Tsotsi Characters
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- Character development - Chapter 1. Even though Tsotsi is the youngest, the others all look to him for leadership: The other three looked up at him and waited. Tsotsi told them what they would be doing that night. Character development: Die. Aap, so called because of his long arms— his knuckles seemed to drag in the dust.
- Oct 31, 2008 Tsotsi uses the current township music culture, known as kwaito throughout the film. One of the main characters is played by Zola, a leading kwaito performer. Besides crime and music, the main way in which township residents have become famous is via sport, especially football, and the political struggle against apartheid.
- Presley Chweneyagae as David / Tsotsi: The anti-heroic leader of a gang of small-time thugs. His name, in Tsotsitaal. Mothusi Magano as Boston / Teacher boy: A member of Tsotsi's gang and a heavy drinker, Boston was studying to be a. Kenneth Nkosi as Aap: Tsotsi's childhood friend.
Tsotsi Character List
Tsotsi
We know Tsotsi as a street thug in Johannesburg, South Africa during apartheid.
As a boy Tsotsi was innocent and content, living as a victim of apartheid. When his mother was taken from him he was left alone to witness his father come home and upon realizing the house was empty, he lashed out on the dog, paralyzing its back legs and killing the litter. This scarred Tsotsi and pushed him to flee home and eventually get taken in by Petah’s gang. This gang changed his identity; he became Tsotsi after several days with the gang participating in crime. He states: “My name is Tsotsi.” This transformation from an innocent boy to a hardened young man has resulted in him living a life of robbery, rape and murder. He no longer has a use for past memories and his conscious no longer exists. He creates three rules: rule of the working moment (always be able to see his knife), never disturb his inward darkness, tolerate questions from no others. These rules are what allow him to survive as Tsotsi and have no need to become David again.
He becomes the leader of a gang who commit crimes in order to survive. As the story progresses his three rules diminish and through interactions with others he changes from Tsotsi back to David. Our first impression of Tsotsi is that he is a violent man who is well respected within his gang. He beats Boston because he attempts to break one of his rules – don’t ask questions – which is the only way he knows how to handle threats.
After fleeing, Tsotsi is given the baby by a woman who he first intended to rape. This baby will act as the catalyst for his journey of self-discovery. He cares for the baby and shortly after hiding it in the ruins he goes out to find a victim. Tsotsi stalks Morris planning to kill and rob him, however; as Tsotsi stalks him he is given time to reflect and begins to build a sympathy for Morris because the baby has changed his value for life, he learned how to care feel compassion. Morris also reminds him of the dog who was powerless in a similar situation. The sympathy he attains is translated to when he and Morris interact and he decides to let him live, as Morris explains he must. Not only has Tsetse’s outlook changed but Morris now values his own life as well which he explains to Tsotsi. Their exchange also leaves Tsotsi with the belief that he must value the little things in life in order to become redeemed.
After this interaction, Tsotsi goes home and finds the baby in poor condition covered in ants – realizing it needs a mothers and care – he observes the line-up for water trying to pick a woman who would suffice. He decides on Miriam and at first she is reluctant to help, he must threaten the life of her own child, showing he hasn’t fully changed as a man. In their subsequent interactions Tsotsi no longer has to intimidate her to receive her help nourishing the baby. In their final interaction – after Tsotsi comes back from meeting Isaiah – she opens up to him, explaining how her husband is dead and she accepts that she must move on. This belief transfers to Tsotsi and resonates within him. From her belief he understands that you can’t let you past determine your future and you must continue on living despite past influences. This is his next step towards redemption, as it allows him not to dwell on the mistakes of his past. This understanding makes it possible for him to realize he can leave his past lifestyle behind.
Before his final interaction with Miriam Tsotsi took Boston to his house and nourished him like a mother, giving him milk and bread. Tsotsi asks Boston similar questions that resulted in Boston getting beaten in the outset of the novel. This is the moment where Tsotsi leaves his rules behind him and his only desire is to seek out answers to the questions he has been asking himself. Boston explains that everyone is sick from life – living in Apartheid – and that in order to further pursue the answers to his questions, he needs to find God. This leads Tsotsi to Isaiah who teaches him more about God and what he can do for you. He explains to Tsotsi what sins are and the consequences for them. He tells Tsotsi that in order to further understand God he must attend church. Tsotsi agrees to this, showing me truly intends to do whatever he can to pursue his goal of redemption.
These events collectively influence Tsotsi to become David again, a human with a soul. No longer is a murderous Tsotsi but a compassionate and loving young man. These new values are what drive him to attempt to save the baby at the end. His instinct of killing has evidently shifted to an instinct of saving lives without hesitation. When their bodies are discovered he has a smile on his face showing that he has no regrets and is pleased with who he has become. This is the ultimate sacrifice in life and the final step for Tsotsi to attain full redemption from past sins, becoming David – a new, admirable man.
Minor Characters
Miriam
Miriam is an eighteen year old with a young baby, just like little David. Like many other young women in South Africa, Miriam has been abandoned by her husband – Simon – and left with a child to care for all on her own. Tsotsi’s mom and the lady who gave the baby to Tsotsi have been put in the same situation and she is our symbol for them. Gumboot also left his pregnant wife. Through a strict plot context we know Miram as the lady who feeds little David for Tsotsi. With a deeper look in we can gather she again is shown as on overall symbolic mother, nurturing and nourishing not only baby David but her own son too. She performs these mother like acts to Tsotsi also and teaches him how to love again. She is like Mother Mary. She shows Tsotsi that we mustn’t live in the past and need to move on in life and never give up.
Baby
The baby is introduced relatively early through Tsotsi receiving it in the bluegumtrees by a frightened woman who he intended to rape. As the plot progresses we come to see, the baby is a catalyst for Tsotsi’s self-discovery. The baby represents innocence, kindness, and the positives of human nature just like David, who Tsotsi was prior to becoming a thug. Tsotsi recognized that and names the baby after his past self. The baby helps Tsotsi towards becoming David again through teaching him simple life lessons such as caring, nurturing and responsibility for others. Tsotsi nurtures the baby with milk and cleans the baby which proves this new compassionate outlook. At the end of the book when David Mondondo sacrifices his own safety for that of the baby, he is actually saving himself. By his efforts to save the baby his instincts have changed from violence – like a street thug – to compassion – like a mother, saving his humanity. The ultimate redemption of becoming David again.
Butcher
Like all black males living in South Africa at the time, Butcher is a victim of Apartheid. These men take all means to survive and we see this expressed in the way Butcher lives his day to day life in the gang. To them he is the killer – he never misses a strike and is the go-to man when the job needs to get done. Violence is the way he has learned to survive because it is the only way he can. He is a direct product of his environment. To Tsotsi, Butcher isn’t much but a person in his gang who is a skillful and ruthless killer.
Die Aap
Die Aap like all the others characters we are introduced to is a symbol of Apartheid in South Africa. Their personal, actions, values and tendencies have been crafted by the oppression they have faced from the government. Die Aap is also a very loyal character, he wants the gang to stay together when Tsotsi is speaking of them to split, they are his brotherhood and he would sacrifice for them. This is shown how even if violent, ruthless and uncivil what the gang may be doing, he will participate in their actions and help their crime because they are all he knows. Die Aap is very strong and has long arms, reflected in his name. He doesn;t mean much to Tsotsi, he is just a gang member. Die Aap doesn’t play a huge role in the understanding of the novel other than when he is the one who Tsotsi officially tells that the gang is over.
Tsotsi Movie Characters
Morris
Morris a crippled, he lost his legs six years ago in a mineshaft collapse. He has lost his dignity and is ashamed of the way he must get his money in order to survive – begging. He believes he is a half-man. When Tsotsi’s gang goes to the city, Tsotsi decides he will kill Morris; however, he feels sympathy for the cripple because he reminds him of the yellow bitch. Morris is a catalyst for Tsotsi to remember the dog. He is also a symbol for South Africa, due to the fact that he is a crippled man, much like South Africa. Morris helps the reader understand and see the pivotal moment within Tsotsi and the shift that Tsotsi experiences throughout the story. Morris shows Tsotsi the value of the little things in life and shows Tsotsi that he can make choices. Morris does not have any other influential moment within the text other than the interactions that he has with Tsotsi. With his reactions he creates and helps Tsotsi develop the ability to show decency and allows Tsotsi to make choices that affect others, rather than just himself.
Boston
Boston is the “brains” of the group. He went to university but didn’t complete it because he was accused of raping a fellow student. This sent him down his path of resorting to crime for survival as he had no other way to make ends meet. He is a very knowledgeable character and always tells stories to the group when they aren’t out stalking prey. He is constantly asking Tsotsi questions – which go against Tsotsi’s last two rules – and these questions being to make Tsotsi hate Boston. In the outset of the novel Tsotsi beats Boston because of these questions and he accuses Tsotsi of having no decency. This influences Tsotsi’s decisions throughout the book. At the end of the novel Tsotsi seeks Boston out and cares for him in order to try and discover answers to similar questions that Boston was asking earlier. Boston acts as a catalyst for Tsotsi’s search for god. He explains to Tsotsi that he must seek out god to get more answers and tells Tsotsi that everyone is “sick from life.” Not only does he help Tsotsi understand what he must do to seek further redemption but the exchange they have also makes Boston realize he must go back home to seek redemption from his mother.
Isaiah
Isaiah and Tsotsi meet at a church near the end of the story and engage in a short yet life changing conversation for Tsotsi. In the bible Isaiah is an 8th century prophet ( inspired teacher or proclaimer of the will of god ) and in the book he teaches Tsotsi of god, he tells Tsotsi of what will happen because of sin and that god is inside the church. Although we know this isn’t in fact true, Tsotsi believes that he is and it engages his interest of attending the church even more. Tsotsi has been looking for god and that is why he went to Boston, Isaiah is his door to god. Tsotsi is invited back to the church and if it wasn’t for the baby in the ruins the next day, he would have returned. Isaiah allows Tsotsi to understand the possibilities of Christianity brings.
He leads a loose-knit gang that smashes and grabs, loots and shoots, sets out each morning to steal something. On a crowded train, they stab a man,- and he dies without anyone noticing; they hold his body up with their own, take his wallet, flee when the doors open. Another day's work. But when his friend Boston (Mothusi Magano) asks Tsotsi how he really feels, whether decency comes into it, he fights with him and walks off into the night, and we sense how alone he is. Later, in a flashback, we will understand the cruelty of the home and father he fled from.
He goes from here to there. He has a strange meeting with a man in a wheelchair, and asks him why he bothers to go on living. The man tells him. Tsotsi finds himself in an upscale suburb. Such areas in Joburg are usually gated communities, each house surrounded by a security wall, every gate promising 'armed response.' An African professional woman gets out of her Mercedes to ring the buzzer on the gate, so her husband can let her in. Tsotsi shoots her and steals her car. Some time passes before he realizes he has a passenger: a baby boy.
Tsotsi is a killer, but he cannot kill a baby. He takes it home with him, to a room built on top of somebody else's shack. It might be wise for him to leave the baby at a church or an orphanage, but that doesn't occur to him. He has the baby, so the baby is his. We can guess that he will not abandon the boy because he has been abandoned himself, and projects upon the infant all of his own self-pity.
We realize the violence in the film has slowed. Tsotsi himself is slow to realize he has a new agenda. He uses newspapers as diapers, feeds the baby condensed milk, carries it around with him in a shopping bag. Finally, in desperation, at gunpoint, he forces a nursing mother (Terry Pheto) to feed the child. She lives in a nearby shack, a clean and cheerful one. As he watches her do what he demands, something shifts inside of him, and all of his hurt and grief are awakened.