Pauline Janet Smith (1882–1959) was born in Oudtshoorn, in the Western Cape. Her father was a British doctor who came to South Africa in the hope of curing his ill-health. When Pauline Smith was 13, she and her sister were sent away from their beloved Karoo to boarding school in England.
Although she never lived permanently in South Africa again, she visited many times over the next 40 years. During her extended visit from 1913- 1914, she kept a journal which she used later as the basis for her first collection of short stories, called The Little Karoo, for her novel, and The Beadle. Her stories describe the isolated rural areas of the Little Karoo and the lives of the farming people who lived there.
Two sisters, Marta and Sukey, live on a farm called Zeekoegatt with their father, Burgert de Jager. Their mother has recently died of a disease of the heart caused, in part, by their father’s “water-cases”. Their father is always trying to get water from a neighbouring farmer, Redlinghuis, and has spent a great deal of money on legal fees.
In his last attempt to get water their father loses more money than ever and, in order to get water from Redlinghuis’s farm, has to bond some of his lands to Redlinghuis. That means that instead of paying the money he owes, he gives the neighbour some of his land with the intention of buying it back when he has money again. When their father is unable to pay to get the land back again Redlinghuis tells him that he will take Marta as a wife instead.
Sukey is very angry that Marta is being offered to Redlinghuis, but Marta assures her that it is the right thing to do – it will save their father’s farm. When Sukey confronts Redlinghuis and tells him that Marta is too good for him, and that she will offer herself up instead, Redlinghuis tells her that if he can’t have Marta he will take their farm.
When Marta marries Redlinghuis he buys a tent-cart so that he can drive around all day and show off his new wife to everyone – “the wife that Burgert de Jager sold to me”. Marta never complains about her husband, but she is clearly not happy and grows weaker and becomes sickly, until it is obvious she is dying. Before Marta dies, Redlinghuis disappears into the mountains with his gun. His body is found six days after Marta dies.
The story ends the night after the burial, with Burgert de Jager blaming himself for the deaths because of his demands for water. Sukey, however, tells him she will not judge him.
The title of the story indicates that the focus is on the two sisters, Marta and Sukey, who are devoted to each other.
The themes in the story are land, patriarchy, tradition, devotion, obedience, submission, female self-sacrifice, compassion, bitterness, the meaning of sin and the right to judge.
In this quiet rural world the most important source of wealth is land. Owning land for generations is a sign of wealth and standing in society. It is not difficult to understand why Burgert de Jager is so obsessed with keeping his land, and why Marta is ready to sacrifice herself to help her father keep it. However, one of the underlying messages of the story is that it is destructive to attach more importance to land than to the welfare of people.
The setting of the Little (Klein) Karoo is important, even though there are few descriptions in the story. We know that it is a very harsh, drought- stricken world where a strong belief in tradition and obedience to God and family rules the lives of the people. These are also important themes in the story.
The complication in the story arises from the fact that Burgert de Jager has tried for many years to get water from the Ghamka river through a neighbouring farm owned by Jan Redlinghuis and has spent a great deal of money on legal fees. He is so obsessed with this that he does not notice how it is affecting his wife, who dies in his “bitterness and sorrow”.
The conflict between the two farmers creates the tension in the story. Burgert de Jager eventually owes Redlinghuis so much money for allowing the water to pass through his farm that he is forced to make a deal with him - Redlinghuis will either marry Marta or take over the De Jager’s farm. This tension rises in the story when De Jager decides that Marta must marry Redlinghuis to save the farm.
The story reaches a climax when Marta becomes weaker and weaker from the humiliation of her position, and eventually dies. Sukey is very unforgiving towards her father and blames him for the deaths of both her mother and sister. This causes tension and conflict between Sukey and her father.
The resolution to the story only comes after Marta has died and Redlinghuis has shot himself. Sukey comes to understand the goodness of Marta, and she finds some compassion for her father and tells him:
“Do now as it seems right to you ... Who am I that I should judge you?”
The main characters in the story are the sisters, Marta and Sukey, and their father, Burgert de Jager, who are the protagonists. The antagonist is Jan Redlinghuis, the farmer who opposes them and lives next door.
The two sisters are very different from one another, but they have great affection for each other.
Marta is very loving, gentle, unselfish and accepting. She shows this by agreeing to do as her father asks in order to help him save the farm. She tells Sukey:
“if I do right, right will come of it, and it is right for me to save the lands of my father.
Marta is willing to accept her fate. She does not even blame Redlinghuis for demanding that she marry him:
“There is not one of us that is without sin in the world and old Jan Redlinghuis is not always mad. Who am I to judge Jan Redlinghuis?”
Sukey is also prepared to sacrifice herself to save her gentle and passive sister, when she tries to persuade Redlinghuis to take her instead of Marta, but she is much tougher and more judgemental. She believes her father has done wrong in sacrificing both his wife and his daughter, and she tells him that he is at fault. She says to her father:
“It is blood that we lead on our lands to water them. Did not my mother die for it? And was it not for this that we sold my sister Marta to old Jan Redlinghuis?”
Sukey is also very judgemental of Redlinghuis, based on what people say about him. She says to him:
“it is said that you are a sinful man, Jan Redlinghuis, going at times a little mad in your head”
Sukey loses her faith in God as she cannot believe that God would allow the marriage of Marta and Redlinghuis. She tells her father:
“There is no God or surely He would have saved our Marta.”
Burgert de Jager’s obsession with getting water for his farm leads to the death of his wife and his daughter Marta. It also causes the break in the relationship between himself and his daughter Sukey.
Burgert de Jager and Jan Redlinghuis are mostly seen through the eyes of Sukey. They are both seen as obsessive and greedy. However, near the end of the story they both seem to realise they have been wrong and feel sorry about it. Burgert de Jager says to Sukey:
“It is true what you said to me, Sukey. It is blood that I have led on my lands to water them, and this night will I close the furrow that I built from the Ghamka river. God forgive me, I will do it.”
Jan Redlinghuis becomes remorseful when Marta is at the point of death. He says to Sukey before he goes into the mountains and takes his own life:
“Which of us now had the greatest sin – your father who sold me his daughter Marta, or I who bought her? Marta who let herself be sold, or you who offered yourself to save her?”
By saying this, he points to the fact that no one should judge, as everyone has played some part in the tragic events.
The story is told through a combination of dialogue and description of the events, but only from the point of view of the narrator, Sukey. We are not told by the writer what the characters look like, or what the land looks like, or how they view their surroundings, because the focus is on the attitudes and reactions of the characters to the troubles that they experience.
The style of the language in the dialogue is old-fashioned and mimics (copies) the sentence structure of Afrikaans to give us a closer impression of the speakers’ context and culture. An example of this is: “this night will I” instead of ‘tonight I will’ as the writer wants to follow the Afrikaans word order, namely ‘sal ek’.
The first person narrator, Sukey de Jager, is a young girl living on a farm in the Little Karoo. She is strong-willed and the story is told from her point of view.
The way the writer uses words and word order emphasises the meaning she wants to convey to the reader.
For example, repetition is used throughout the story for emphasis:
This emphasises the idea of loyalty and what is appropriate behaviour.
Repetition is therefore used to focus on key themes in the story.
Sukey also uses sarcasm when answering her father’s questions. For example, when he says:
“Is it not wonderful, Sukey, what we have done with the water that old Jan Redlinghuis lets pass to my furrow?”
Sukey answers:
“What is now wonderful? It is blood that we lead on our lands to water them.”
It is also interesting that Redlinghuis’s farm is called “Bitterwater” which
symbolises that his water is not a source of goodness.
The writer also uses an idiom (a clichéd saying) in the story:
“my father’s back was up against the wall”
This means that the father has no options left, he has nowhere to turn.
The writer also uses figurative language in the story. For example:
Here, Sukey’s father compares the water from Jan Redlinghuis to blood because in order to get this water, lives have been lost. ‘Blood’ here could also refer to ‘flesh and blood’ or family.
In this story the narrator’s tone mostly emphasises the sorrow and despair that the characters experience. For example, when Sukey refers to Marta, she remembers her only as having a “still, sad face”.
The writer emphasises this tone of despair near the end of the story when Marta dies at sun-down. It is as if Sukey and her father are entering an emotional night-time.
However, the story ends with a more hopeful tone when both Burgert de Jager and Sukey come to deeper emotional insights. Burgert de Jager finally realises that his actions have caused the deaths of his wife and his daughter, and he asks for God’s forgiveness. Sukey doesn’t scold her father, but says what her sister Marta would say:
“Who am I that I should judge you?”
Mood: How does this story make you feel? Happy, sad, angry or indifferent? What are the reasons it makes you feel this way?
Read the extract below and answer the questions that follow.
[Marta agrees to marry Jan Redlinghuis.]
And she said again: “Sukey, my darling, listen now! If I marry old Jan Redlinghuis he will let the water into my father’s furrow, and the lands of Zeekoegatt will be saved. I am going to do it, and God will help me.” |
| orange; Jan Redlinghuis; Sukey; Grootkops; Ghamka; Marta; Burgert de Jager; Platkops |
Answers to Activity 15
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Read the extract below and answer the questions that follow.
[Marta has died.]
We buried Marta in my mother’s grave at Zeekoegatt ... And still they could not find Jan Redlinghuis. Six days they looked for him, and at last they found his body in the mountains. God knows what madness had driven old Jan Redlinghuis to the mountains when his wife lay dying, but there it was they found him, and at Bitterwater he was buried. |
Answers to Activity 16
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Definitions of words from the short story: | |
water-cases | legal cases involving the right to use water |
water-rights | permission to use water from a river or from another farm |
furrow | a channel for water |
cashmere | fine, soft wool |
bond | instead of paying with money land has been used to pay a debt; if the person cannot pay it back the land goes to the person who lent the money |
tent-cart | wagon with a hood |
inspanned | harnessed the wagon to horses so that they could pull it |