8/25/22, 4:11 AM Tsotsi – Chapter Summaries – Grade 11 English
Grade 11 English
All about English HL for the grade 11 class of 2020
TSOTSI
Tsotsi – Chapter Summaries
Date: Apr 3, 2020 1 Comment
Chapter 1
Tsotsi, Boston, Butcher and Die Aap sit around the Tsotsi’s room drinking beer in silence,
waiting for him to specify what job they will do that night. Tsotsi decides they will head to
the train station where their unsuspecting victim, Gumboot Dhlamini, begins to head home
to his wife. Tsotsi targeted Gumboot for three reasons: he smiled, he wore a flaming red tie,
and he bought his ticket with money from his pay packet. After everyone does their part in
the murder and robbery, they leave gumboots lifeless body on the train to be discovered by
the other passengers.
Chapter 2
Tsotsi, Butcher, Boston, and Die Aap head to Soekie’s house after the murder to have a few
drinks. As they start drinking, they begin to talk about Boston getting sick and throwing up
during the murder of Gumboot. Boston claims that the only reason he got sick and the
others didn’t was because he has decency unlike the rest of them. As the conversation
advances Die Aap and butcher take Rosie, a girl who was also in Soekie’s house, outside to
rape her. When the others leave Boston begins to question Tsotsi about what he feels. This
breaks one of Tsotsi’s rules: never ask questions. Tsotsi begins to get irritated by all the
questions about Tsotsi’s personal life. Tsotsi eventually has enough and brutally beats
Boston leaving him in Soekie’s place beaten half to death.
Chapter 3
After beating Boston, Tsotsi leaves the she been and takes a walk through the street. As he
walks, he begins to have a flashback, he sees a boy named Petah being taken away by the
police, as he is being taken away, he looks down the street and recognizes Tsotsi as David,
his name before he changed it to Tsotsi. Tsotsi does not acknowledge the fact that Petah
recognized him and just continues his game of dice. As Tsotsi lay under a tree he begins to
hear what he recognizes as footsteps, as he hears them come closer and closer, he moves to
get a better vantage point and sees a young woman as. As he studied her more, he began to
recognize the symptoms of fear and sees that she was carrying a small parcel and kept
checking over her shoulder. Tsotsi grabs her by one arm and swings her into the darkness of
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8/25/22, 4:11 AM Tsotsi – Chapter Summaries – Grade 11 English
the trees, as he pins her against the tree, she takes the parcel and thrusts it into the hands of
Tsotsi and runs off. The lid slips off and Tsotsi finds himself looking at the face of a young
baby boy.
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Chapter 4
Tsotsi heads straight to Cassim’s shop in search of milk for the baby, before he gets courage
to go up and talk to Cassim he exits and renters the store multiple times waiting for it to
empty. Nervously Cassim sends his wife into the back room to round up their children in
case Tsotsi tries to mug them, Tsotsi goes up to the counter and asked to buy some milk.
After buying the condensed milk Tsotsi takes the baby back to his room to clean it and feed
it, after the baby is all clean and fed, he takes him to the ruins to hide him. After hiding the
baby in the ruins Tsotsi begins to remember the “yellow bitch,” the dog that he had when he
was a kid. Tsotsi just broke one of his three rules: never ask questions about the past.
Chapter 5
Gumboot Dhlamini is buried and the pastor who is doing his burial is sorely troubled after
burying another man whose name no one knows. Boston awakes from his state of
unconsciousness and moves for the first time in almost a day. Butcher and Die Aap begin to
talk about Tsotsi beating Boston and begin to wonder what the future holds for their gang.
Tsotsi, Butcher and Die Aap find each other and begin to do what they do on any other
night, sit around and drink waiting for Tsotsi to make the decision of what job they will do.
Without Boston’s stories conversation ended rather quickly and Tsotsi decides they will
head into the city tonight.
Chapter 6
Tsotsi, Butcher, and Die Aap wait for the shadows to become long enough so that when they
are, they can head to terminal place. When they get to terminal place Tsotsi steps on Morris
Tshabalala’s – a crippled man who lost his legs in a work accident – hand and decides that
he will be his target tonight. As Morris continues on his way home, he realizes that Tsotsi is
following him, he hopes that if he continues on his way, he will lose Tsotsi before he has to
go through the dark part of his journey. He stops for some food at the Bantu house and then
continues on his way. As he gets to the dark part of his journey, he realizes that even though
he feels like a “half-man” he does want to live. He leaves his money in a pile underneath a
light hoping Tsotsi would just take the money and leave him alone. When Tsotsi kicks the
money and continues walking towards Morris he begins to throw rocks and shout insults in
order to defend himself.
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Chapter 7
As Tsotsi followed Morris he began to realize that he crawls like the “yellow bitch” used to,
dragging his body around since he doesn’t have any legs. Tsotsi confronts Morris in the
street and tells him that he feels for him, after he does this Morris tells him why he wants to
live. After he tells Tsotsi all the reasons he wants to live he confronts him about why Tsotsi
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8/25/22, 4:11 AM Tsotsi – Chapter Summaries – Grade 11 English
has to kill him. Tsotsi then realizes that he doesn’t have to kill him and that it’s he is able to
choose to let him live. Tsotsi then decides he will find out who he is and what happened in
his past.
Chapter 8
Boston awakes to the sound of church bells begins to think about his faith in God. Tsotsi
returns to the ruins to find the baby covered head to toe in ants and instead of leaving it he
cleans the ants off the baby. We then are taken to Waterworks square where a young mother
by the name of Miriam Ngidi waits in the long line to get to the tap. Miriam is a single
mother because one day her husband, Simon, left and never returned. Tsotsi takes her to his
room and forces her to feed the baby. Miriam feeds and cleans off the baby.
Chapter 9
Tsotsi begins to remember his past, he begins to see his old home and how happy he was
living with his mother. Eventually the flashback leads him to the events that happened on
the day that his mother was taken to jail. As his father returns after being away from the
family for a long time, he becomes furious when he finds out his wife has been taken to
prison. During the outrage the father kicks the dog breaking its back, the dog then gives
birth to a litter of pups who soon die. David then runs away from home where he is
welcomed to the river gang which is lead buy a boy named Petah. He then decides to
abandon his identity and start his life under the new name Tsotsi.
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Chapter 10
Die Aap visits Tsotsi to ask about the next job, Tsotsi tells him that the gang has been
disbanded and that he would no longer be doing the jobs that they used to. Die Aap leaves
after him and Tsotsi hear the baby cry. Tsotsi then takes out the baby; staring at it he finally
realizes that the baby is helping him remember his past. Miriam comes to Tsotsi’s room to
feed the baby and later asked Tsotsi if she can have him because she would be able to take
care of him best. Tsotsi won’t let her take the baby because he is Tsotsi’s baby. Tsotsi tells
Miriam that the babies name was David and that he was notches father but David belonged
to him. Miriam leaves and gives Tsotsi some milk for the baby, Tsotsi takes David back to
the ruins and begins to wonder where Boston was and leaves to go and find him.
Chapter 11
Tsotsi eventually finds Boston passed out of the floor of a bar. Tsotsi helps him up and
carries him back to his house to take care of him. Fugard begins to reveal to us the life that
Boston has led, how he was mistakenly expelled from college, how he illegally sold fake
passbooks to people and then how a guy as smart as he became a part of the gang. As
Boston awakes Tsotsi begins to tell him about his experience with Morris and asks him
questions about how he is changing. Boston tells him that they are all sick of life and seek
God. Boston then leaves in search of his mother.
Chapter 12
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8/25/22, 4:11 AM Tsotsi – Chapter Summaries – Grade 11 English
Isaiah sits in the church garden planting flowers where Tsotsi, who was on his way to seek
redemption from God, finds him he explains how he works for God and that when he rings
the church bell it calls to all the other people who believe in god and invites him back next
time the bells ring to find God. Tsotsi then finds Miriam again to feed the baby. As she feeds
the baby Tsotsi realizes that mothers really do love their children and that in order for you to
move into the future you have to let your past go. Miriam then asks him to let her have the
baby again but, he does not leave the baby with her because he doesn’t quite trust her yet.
After he goes to church Tsotsi then decides that he will go back to his childhood name,
David Mondondo. As he heads back to the ruins, he hears bulldozers taking down the walls,
he runs into the building only focused on one thing, finding the baby. He runs straight to
the corner where the baby lay, where he and the baby would be crushed by the ceiling. The
workers who recover his body minutes later agree that his smile was beautiful and strange
for a Tsotsi.
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TSOTSI SUMMARY
Published by ms3nglish
View all posts by ms3nglish
One thought on “Tsotsi – Chapter Summaries”
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1. Omphemetse Nkge says:
Jun 2, 2021 at 6:55 pm
thank you so much
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