A Girl Named Disaster

Fiction | Novel | Middle Grade | Published in 1996

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Summary

Background

Chapter Summaries & Analyses

Chapters 1-12

Chapters 13-27

Chapters 28-42

Character Analysis

Themes

Symbols & Motifs

Important Quotes

Essay Topics

Tools

Beta

Discussion Questions

Symbols & Motifs

Magazine Cover

The magazine cover Nhamo carries with her is a motif, which symbolizes belonging. Nhamo discovers the image in a pile of old magazines that the villagers are planning to burn. As soon as she sees it, “her heart beat[s] so fast it hurt[s]” (8). The image depicts “a beautiful woman” (8) cutting a piece of bread and spreading margarine on it for a little girl. Nhamo immediately decides that the woman is her mother and the little girl is her. She doesn’t remember what her mother looked like, because she died when Nhamo was only three years old. However, Nhamo is convinced the woman in the advertisement is Mother because of “the way her spirit leaped when she saw” it (9). Therefore, the image offers Nhamo the maternal comfort she has craved throughout her childhood.

The magazine cover recurs throughout the novel, gaining symbolic significance as the narrative progresses. The image is one of the only personal items Nhamo brings with her when she leaves her village. To Nhamo, carrying the cover feels like carrying her mother with her. When she feels alone or afraid, she extracts the image and speaks to it. She consistently addresses the cover as “Mother,” telling her stories, sharing her thoughts, and asking her questions. Nhamo is in the wilderness alone but feels comforted and safe with the image of Mother nearby.

Nhamo’s sense of safety and belonging fractures when the magazine cover burns up in Chapter 29. Without the image, Nhamo feels that Mother has abandoned her. However, the image’s destruction also marks the end of Nhamo’s childhood. Now she must seek out a more stable sense of belonging in the chapters following. When she returns to Efifi in Chapter 42, she finds another copy of the margarine ad in Dr. Masuku’s things and realizes the woman in the image doesn’t resemble Ranuko or Dr. Masuku. However, the image does resemble Nhamo. Nhamo’s new sense of belonging comes from herself—because she has developed her own identity, she has found acceptance and love from within.

Leopard

The leopard is another motif that symbolizes both fear and power. Nhamo repeatedly encounters leopards while playing in the woods surrounding her village. These encounters fill her “with a terror so complete that she [cannot] breathe” (7) even when she thinks of them. Her fear of the leopard is caused by her family’s history with the animal. When Nhamo was only three years old, a leopard tore into her hut, bypassed her, and dragged her mother into the forest where he ate her. Whenever Nhamo thinks that she sees or hears leopards, she panics. Due to her cultural traditions and beliefs, Nhamo becomes convinced that the leopard is a spirit who wants to harm her.

Nhamo’s family and the village muvuki confirm Nhamo’s suspicions about the leopard and reinforce her fears. They decide that because “the totem of Goré Mtoko’s family is the leopard” (61), Goré has returned as an angry spirit, or ngozi, taken the form of the leopard and is stalking Nhamo’s family in search of revenge. This theory intensifies Nhamo’s perception of the animal when she is out in the wilderness alone.

Nhamo gains new insight into her leopard sightings once she emerges from the wilderness. In particular, her paternal grandfather helps her to see the leopard’s power and grace. He reminds her that her family totem is also the leopard, and that the leopards she saw in her travels always protected her. Thus, the meaning of this motif evolves as Nhamo grows up: The more she learns about the wilderness and her family, the better she understands the leopard as a creature and a symbol.

Gold Nuggets

Nhamo’s gold nuggets are symbolic of freedom. Grandmother gives Nhamo the nuggets when she tells her to flee the village to escape her fate with Zororo. She explains that she “collected [them] from the stream” and “used to trade them with Joao” (80). The gold has given Grandmother a sense of autonomy she hasn’t always felt over her life since her husband’s tragic death. When she gives them to Nhamo, she is passing this autonomy on to her granddaughter.

In Efifi, Nhamo learns that the gold nuggets will give her a comfortable, secure future. Dr. van Heerden weighs the gold nuggets and informs Nhamo that they’re “worth over four thousand [Zimbabwe] dollars” (289). He, Dr. Masuku, and Baba Joseph agree that because of the gold, Nhamo won’t be “trapped by poverty” (290) like her grandmother and mother. The money grants her the freedom to establish herself as a single, independent woman, making the gold nuggets a form of both financial and spiritual inheritance from Nhamo’s late grandmother.