Elizabeth

Elizabeth is the protagonist of the novel. Her struggle to integrate into Motabeng society and to conquer her mental illness gives the novel its central drama. She was born in South Africa to a white woman and a black stable boy. Her mother suffered from mental illness and died in a mental home. Elizabeth attended a mission school, married, and had a child. No longer able to withstand being black in South Africa, Elizabeth moves with her son to Botswana.

Though the causes of her mental illness are unstated, Elizabeth has two major breakdowns in the course of the novel, one and a half years apart. The first occurs when she has been living in Motabeng for a while, tortured by her nightmares of Sello. After this breakdown, Elizabeth procures a job working with crops for Eugene’s project. When Dan and Sello refuse to leave her alone...