Maru

Gray sees Head’s work idealistically in its depiction of the defeat of prejudice, as exemplified by Maru’s marriage to Margaret Cadmore. However, Gray fails to acknowledge Margaret’s patent unhappiness in the marriage. Though she retains the dignity of understanding and overcoming some of the limitations of her ethnicity, she is not a fighter for social justice, and she ends up married to Maru, rather than the man whom she truly loves, Moleka.

Rather than embodying power and overcoming prejudice, Margaret simply becomes invisible. No one acknowledges her outside of her relationships to powerful figures: first, Margaret lives under the protection of Margaret Cadmore, the missionary’s wife. Next, Margaret teaches school in Dilepe under the protection of Dikeledi, Maru’s sister. Finally, Margaret marries Maru, only to endure an isolated and abusive marriage, wherein Maru tortures her emotionally by being loving one minute and deriding her for her belief that he loves her the next. Knowing of Margaret’s love for Moleka, Maru’s social rival—they are both Totems and chiefs—Maru takes out his jealous fits of anger on Margaret. Throughout the entire novel, Margaret never becomes a member of the village in her own right; at no point does she have a voice or the power to improve how she is treated.