The Promise

Although Anton is more willing to consider other people’s perspectives than Astrid, he, like her, is unhappy in his marriage. This is largely because he struggles to experience contentment no matter his current circumstances. Both he and his wife entered their marriage naively; Anton romanticized Desirée as his teenage sweetheart from an impressive family while Desirée romanticized the idea of living as a farmer’s wife. When both discovered that reality fell short of their expectations, they did not communicate about this and instead withdrew into silent dissatisfaction with one another. The Anton of Part 2 would consider the Anton of Part 3—a married property owner who gets steady inheritance payments deposited into his bank account once a month—a lucky man, but Anton cannot see this perspective and continues to feel that he is missing out on a truly fulfilling life.

The narrator’s diversion into the perspective of the homeless man, Bob, is a notable example of the novel’s thematic concern with The Inherent Worth and Complexity of All People. The novel regularly goes outside the narrative conventions of most fiction by showing the perspective of minor characters who intersect with the main characters only briefly. Here the perspective character is a man who barely intersects with the Swarts, only connected to them by his presence outside Astrid’s and Jake’s church. By taking narrative detours, the section erodes the distinction between “flat” and “round” characters, making almost all the novel’s characters, even the ones who only appear for one page, fully realized people with complex inner lives.

The man’s inability to remember his name symbolizes the difficult position of Black South Africans relative to their historical memory. Though historical narratives often consider Black South Africans as a whole, the country’s Black population consists of many groups or tribes, including Zulu, Xhosa, Sotho, Ndebele, and Swazi. Each group is Indigenous to the region with its own distinct language, history, and culture. Many Black South Africans are multilingual, speaking several African languages and English, in addition to understanding Afrikaans. White South Africans primarily speak Afrikaans and English. Though the country has 11 official languages, English dominates, and the society has had little success in instituting its post-apartheid multilingual policies (Helen Swingler, “Failed policies, false promises bedevil multilingualism in SA.” University of Cape Town News, 10 March 2022). The narrator giving the man the generic Western name “Bob” and then discarding him to refocus the narrative on Anton symbolizes the country’s continued lack of respect for Black South Africans’ identities.