The Setting Sun and the Rolling World

Fiction | Short Story Collection | Adult | Published in 1987

A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.

Download PDF

Story 7Chapter Summaries & Analyses

Story 7 Summary: “The Mount of Moriah”

A young boy named Hama hears his father talking to a medicine man in the next room. For most of Hama’s life, he lived with his Aunt Rudo. One day, Hama’s father arrived at Aunt Rudo’s with a woman, demanding to take Hama back so the boy could attend school. On the drive home, the deeply inebriated father crashed the car, leaving his female companion dead and Hama with an amputated leg.

The father begs the medicine man to improve his luck at the horse track, as he has lost most of his money to bad bets, drinking, and the string of wives he alienated. The medicine man says the father can improve his luck, but only if he is willing to sacrifice something he loves—and in the medicine man’s view, the father loves nothing. When the father says he loves Hama, the medicine man says that feeling is not love; it is guilt. Although their voices are low, Hama can make out a few phrases; he hears the medicine man say, “Only his heart, a piece of his liver, his genitals. Mix them with this...” (83).

The following morning Hama’s father wakes him and tells him Hama is going home. Hama assumes this means he will return to Aunt Rudo’s. On the drive out of their home in Harare, Hama recalls that Aunt Rudo taught him the song “The Mount of Moriah,” which concerns the biblical story in which God commands Abraham to murder his son Isaac. As Abraham lifts his blade to carry out the killing, God intervenes at the last moment, saving Isaac and rewarding Abraham for his holy devotion.

Hama and his father stop by a river to eat a picnic lunch. As his father nervously paces the riverbank, an ominous screeching bird startles Hama, and he falls in the water. When he sees his father run over to help, the man has a yellow scarf and a large knife in his hands. After being rescued, Hama innocently reflects that the knife is far too large to cut fingernails, which Hama believes is the only reason his father would have a knife on his person. Hama offers his father a smaller razorblade he keeps to pick his teeth, and the father throws the knife and the razorblade into the river, letting out a pained cry.

The two enter the car, and the father turns around and drives in the direction they came, back toward Harare. Hama asks, “We aren’t going home?” (92). The father replies, “Oh, yes we are!” (92).

Story 7 Analysis

Mungoshi depicts another father-son relationship, albeit one that evolves into something far more toxic than the father-son relationships seen thus far. Nevertheless, it is not entirely difficult to imagine the unnamed son and father from “Shadows on the Wall” growing up to become Hama and his father. As in the previous story, Mungoshi shows the devastating effects of addiction, though in this case alcoholism is accompanied by a gambling addiction. It is also important to consider the story’s setting; as in “The Brother,” Mungoshi sets a tale of moral depravation in the city of Harare. Tellingly, it is only when the pair leaves the city for an idyllic riverbank picnic that Hama’s father realizes the madness of what he came there to do.

Meanwhile, the story’s title, “The Mount of Moriah,” is a biblical reference to the mountain where Abraham, at God’s behest, goes to sacrifice his beloved son Isaac. That Hama’s father is prepared to make a similar sacrifice on the recommendation of a medicine man represents another uneasy fusion of Christianity and traditional Zimbabwean spiritual healing. Hama’s father’s plan becomes a bastardization of both traditions, as it is rooted in the man’s seemingly boundless greed.

While God intervenes to stop Abraham from murdering his son, it is up to Hama to stay his own execution. In the story’s climax, as the father unsheathes the knife, the innocent and trusting Hama pities his father—not because he is about to condemn himself by murdering his own son, but because Hama assumes the man aims to cut his fingernails, and such a big knife is woefully unsuited for the task. Hama ultimately saves himself by offering up a small razorblade, reminding the father of his son’s generous spirit. Although God doesn’t prevent Hama’s death, the boy is nevertheless saved by an act of grace.