In what ways does Head make this such a memorable opening to the story?
In the opening of ‘The Village Saint’, Bessie Head uses chilling, unpleasant juxtaposition, bitter irony and bleak, ominous symbolism to build up tension and warn the reader of the endless, cruel cycle of society’s ‘popular’ people and the detrimental effect it has on people.
Firstly, the writer of ‘The Village Saint’, Bessie Head, builds up tension and suspense in the opening within the first sentence: ‘People were never fooled by façades’. There is a rather grim, ominous quality to this short, abrupt sentence, made even more dramatic and curt with the monosyllabic words and firm full stop. It seizes the reader’s attention immediately and urges them to read on in pursuit of the knowledge of whose facades will be seen through and what the consequences of that will be. Head describes how people look ‘quietly and humorously at the real person – cheat, liar, pompous condescending sham and so on-’ and here the disquieting contrast between the seemingly sedate ‘quiet’ attitude of people and their actual, bitter thoughts towards the façade-bearing person is chilling. The list-like syntax of the sentence with the derogatory names gives off the effect that the list of various disliked people is endless and the sour, angry language is shocking, especially as it is juxtaposed to the rather incongruous, more light-hearted, casual ‘and so on’ as if these kind of names or natures are common and part of everyday life – perhaps reflecting the unpleasant nature of the villagers: they know about people’s true evil natures but are willing to sit back and peacefully observe them, waiting ‘until destiny [catches] up with the decrepit one’. The foreshadowing of Mma-Mompati having ‘a fool-proof nature’, represented by the ‘mosquito netting, surround[ing] the whole house’ (this symbol hinting that just as physical objects eventually break or degrade, like this netting will, so will her façade) brings along more tension and leaves the reader in suspense and wondering if she will escape the villagers’ criticism and scrutiny.
Furthermore, as well as making the reader tense, Head uses Mompati, the son, as a character to exploit the hypocrisy of the villagers and the endless cycle of the decay of people’s reputations and popularity. The reader is made aware that Mma-Mompati’s ‘graven image [will] shatter into a thousand fragments’ (the connotations of broken glass reflecting the sharp hurt and destroying effect that it will have upon her) once her ‘own pose of saintliness’ is uncovered yet they are given an insight into how the villagers treat her and her family before this happens. Their affection for her son, ‘laughing and shaking their heads in frustration’ at his antics, is hypocritical – emphasised by the fact that they ‘forget the former names of the parents’ – the supposedly well-known and popular ones- and call them ‘Father of Mompati or Mother of Mompati’. It is like they idolize Mompati, perhaps because he is a young child with an attractive ‘set earnest expression’. Head shows he grows into an even more well-liked young man – ‘warm-hearted, loud-voice defender of all kind of causes – marriage, morals, child care, religion, and the rights of the poor’. Here, the reader is seeing the same list-like syntax of sentences as used earlier to list the derogatory names the villagers use for people they disapprove of. The irony of this is also symbolic and foreshadows that Mompati, for now well-liked, will probably succumb to the same fate of his mother and the other people whose facades are torn down. He will end up building a façade to fit into society and then it will break and the villagers will look on him too as a ‘cheat’ or ‘liar’. It could be argued that Head is criticizing the way society praises the younger, more attractive and sometimes ‘faultless’ generation then discards and turns against them once they are older and show imperfection, using Mompati as the metaphor for the younger generation and the villagers as the metaphor for society. It is a futile, unkind and eternal cycle.
Moreover, in addition to exploiting society’s hypocrisy, Head shows the futileness and falseness of popularity and so-called ‘proper’ reputations in society. Despite having ‘had a long reign of twenty-six years’ over the village as ‘the great lady of the town’, it becomes clear that Mma-Mompati is actually disliked by the village anyway, despite being an exemplary woman, nursing and praying for people. The verb ‘presided’ paints a rather negative image of her presence at teas and luncheons, likening her to some sort of invading, authoritarian ‘highborn who don’t really give a damn about people or anything’ (here the incorrect use of the verb ‘don’t’ is interesting, the rough language resembling the speech of a local uneducated villager as if the bitter thought is straight out of one of their mouth) and her ‘professional smile’ makes her friendliness sound like a learnt, insincere practice, branding her as a two-faced person. ‘No villager could die without being buried by Mma-Mompati (…) No one could fall ill without receiving the prayers of Mma-Mompati’: the litotes here betray the villagers’ true feelings about this woman who is supposed to be the most popular well-respected person around. They make it sound as if her prayers or burials are an unavoidable yet undesirable thing that no one can escape, as if she is a malevolent huntress hunting them down when praying and burying are ironically the most kind and saintly gestures for a person to do.
In conclusion, Head makes this a memorable opening to the story by ominously hinting at the false and dangerous nature of a good reputation – it can lead to one’s downfall rather than one’s success -, thus intriguing the reader and using suspense to grip them. She also reveals the unforgiving and savage way society treats people who don’t match its expectations and accuses those who are kind of being two-faced – thus also pointing out the blatant hypocrisy of the world. Another way she makes this opening interesting is through the bitterness depicted in this extract between the villagers and the seemingly richer Mma Mompati who, it can be argued, represents the higher class.