction
sim ilar to that at the end o f Thelma and Louise. These two characters have also
bravely fought against patriarchal dominance. At the end o f the film they
“commit suicide” to escape arrest. Was the whole enterprise a ftitile attempt at
liberation? This is contended by Belling (1992:49) who writes:

What does one do with a female hero once she has discovered that her
heroism is at odds with the social order that dictates happy endings? The
monster killed by Thelma and Louise is a rapist, the rest o f the film traces
their exhilarating empowerment as outlaws, and the final freezeframe
confirms that ... no satisfactory resolution is available ... Their liberation
remains imaginary.

In prison Dikeledi is once again the vicfim o f another form o f oppression. She
finds herself walled in by the prisonhouse o f language which silences her
revolutionary deed. The prison serves as a m etaphor for a society that does not
tolerate a female phallic voice. Indeed: no satisfactory resolution is available.

Bibliography
Belling, Catherine. 1992. “W here m eaning collapses” : Alien and the
outlawing o f the female hero. Literator, 13(3): 35-50.

140 ISSN 0258-2279 Literator 17(1) April 1996:133-142

 Marius Crous
Chetin, Sarah. 1989. Myth, exile, and the female condition: Bessie Head’s
The collector o f treasures. Journal o f Commonwealth Literature,
24(1): 114-137.
De Marigny, Diana. 1990. The Soweto novels o f Tlali and Serote. D u rban:
University o f Natal. (M.A. dissertation.)
Driver, Dorothy. 1990. W omen as mothers, women as writers. In: Trump,
M artin. Rendering things visible. Johannesburg : Ravan Press, p. 225-
255.
Dovey, Teresa. 1988. The novels o f J.M. Coetzee. Lacanian allegories.
Johannesburg: Ad Donker.
Ezenwa-Ohaeto. 1990. Windows o f womanhood. In: Abrahams, Cecil. The
tragic life: Bessie H ead and literature in Southern Africa. Trenton :
Afiica W orld Press.
Gardner, Susan. 1989. Bessie Head. Production under drought conditions. In;
Clayton, Cherry. Women writing in South Africa. M arshalltown :
Heinemann SA. p. 226-235.
Guy, Jeff. 1990. Gender oppression in Southern A frica’s pre-capitalist
societies. In: W alker, Cherryl. Women and gender in Southern Africa to
1945. Cape Town : David Philip.
Head, Bessie. 1977. The collector o f treasures. London : Heinemann.
Jones, Ann Rosalind. 1985. Inscribing femininity. In: Greene, Gayle &
Coppelia Kahn. M aking a difference. Lx)ndon : Routledge & Kegan Paul,
p. 80-112.
Lockett, Cecily. 1993. Sisterhood/otherhood: The politics o f contemporary
feminism in South African literary studies. AUETSA Conference Paper.
Port Elizabeth/Potchefstroom. p. 320-331.
MacKenzie, Craig. 1989. Bessie Head: An introduction. Grahamstown :
NELM.
Masters, Kim. 1993. Sex, Ues and an 8-inch carving knife. Vanity Fair,
56(11):116-120, 145-150.
Mohanty, C handra T. 1991. Third World women and the politics o f feminism.
Bloomington : Indiana University Press.
Moi, Toril. 1985. Sexual/Textual politics. London : Methuen.
Ngugi wa, Thiong’o. 1993. M oving the centre. London : James Currey.
Ojo-Ade, Femi. 1990. O f human trials and triumphs: Bessie H ead’s collection
o f treasures. In: Abrahams, Cecil. The tragic life: Bessie H ead and
literature in South Africa. Trenton : Africa W orld Press.
Paglia, Camille. 1990. Sexual personae. Harmondsworth : Penguin.
Paglia, Camille. 1993. Sex, art and American culture. London : Viking.
Paglia, Camille. 1994. Vamps and tramps. Y o rk •.'Vmtzgs.

Literator 17(1) April 1996:133-142 ISSN 0258-2279 141

Dikeledi ’s revenge: a reading o f Bessie Head’s “The collector o f treasures "_________
Ravenscroft, Arthur. 1976. The novels o f Bessie Head. In: Heywood,
Christopher. A spects o f South African literature. London : Heinemann.
p. 174-186.
Taiwo, O. 1984. Fem ale novelists o f Africa. Lx)ndon : MacMillan.

142 ISSN 0258-2279 Literator 17(1) April 1996; 133-142