The Collector of Treasures Summary

Bessie Head’s story “The Collector of Treasures” is a dramatic reflection of the oppressive attitudes
of men in her culture towards the women and children they are supposed to care for and love. Head
establishes this theme by contrasting the marriage of her protagonist, Dikeledi, and her husband
Garesego, with the much more tender one of their neighbours, Kenalepe and Paul Thebolo.
Before she actually even introduces the Thebolos, Head observes that there are two types of men:
those who have sex with their women like dogs, out of pure carnal lust; and those who really care
about women as human beings.
The protagonist’s husband, Garesego, is the first type of man. He got Dikeledi pregnant three times
in four years and then left her, continuing to live in the same village but assuming no responsibility
for either his wife or his sons. For many years thereafter, she never approaches him for cooperation
for either herself or her children, apparently regarding it as a matter of pride that she is able to feed
and clothe them and pay for their primary school educations out of the small income she is able to
earn sewing and knitting for others in the village.
Her neighbour Kenalepe’s husband, Paul, is completely different from Garesego. Kenalepe and Paul
have a loving marriage and a wonderful sex life, which Kenalepe describes for her friend in great
detail. Discovering that men like Paul exist is an eye-opening experience for Dikeledi. It shows her
that there are men who do not act like sex-crazed dogs, and who respect their women. It induces
her to try to approach Garesego again—not for sex, but to try to convince him to pay the school fees
so their oldest son can go to secondary school, which is more expensive than the primary school the
youngest children attend. She only needs a small amount of money, having saved the rest herself,
and knows that this would be no financial burden for him.
Garesego, on the other hand, thinks that any favour done for a woman should be done in
recompense for sex. He proves this in his allegations about Paul; he assumes that if Paul has given
Garesego’s wife a sack of grain then Paul must be getting sex out of the deal as well. As for that,
Garesego doesn’t care—he doesn’t want Dikeledi any more, and has no problem with Paul having
her—but he simply cannot conceive that there could be any kind of relationship or even a
transaction between males and females that doesn’t involve some sexual component.
Consequently, when he contacts Dikeledi about the possibility of giving her money for their son’s
education, he tells her he is coming back home and she should prepare a hot bath for him. Not being
a total fool, Dikeledi knows what this means. After he bathes, he will want to have sex; and after he
has sex, he might or might not consider giving her money. But this is not an acceptable tradeoff for
Dikeledi, because she knows that Paul Thebolo would demand no such thing. Sex has nothing to do
with school tuition; sex has everything to do with love, and Garesego doesn’t love Dikeledi and she
doesn’t love him. But for Garesego, sex also has to do with power, and in this case having sex with
Dikeledi when she needs something from him would express his power over her.
Consequently, after Garesego has had his dinner and his bath and gotten comfortably drunk, he
toddles off to bed expecting Dikeledi to follow. Once he has fallen asleep, Dikeledi pulls a butcher
knife out from under the bed and cuts off what she delicately calls his “special parts.” The fact that
she will be convicted of manslaughter does not deter her, for she realizes she cannot live this way
any longer. Paul promises to raise her children as he would his own, and Dikeledi goes on to a new
stage in her life, this time in prison.
Head’s title, “The Collector of Treasures,” is tremendously ironic on the surface, for it would seem
that what Dikeledi has collected in her lifetime is not treasure but heartbreak. Yet Head’s opening
passages, showing how well Dikeledi has adjusted to prison life and the closeness of the women who
have been placed in prison for the same crime, shows that Dikeledi really doesn’t feel her life has
been that bad. She has learned much more from her hardships than Kenalepe has learned from her
good fortune, and in her travels through life she has managed to earn the respect of men like Paul
and women like Kebonye. The fact that her marriage was a disaster has actually made her strong,
and she is much more centered in her sense of self than Kenalepe who has had a much easier life. As
Dikeledi observes, throughout her hard life she has looked beneath the surface and collected small
treasures, and these give her the strength to go on.

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Bessie Head’s story “The Collector of Treasures” is a dramatic reflection of the oppressive attitudes

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