Summary
The story begins with John leaving his home to go for a walk through his village.
Before leaving, he sees his father coming after him. His father asks where he is going and what he has done, and John wonders if his father knows his secret. John reminds his father that he leaves for his trip next week, and the two agree to go to the shops the next day.
When John's father, Stanley, returns home, his wife Susana asks him why he is so harsh toward their son. She cannot understand why Stanley treats John with such control and disdain, and she wonders if it is because Stanley feels guilty that John was conceived out of wedlock.
Stanley is a Christian preacher and has forced his family to follow his teaching. Stanley tells Susana that he simply wants John to grow up with the Lord, but Susana argues that he makes John fear him. Susana refers to her husband as Stanley, but Stanley refers to his wife only as "Sister," as in "sister-in-Lord" (57).
While walking, John encounters a village woman. She is polite with him and asks when he is leaving for college, but she cannot pronounce the name of the town correctly. When she walks away, John pities the woman for her simple tribal lifestyle but also envies her contentment.
He worries that everyone will soon know his secret.
Back at home, John eats dinner with his parents and goes to his separate hut. He lights a lantern and leaves it in the hut before sneaking out for another walk toward the village.
Analysis
The story begins immediately with conflict, as it establishes tension between John and his father, Stanley, as well as between religious and cultural ideologies more broadly.
In many ways, Stanley is both a character in the story and a metonymical representation of the effects of British colonization in Africa. The story is set in a small village in Kenya, where some villagers – like Stanley – have taken up Christianity and a Eurocentric approach to education and culture. As such, John is comparatively well-educated in the village, and everyone has faith that he will go far.
By contrast, other villagers have rejected British colonizers and their Christianity, instead choosing to follow the traditions of tribal life. The woman that John meets during his walk is an example of one of these villagers, and John's exchange with her is significant because it showcases the story's skepticism over Western culture. John is embarrassed for the woman, who cannot pronounce the name of his college town in Uganda correctly. The woman, however, laughs at her mispronunciation and seems not to be bothered by it.
Her reaction intrigues John, as he begins to wonder whether elite education and a Eurocentric ideal is indeed the key to a happy life. Furthermore, his own engagement with a white Christian lifestyle has been imposed on him by his stern and controlling father, who still treats John like a child and even refers to him as "the boy." In this way, the story suggests that the idealization of the Western world is tenuous, corrupting and brainwashing native people rather than uplifting them as it purports.
The beginning of the story also presents a central mystery to readers. Throughout these early pages, John is anxious about his father and the other villagers knowing his secret. This secret, however, is not revealed until later in the story. John's anxiety and worry emphasizes the central internal conflict of the story, building tension as he moves through the village and imagines how his life will change. While readers might be able to infer the predicament in which John finds himself, the mystery contributes to the paranoid mood of the story as John's every interaction becomes a potential moment of revelation and subsequent punishment. Even John's encounter with the woman on his walk leads him to question what will happen to him when his secret is revealed, prompting tension between not just John and his father but also between John and his broader community. In this way, the story gradually increases its stakes for its central character and foreshadows John's eventual mental breakdown.
