Takadini Character Analysis

“Takadini”, is a fictional novel by Ben J. Hanson published in 1997. In the novel, Sekai, the protagonist, is the first of four wives of Makwati. After nine years of childlessness, she gave birth to a “sope” (albino) child, which her people considered as not normal and had to be killed before the next sunrise. However, Sekai’s long longing for a child made her escape with Takadini, her albino child. On her escape, she met Baba Chivero in the midst of a forest who took them to Musasa village. She was provided with shelter after the all-male council of elders of Chief Masasa had met to discuss her issue. Nonetheless, Sekai and Takadini were not fully accepted until Shingai, the daughter of Nhariswa eloped with Takadini and gave birth to a normal

The structure of a text is the way a writer arranges the plot of a story. Sequential structure in the text is shown in the transition from one chapter to the other revealing the sequence of events from the start to the end of the story. The chapters begin with sentences such as “Baba Chivero had been dead a month when Baba Kutukwa…”, “During the following two months…”, “Early the following morning….” (Hanson, 1997).The elements of time in these sentences reveal the sequence of events from chapter to chapter in chronological order. The first chapter of the text initializes the story with the initial stages of Sekai’s pregnancy. The second chapter follows the first with the labour period of Sekai and the reactions of her people after she had given birth to an albino child. The story continues in that sequence as the plot unfolds until the closure of the narrative, where Sekai was escorted to her home village from Musasa. Integrated within paragraphs in each chapter is the descriptive structure. This gives a detailed description of events and places to give the reader a mental picture to conceptualize events in the story. Considering the excerpt, “Soon they were joined by Mapanzure, a lanky, watery-eyed old man whose ribs seemed ready to escape from the little flesh which held them” (Hanson, 1997). The descriptive adjectives such as “a lanky, watery-eyed old man” create mental picture to help the reader to conceptualize the body structure of