THE LEPER COMPOUND
Topics for discussion
1. In what ways does historical change shape the events of the novel?
2.
What is the central theme of The Leper Compound?
3. Why has the leper compound near Ndima been chosen as a title when the place
itself
is confined to one chapter, and the novel is not grounded here?
4. Paula Nangle is
a psychiatric nurse. How have Julia Chonongera and other nurses influenced
Colleen? What impact does
nursing have on the novel?
5. In "Svikiro," Colleen dreams of an accident in which the dying Miss Maenga walks
away: "She acknowledges Colleen briefly before she goes." The novel ends with her
dead father
giving her arbitrary advice (or does it have meaning?). How has the African
belief in spiritism influenced her thinking,
or receptiveness, to the dead, the comatose,
the dying?
6. How are Colleen's father's responses
to the war, and to Sarah's emerging mental illness,
similar or different?
7. Discussing Sarah's illness
with Colleen in "The Last Day at Nyadzi," Vaida says, "What
could you do? It was beyond your control."
Are there actions the reader wishes Colleen
would take with Sarah? With Heresekwe? Should she have crossed the
border?
8. The Africans' unwillingness to fully include Colleen is based on a mutual mistrust that
seems
inevitable during a guerilla war. Give examples. Heresekwe says, "But this is
what I mean,
Colleen. You don't know whose side you're on." Is this a fair accusation?
9. Events, like her sister's delusions, may or may
not be real. In "The Visit," she realizes
"she might never know." Few things are definite. How does this tentative
acceptance of
an uncertain reality coincide with the states of emergency in both Rhodesia and South
Africa, where the government controlled the media?
10. Beyond Vaida's nationalism, what motivates her? Is Vaida revealing the
whole truth of
what happened in her confession? Does Colleen take full responsibility for
the events
at Mhekwe? Should she?
11. What is the significance of the corpses in The
Leper Compound? How does Colleen
react to death?
12. Compare the character of Malcolm to
Heresekwe, Len or Nick.
13. Why are movements such as 'I Live' and rebirthing so attractive to Colleen's South
African friends? Colleen cannot rebirth -- why?
14. Muteness and immobility are observed by Colleen throughout the novel. In
the first
chapter, as she is recovering from malaria, there are "long silences when she
pretended to be deaf." Why does she persistently attempt to identify with people
whose communication
and movement are compromised?
15. Does Colleen fear that she might develop schizophrenia like Sarah? She experiences
vivid
dreams after the malaria. But schizophrenia has been called a waking dream.
Without sleep after Gavin's
surgery, Colleen begins to hallucinate. Could she have
smothered the other baby, Ramona? The incident
is never reflected upon in later
chapters. Although she seems to have accepted what
the nurse assures her -- that it is
a dream, her part in the baby's death -- how does she live
with herself and continue to
function as a mother?
16. Does Colleen accept her stepmother's
role in Sarah's life?
17. Paula Nangle is the daughter of evangelical missionaries. The novel is not a memoir.
Beyond Colleen's reluctance to actively participate in any movement requiring zeal,
what evidence of
the writer's background remains in the novel's exploration of
religion?