The Promise

The most prominent broken promise in the novel—and the one that the title refers to most obviously—is Manie’s promise to Rachel that he will give Salome ownership of the house she lives in. However, this is far from the only broken or unfulfilled promise that the story features. In Part 1, Manie promises to Amor that he will not make her return to the boarding school she so strongly dislikes, but he breaks his word days later. At Manie’s funeral, the reader learns that he had a mistress he spent many years promising to make an “honest woman” out of but never did. Astrid learns this family trait and applies it to her own life, promising Father Batty in confession that she will stop her affair with Jake Moody’s business partner but never making any serious attempt to do so. Anton is described on multiple occasions as being a young man who had a great deal of promise but wasted it. With the multiplication of these broken or unfulfilled promises, some more serious than others, readers can see a pattern in the Swart family of believing that promises need not mean anything serious.