Analyse af Caitlin Davies' 'Snake Girl'

The “Snake Girl” is a novel written by the author Caitlin Davies. Caitlin Davies is an author born in England in 1964. Her parents are both well known writers, Margaret Forster and Hunter Davies. Caitlin used to work as a teacher in Botswana and she is known for writing novels about Botswana. Her most famous novels up to date are “Jamestown Blues” and “The Return of El Negro”. In these novels as well as in “Snake Girl”, she brings up the cruelty, violence and sexual discrimination that is terrorizing Botswana. In “Snake Girl” we follow only one main character but we have lots of other characters who are important to the story as well. As the main character we have Maitumelo also called Mighty who later in the story gets the name “Snake Girl”. She is introduced by the narrator in the text and she is described as a little strong black girl. Mighty grows up in a poor family in a small local village west of the vast Okavango Delta. Mighty is an active girl who is eager to learn new stuff in the local primary school in the village. We don’t know exactly if Mighty is a religious girl but we know that she is taught to believe in God. Extract from the text: “she quickly learnt to read and write, to sing songs to God, and to keep her classroom clean” page 87 line 7. This shows us that she is attending a religious school. In the text we also discover that Mighty is an extraordinary brave girl. She refuses to marry Mr. Wright, which is really not normal for a poor black woman when it is a powerful and respected man in the local community she is refusing. Mighty’s contrast is Mr. Wright. He is a fat wealthy black person who doesn’t like to lose face and has very high thoughts of himself. He is used to get whatever he wants and will not accept a no. Mr. Wright is very spoiled and has a very arrogant attitude towards the locals in the village. Mr. Wright has a great desire for attention and is usually gets it. Extract from the text: “Mr. Wright waited for the TV people to greed him” page 92 line 15. This shows us that he expects no less than the attention from the reporters and from the cameramen. The third person who has a big influence in the story is Mighty’s big sister Neo. She is a girl with many ambitions and with greater knowledge than the others. She works in a radio station in the city and knows how to take care of herself. She is not afraid of people with authorities and she is very open-minded. She is disgusted by people who think they are better than everyone else. Neo is the kind of girl who takes care of things. Extract from the text: “Neo thought this could be a good idea. Just two days later the cameramen arrived”. This shows us that Neo is a girl who gets things done. The themes in the text are mostly sex discrimination, poverty and unfairness. Sex discrimination is a very big factor in the novel. We can almost feel how it must be to be married away to someone you barely love. It makes us feel sorry for the poor and hate the people who depress them. It gives us an opinion of how unfair the system is and how primitive it still is in Africa. This novel also really opens our eyes to how poor many African people really are, how little they have, and how much they seem to appreciate the few things they have, school for example. The story takes place in Botswana in what I would call newer time. It seems like the story takes place in an older time because of the very bad social standards they have. There are some symbols in the story. For example: “hacking away at two cabbages with a rusty old knife”. I see it as a symbol of how little they have. They have to eat cabbage, because they often have nothing more to eat. Another symbol could be: “she crouched down by her sister’s bed and in her hands she cradled a box of damp Kentucky fried chicken”. I see this as a symbol of them having no money for goodies like for example fast food. Here, in Denmark, it is quite normal to go out and eat, but there it is unheard of. Another thing I find interesting in the text is how superstitious the locals in the village are. Extract from the text: “The local doctor said that someone had bewitched her and that was why she had snakes in her arms”. It shows us that the locals do not know any better than that. They are not very intellectual, because none of them are well educated.