This is a document containing quotes for essays for The Theory of Flight by Siphiwe Gloria Ndlovu for Grade 12 IEB. The quotes are divided by character and are accompanied with context. A short description of the characters is also provided. This is must be accompanied with a full understanding of ...
Theory of Flight – Quotes
Baines Tikiti & Prudence Ngoma (Parents of Golide Gumede and Minenhle Tikiti)
o “A rare thing for his time: a moderately educated black man.”
o “For the first time Baines was not able to charm a sixpence out of a woman’s hand.”
o “She returned home with only one regret – that she had not fully understood the
man she had married.”
o “Prudence raised her children to have character, to be proud and strong, to not be
afraid of humility.”
o “A person’s character was the most important thing.”
Golide Gumede (Father of Genie)
o “People would need to know that they were capable of flight.”
o “He knew, without a doubt, that he was a man capable of impossible things.”
o “This was a rite of passage made scared by its sheer audacity. There was a wonder to
it all … The possibility seemingly impossible. There was this feeling Golide go … a
knowing … He became aware of his place in the world. He understood that in the
grander scheme of things he was but a speck … a tiny speck … and that was enough.”
o Golide Gumede reflecting on the elephants crossing the Zambezi River while
waiting to shoot down the Vickers Viscount plane.
o Genie later repeats the exact same description of the event to Marcus.
o “Power of a special kind. The power to move, inspire and unite people. Charisma.”
o Bhekithemba’s description of Golide Gumede.
Elizabeth Nyoni (Mother of Genie)
o “Pride and all, when all that is mine is beauty.”
o “Thandi’s boy. He is a thing of beauty.”
o Jestina however says, “My eyes are not for beauty to see.”
o This highlights how perspective causes different interpretations of the world.
Jestina Nxumalo (The Hadebes’ maid)
o “Then again, evil is everywhere... and in everyone, really. No one is inherently evil.
But we are all of us capable of evil.”
o “Evil does not discriminate. It visits all of us with equal opportunity.”
o Jestina’s reflection on the massacre at BF & E.
o “What did they do to Genie?”
o Her reaction to discovering Genie has HIV. She determines the sojas must
have raped her.
Kuki Carmichael (Best friend of Beatrice and ex-wife of Emil Coetzee)
o “Kuki had never had an independent thought. Kuki had accepted wholesale the
opinions and beliefs of her family, community, and country.”
o “She is a liberal... So, no she is not a racist. She is just a frustrated liberal.”
Beatrice Beit-Beauford (Previous owner of Beauford Farm & Estate)
o “Beatrice turned the Beauford Estate into a multi-racial commune and artist’s
colony.”
Mordechai Gatiro (C10) (Interrogator and later Minenehle’s husband)
o “He was born a life of fire.”
o “He finally found something – someone – to have an allegiance to.”
, o Mordechai meets Minenehle Tikiti and find something to live for.
Thandi Hadebe (later Masuku) (Marcus and Krystle’s mother and Dingani’s wife”
o “Her beauty afforded her a certain kind of ease, a certain kind of power.”
o “She stopped trying to be anything more than what people saw.”
o “The smell followed her everywhere.”
o After Thandi was thrown in the pit latrine by the soja she was never able to
move on, until she finally left the Beauford Farm and Estate.
o “A man and a woman who looked too … shiny.”
o The description of Thandi and Dingani following their arrival at Beauford
Farm & Estate.
Dingani Masuku (Thandi’s husband and Marcus and Krystle’s father)
o “Dingani was adamant.”
o Dingani feels guilt for causing Genie to lose her parents.
o “The house, the lifestyle, it came at a price - you must have known.”
o “A lion without his pride.”
o This is how Dingani appears now that his family have left him.
o “You're right. Of course, you're right. It is my fault. It is all my fault.”
o “Because he is planning to overthrow the government.”
o Dingani told this to TMH resulting in the BF & E massacre.
Genie (Daughter of Golide Gumede and Elizabeth Nyoni, partner to Vida)
o “Genie’s beginning was like all our beginnings – beautiful and golden.”
o “All she could utter were sounds – twitters really.”
o When Genie and Marcus first meet.
o “Penelope (her handmade rag doll, whose dark brown skin and colourful dress her
mother had made from scraps.”
o This is how they learned their most valuable lesson about death – that after it there
is life again, that things perish will rise again.”
o “Genie chose that exact moment to take her rightful place among them, welcoming
the familiar itch of his skin as her arms came into contact with the stalks and
enjoying the cool dampness of the reddish-brown soil as her toes burrowed in,
rooting her in place.”
o “Yes, I am precious.”
o Genie believes she is a precious thing that came from a Golden egg.
o “She turned to find Genie, terrified and trembling in the corner.”
o Jestina finds Genie after the massacre at BF & E, Genie has just been raped,
resulting in her contracting HIV.
o “This is not an ending of my choosing. From now on I will choose my own
endings.”
o “Told him about sunflowers comma sojas, saviors and secrets.”
o Genie tells Vida that she was raped and is HIV positive.
o “The discovery of the precious and beautiful something leads Genie know what she
needs to do next.”
o This triggers Genie’s decision to begin the end of her life.
o “All she knows is that in this life she has reached for something and touched it.”
o Genie feels she has lived a life that mattered.
o “Quieted. Unbreachable. At peace.”
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