Sponono Redone

Alan Paton

"Sponono", by Alan Paton, is about a boy from the Xhosa tribe named Sponono who lives in a reformatory that is located in South Africa. This story is also about the Principal of the reformatory, which Alan Paton wrote so the Principal is narrating the story. This story begins when Sponono sees the Principal in order to save someone named Johannes Mofoking from going to prison. After Sponono's persuasion, Johannes is set free. When the Principal finds out Sponono lied to come see the Principal, he asks him a question.

“’Do you not think it wrong to tell a lie?’  I asked.

‘Not to save a person,’ he said.”

Sponono soon returns to the Principal with an irregular request to work in the Principal's garden, which I thought was very peculiar. After the Principal agrees to let him work in it, Sponono quarrels with the previous worker, William, and they get two separate sections to work with. Later he got into a fight with a boy named Tembo and got whipped in the eye with a metal belt. But, with his forgiving heart, Sponono forgave Tembo and hoped to move on. When the Principal asked where he got the idea of forgiving, Sponono said it was a teaching of Jesus.

 

He isn't a Christian, for he said, (61)"'I am not good enough, but I like to obey the commandments.'" He told the Principal that people must forgive the others whom did an offense, even as many a 70 times 7.

He was banned form working in the Principal's garden, which didn't satisfy him. Sponono assumes that once someone is forgiven, they can wipe out the memory of their bad-doing and act like it never happened. He made the Principal promise he could work in his garden again and the Principal gave his obliges. This promise backfired on him because, when he quit his job as a principal to move to Natal, he was forced to allow Sponono to come because of a silly promise. After a few days of working in the Principal's garden, he got invited to a party. He killed and ate a chicken from dissatisfaction for the food, and threatened the host. He was sent back to the reformatory the next day. 

Reformatory

Even though he pleaded and begged the Principal to reprieve him and let him come back and work in his garden, the Principal never let him.

 

One thing in Sponono that can set several of the readers off is the fact that Sponono quoted the Bible, even though he isn't Christian. Back in the story when he forgives Tembo so easily, the Principal asks him why he forgives people so easily and where he got this idea from. He claims that Jesus forgives everyone, even if they wrong him seventy times seven. Sponono also believes that if someone is forgive, they can forget their wrong like it never happened.

 (60-61)"'Do you think,' I asked, 'that if a person is forgiven, his offence is wiped out like it had never been done?' 'Yes,' Sponono said."

I think that Sponono wants the Principal to pardon his offences so he doesn't have to keep thinking about them. Whenever he does wrong, he won't rest until someone has forgiven him. When he got into a fight with Tembo, the Principal punishes him by restarting his term at the Reformatory from the beginning. Sponono finds this exploitative. He asks the Principal why he can't forgive him now instead of making him start from the beginning. The Principal says he forgives him, but because he committed a grave offence, he needs to be punished. Sponono doesn't understand the true meaning of forgiveness. His idea is that when someone does something dissatisfactory and someone forgives them for it, they don't have to be punished and can forget they had ever done it. He says (61)"I see you are not ready," to the Principal and believes he must share his idea of forgiveness with him. I believe he brings out a Bible and quotes it to the Principal in order to show him the "right way" of forgiveness.