The Setting Sun and the Rolling World

Old Musoni is an aged farmer who tries in vain to convince his son Nhamo to stay on the family farm. Although Nhamo’s precise destination is unclear, it is implied that he plans to move to the city to make his way as a young professional. When he insists that this is his “only way out,” Old Musoni replies, “There is no only way out in the world. Except the way of the land, the way of family” (99).

Having resigned himself to Nhamo’s departure, Old Musoni instructs his son to visit the medicine man to obtain some good luck charms for the journey. Nhamo says he will, though he privately vows to set the charms on fire as soon as he leaves the village. He reflects, “Charms were for you—so was God, though much later. But for us now the world is godless, no charms will work” (101).

As Nhamo looks up at an airplane in the sky, he likens himself to the sun: a beam of floating energy that will leave behind the likes of Old Musoni and the world to which he clings.