The Story of an African Farm

Em is primarily presented as Lyndall’s loving foil. As a child, Em is horrified at the thought of leaving the farm to get an education; all she wants is right in front of her. She resembles Tant’ Sannie both in figure and in character, though without Tant’ Sannie’s malice. Em is soft and round, sweet natured, and (mostly) innocent. Her wish that she could stay a child forever evokes that innocence, as well as her tendencies toward compliance and conservatism; she has few qualms about obeying others and is happy with the way things are, never seeking change.

Despite her own traditionalism and naivete, Em admires Lyndall and loves her despite Lyndall’s disobedience and eventual betrayal. When Em is engaged to Gregory, she is excited to introduce him to Lyndall and garner Lyndall’s approval. She eagerly asks her cousin about Gregory, “Do you like him, Lyndall? Is he not handsome?” (183). However, Lyndall withholds her approval, implicitly insulting Gregory’s independence and masculinity—“He must have been a fine baby” (183)—and denigrating the notion of marriage altogether. Lyndall also suggests, however, that Em is the better person; she loves unconditionally and forgives wholeheartedly, as when she willingly relinquishes Gregory, realizing that her fiancé has fallen in love with her cousin. After Lyndall dies, she again agrees to marry him. Ironically, though Lyndall is the more central character, Em will leave the legacy. Like Lyndall’s acknowledgment that Em is her moral superior, this tempers the novel’s proto-feminist subversiveness.

It is notable that the female characters in the novel are not given family names, unlike the male characters; the assumption is that the women will take the name of their future husbands. Thus, Lyndall remains only Lyndall, never having accepted the marriage offers she received. Em, though, will become Em Rose, figuratively becoming a full person only through matrimony, which, along with motherhood, traditionally defined a woman’s life.

Waldo is the novel’s other principal protagonist. The son of the farm’s German overseer, he embodies the novel’s thematic concerns with belief and doubt, with his existential crisis serving as a vehicle for the novel’s exploration of Finding God and Unity in Nature.

Many critics have argued that Waldo represents the author and her own struggles with faith after leaving the religion of her missionary parents. From a young age, Waldo worries over the prospect of salvation and wishes to save all those he can. It is symbolically appropriate that he works herding the sheep on the farm, as the metaphor of Jesus as shepherd and souls as sheep is central to Christianity. Yet Waldo cannot help himself from doubting: The inconsistencies in biblical scripture, the lack of material evidence of God, the hypocritical example of the adults around him, and the unsatisfying nature of organized religious services all lead him to question the faith in which he has been raised. Waldo accepts his ill treatment at the hands of Bonaparte Blenkins, absorbing the Christian lesson of turning the other cheek, at least. However, his reserve hides something more powerful and disturbing, which Bonaparte observes: “The boy looked up at him—not sullenly, not angrily. There was a wild, fitful terror in the eyes. […] He himself was afraid of that look” (125).

Indeed, Waldo becomes a forceful figure as he grows older, though he remains mostly quiet and stoic in the face of irrational forces. He finds comfort in the surrounding countryside and seeks truth in the natural order of things. The development of his body matches the ponderous quality of his endless thoughts, as well as his quiet strength and determination; he first “grow[s] into a heavy, slouching youth” and later looks like “an ill-conditioned young buffalo” (46, 103). His ultimate understanding of a “Universal Unity” helps him to accept the loss of Lyndall, whom he has grown to love, but it does not help him take control of his own fate. He will follow her, like one of his lost sheep, where “all fierce desires die out, and peace comes down” (290)—that is, into death. His many thoughts will torment him no longer.

Bonaparte, the primary antagonist of Part 1, is almost a caricature of a confidence man. His lies are so blatant and so constant that his character serves mostly to highlight the gullibility of the other adult characters. Only the children, especially Lyndall, are able to intuit the man’s evil intentions. In part, this disjunction functions as an implicit critique of the colonial system in which Tant’ Sannie and Uncle Otto are thoroughly indoctrinated. Their isolation as settlers in a foreign country leads to narrowed beliefs, limited experience, and devotion to rigid social mores, which obscure Bonaparte’s deceit and self-serving objectives. In addition, the adults want to believe in Bonaparte: Tant’ Sannie because he flatters her and Uncle Otto because his religious fervor demands it. The children, because of their youth and relative innocence, are less susceptible to this deception.

Bonaparte is not just a trickster or a figure of comic relief (though some of his stories are absurd); he is a usurper, forcing Otto out and insinuating himself into the lives of all the characters. He is also quite cruel, especially to Waldo, whom he is implied to view as a threat. He laughs when he tells Waldo of his father’s death, he trips him to amuse Tant’ Sannie, and he tips him into the pigsty and takes away his book. He also destroys Waldo’s sheep-shearing machine: “Bonaparte put his foot on the machine and crushed it into the sand” (107). Thus, he quite literally quashes Waldo’s dreams for what seems to be little reason. As an archetypal tyrant, Bonaparte can be seen as a symbol of colonialism itself. Tant’ Sannie plays the role of sympathizer, and the children become his subjects. He also represents the emptiness and intemperance of colonial authority; his “red nose,” for example, implies heavy drinking. He conquers the characters’ territory with lies, he employs a “divide and conquer” strategy to secure his authority, he dispenses (in)justice in a haphazard and cruel manner, and he cuts a ridiculous figure in his wholly misplaced outfit of a top hat and coattails. He also eventually gets caught out and is exiled from his ill-gotten grounds, implying a cynical view of the long-term prospects of the colonial project.