A Savior for Elizabeth

Bessie Head’s novel, A Question of Power has given me an exhausting, and confusing trip into Elizabeth’s world of mentally illness. Finishing the novel, has allowed me to fill in the gaps of my confusion and overall her insanity has made much more sense to me. In the end, she cures herself and returns from hell, leaving her nightmares of Dan and Sello behind, and after three years she is now able to sleep in the darkness in peace and security.

The first bit of normalness we notice from Elizabeth is after she gets fired from the school and takes up gardening. She quickly picks up the processes of gardening and from the beginning when she meets Small-Boy, we notice a sort of clarity and normalness about her that allows her to follow and comprehend at this task. She begins to meet people and even her interaction with these characters is sane. She developed a notebook full of notes from what Small-Boy had told her that she holds close and always to goes to it for reference and help for gardening techniques. Her and another gardener, Kenosi, get involved with the co-operation and sell their vegetables and cape-gooseberry for jam making. They become very involved extending their garden and planting new seeds whenever someone stops by the garden and tells them to give them a try. The co-op is another foundation of Elizabeth’s sanity.

Elizabeth’s passage out of hell is mainly led by her friend Tom. He came to her country for agriculture and becomes involved in their garden. The garden to Elizabeth is her means to sustainability and Tom comes into her life as someone whom sees her as a friend; he doesn’t treat her as mentally ill. When Tom comes to work in the garden, everyone strives for his attention and quickly makes friends. He tries to incorporate Elizabeth into dinner gatherings but Elizabeth explains to him that she likes to talk and be around him, just the two of them. Since then, I wondered if she had deeper feels for him or if he was just another form of escaping from her insanity.

After going through her worst nightmare with Sello and Dan, she walks down to the bulletin board in their town and writes a note about how Sello is an awful man and sleeps with his children. The police come to her home and take her away and put her into a hospital. After they find out it is a mental problem, she is taken to the loony bin. Tom tries to visit her at the hospital but Elizabeth denies his company. Elizabeth writes him a note, after telling the nurses to not let him come back and see her: “Tom, I never ever want to see you again, now or for the rest of eternity.” After Elizabeth is released from the hospital (yet not recovered) Tom comes to visit her at her home. During this visit Elizabeth apologizes for her nasty words, she confesses her love for him and it becomes the moment when she is pulled out of her ride through hell.

“Her soul-death was really over in that instant, though she didnot
realize it. He seemed to have, in an intangible way, seen her sitting
inside that coffin, reached down and pulled her out. The rest she
did herself. She was poised from that moment to make the great
leap out of hell.”

Is seems bizarre in a way that even Elizabeth’s own child couldn’t get her out of her mental illness; Elizabeth had not strive to get better for her only son, that needed her as a mother. Yet, Tom did something, maybe it had to do with his direct impact on the garden, which freed her from the torture of Sello and Dan. Sometimes we all need something out of the ordinary, something distant from out loves to help us get back to reality or assist in helping point out the greater things in life.