Chanda's Secrets Sparknotes

All gardens need someone to tend to them- their gardener, who plays the role of a parent. Likewise, all children rely on adults to raise them responsibly, as shown by Allan Stratton in his novel Chanda’s Secrets, in which a sixteen-year old African girl learns that to become responsible, one needs to accept losses in life. Chanda Kabelo, the protagonist, has always been under her mother’s shadow, and after the loss of many loved ones, she realizes her mother and her family are truly all she has. However, Chanda’s mother is diagnosed with HIV/AIDS, soon making her realise the harsh truth: she will have to live without her mother and raise her siblings herself. Eventually, Chanda’s mother passes away, but Chanda has developed and is no longer

the girl who depends on her mother. To involve losses in Chanda's life, Stratton employs the use of situational irony and foreshadowing. Throughout the novel, the author develops Chanda’s sense of responsibility gradually to eventually lead her to become responsible after all the tragic events she has been through.

One of the main techniques in the story to help Chanda develop responsibility is the use of situational irony.

This is seen many times in the novel, such as when Chanda visits Esther’s house and says “‘I’m looking for Esther.’’Then what are you doing here?’ her auntie snorts. ‘I thought this was where she lives’. ’Is it?’ ‘Isn’t it?’ I shift my weight (Stratton 97)”. During this dialogue, the author makes the readers think that Esther has run away or she might be dead because she isn’t at her home, and she told Chanda that her uncle and aunt would beat her. On the contrary, Chanda finds out that Esther’s aunt and uncle don’t beat her at all and instead, Esther is a prostitute but chose to lie to Chanda instead of telling her the truth. Later on in the story, Chanda thinks to herself, “I run to the well. No one could survive a drop like that. I don’t care. I call down: ‘Iris? Iris?’ (Stratton 157)” . In this scene, the reader thinks that Chanda’s little sister, Iris, will die because she fell into such a deep well. However, she survives and Chanda knows something must have cushioned her fall, and that’s when they discover Jonah’s dead body at the bottom of the well. The reader does not think they will find a character that was missing to show up dead instead of Iris. Situational irony in this story helps to create events for Chanda that she doesn’t expect to

face.

Foreshadowing, which happens to be another literary device, is the other technique that can be found in this novel that creates tragic losses.

An example of this is when Mrs. Tafa, the neighbour, and Chanda are talking about the headaches that Mama, Chanda’s mother, suffers from. “‘These headaches have got to stop.’ ‘She doesn’t get them on purpose. They’re on account of her grieving.’ ‘Grieving or not, people talk.’ A sliver of ice shoots up my spine. (Stratton 85)”. Mama’s headaches are another sign of AIDS that everyone in the neighbourhood knew of, but she said they were headaches of grief, which made sense for a few days after her daughter died but was getting unrealistic after a few months. Although it was unrealistic, Chanda would not believe Mama had AIDS and neither would Mrs. Tafa. Only a few scenes later, more evidence of the author foreshadowing Mama’s AIDS can be found. “Jonah has AIDS. And Jonah’s slept with Mama. I think about their dead babies. And Mama’s headaches. Her weariness. Her joints. The way she’s gotten so thin (Stratton 109)”. In this quote, it is quite obvious that Mama might have AIDS, but Chanda decides to ignore this and since Mama is getting a little better, the readers get tricked into thinking that this is not foreshadowing. These subtle scenes of foreshadowing build up to the biggest tragedy in Chanda’s life: her mother’s

death.

The common misconception that responsibility comes through success is proved incorrect by this novel’s situational irony before losses and the foreshadowing of these losses as well. People tend to think that responsibility is a matter of understanding the consequences of one’s actions and words, but it is much more than that: responsibility comes by being able to adapt to changes in life and take action when things go wrong. Gardeners only realize how to properly care for plants when they realize what caused one to die, and in the same way, people only realize true responsibility when they can learn from previous mistakes.