The Setting Sun and the Rolling World

“But he was too late. He had taught me silence and in that long journey between mother’s time and this other woman’s, I had given myself to the shadows.” 

In this story the shadows represent the extent to which the narrator’s mother and father feel like mere shades of their former selves. Feeling abandoned by one parent and betrayed by the other, the narrator becomes fully alienated from his father. He opts for silence because, in his mind, a child cannot talk to a shadow.

“That was unnecessarily harsh, the old man felt. So he stroked the boy’s head again. Thank you, ancestors, for our physical language that will serve our sons and daughters till we are dust.” 

In “Who Will Stop the Dark?” Sekuru presents a balanced model of masculinity for Zakeo to follow. He may not feel comfortable expressing his emotions in words, yet he is not too emotionally stinted to express affection through touch. This model of masculinity runs counter to the more strict gender roles reinforced by schoolyard bullies and society writ large.

“But he knew the greed of thirteen-year-olds and the retribution of the land and the soil when well-known laws were not obeyed.” 

Like many characters in the book, Sekuru takes traditional beliefs centered on the land very seriously. These beliefs often sit alongside Christian beliefs, reflecting the fluidity of religious practices and attitudes in the Zimbabwean countryside. Hanging over Sekuru and others is an ominous fear of natural forces, which may unleash chaos if offended by humans.