45 pages • 1 hour read
The Bitter Side of Sweet
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Chapters 6-9
Chapter 6 Summary
The bosses return with Khadija later that night, and Amadou hides in the toolshed as they bring her in and beat her. Hopeful that they forgot about him and he might be spared a beating, Amadou stays hidden and quiet but hears Khadija’s cries growing frantic. He realizes they aren’t just beating her; they are raping her. After the bosses leave, he finds her in the dark and comforts her, sitting beside her until dawn. In the morning, when he sees her bloodied and swollen face and the “deadness in her eyes” (67), Amadou feels guilty. He helped catch her on the first day when she could have gotten away, and he did nothing to help her last night.
They are both assigned to shelling again today, but Khadija is motionless. Amadou decides to work as hard as possible, in hopes it will be enough to cover for her. When he reaches for the first sack, he finds a present: four mangoes. He realizes that Seydou took time to cut these mangoes for him and take care of him, even in the midst of keeping up with the bigger boys. A few hours into the morning, Amadou gives Khadija, still motionless, some water to drink and wipes her face clean. He shares the mangoes with her, seeing the deadness in her eyes that has replaced the “wildcat” that used to be there (72). When the crews return from the fields, Amadou convinces Moussa to put him back on a harvest team tomorrow. Moussa only agrees because he lost a worker today: Seydou.
Chapter 7 Summary
Seydou is carried into the camp unconscious and bleeding heavily. His forearm has been cut deeply, down to the bone, and Moussa sews the wound shut. Seydou was reaching around a tree trunk to pull a pod just as another boy was swinging his machete to cut the pod, and his arm was cut instead. Amadou fights the urge to ask who the boy was. He wants to feel angry at the boy who cut his brother but blames himself instead for not being with Seydou.
After the stitches, Seydou briefly regains consciousness, screaming in pain.
Yussuf comes to help lift Seydou into the sleeping hut, and despite his helpfulness, Amadou feels like he can’t trust him. What if Yussuf was the boy who cut Seydou? Khadija, still chained, is forced into the sleeping hut, and the other boys start catcalling and laughing. Amadou stands up for her, telling everyone to stop, and leading her to the corner where he and Seydou sleep. Through the night, Seydou floats in and out of consciousness and feels feverish to the touch. Amadou hardly sleeps, waking every time Seydou cries out. In the morning, Moussa announces he will leave Khadija with Seydou for the day, and Amadou will be going to work in the fields. As Amadou leaves the hut, Khadija tells him she will do her best to take care of Seydou.
Chapter 8 Summary
All day harvesting cacao, Amadou worries about Seydou. All he can think about is getting back to him and Khadija to see if they are ok. When they finally finish working for the day, he runs back to the sleeping hut. Seydou is burning with fever and his wound has swollen tightly around the t-shirt being used as a makeshift bandage. Seydou won’t drink any water while he’s unconscious, so Amadou pours water on his face to wake him. The effect is immediate: He wakes screaming and writhing, delirious from the fever. Moussa carries Seydou to the water pump and drenches him to bring the fever down.
That night, Khadija tells Amadou to sleep. He will need his strength for another day of work in the fields, and she can keep watch over Seydou. She reminds Amadou that Moussa doesn’t really care about he or Seydou. He needs Amadou to get the work done in the fields and will only take care of Seydou, “if it doesn’t cause him too much trouble” (99). Angry, Amadou refuses to respond to her and lies awake all night. Moussa unwraps Seydou’s bandage in the morning. The wound is severely infected, and Amadou vomits at the sight and smell of it. Moussa says he will take care of Seydou today while Amadou works in the field. However, because Moussa is staying, Khadija must go out and harvest cacao. Moussa chains her to Amadou, saying he will kill Seydou if Khadija escapes today.
Chapter 9 Summary
Seeing the shock in Amadou’s face over Moussa’s threatening words, Khadija says Amadou trusts Moussa too much. As they head toward the fields chained together, a boy makes fun of Amadou. Amadou responds by pinning him to a tree and tells him in a quiet, menacing tone to leave him alone.
Because they’re chained together, Khadija and Amadou must work together in close proximity. Even though Khadija is new and inexperienced at cutting pods, they make steady progress, filling their sacks with cacao pods. Khadija remarks that her hands are starting to blister, and Amadou explains she will soon build up calluses. However, Khadija can’t imagine being at the camp long enough to develop calluses; she’s still desperate to get away. Amadou flashes back to when he and Seydou tried to escape. Seydou was whipped repeatedly with a bike chain, and between each lash was forced to say, “This is Amadou’s fault” (110). The scars on Seydou’s back constantly remind Amadou of that horrible day and fill him with guilt.
Khadija promises not to attempt an escape today. She does not want to place Seydou in any more danger. Amadou is overwhelmed to know that someone else is looking out for Seydou and that he can trust Khadija. By the time the workday ends, the chain no longer pulls between them. They have learned to “walk perfectly in step with each other” (113). As they approach camp, they see Seydou sitting up, but he’s crying, “rocking back and forth, seemingly unaware of what’s going on around him” (114). His injured forearm has been amputated, and only a stump remains.
Chapters 6-9 Analysis
Sullivan describes characters’ eyes to show how they are feeling internally. Her use of this motif suggests that a person’s true self can be seen in his or her eyes. For example, after being raped, Khadija’s eyes have lost their fire, and Amadou sees only deadness there. He worries she may have lost the will to live based on the change he can see in her eyes. However, eventually her “wildcat” spirit returns to her eyes. Later, when she scolds Amadou for trusting Moussa too much, Khadija’s “thunder and lightning eyes” (103) show her fiery nature. Sullivan also describes Seydou’s eyes after his arm has been wounded. Amadou can see that Seydou is withdrawn in his immense pain, so that no form of comfort will reach him. These examples of internal emotions being expressed through the eyes allow the reader to see how other characters are feeling, and how their feelings—and eyes—change over time.
Guilt is a theme Sullivan begins to develop in these chapters. Amadou constantly struggles with feelings of guilt, yet he doesn’t talk about them. Instead, he punishes himself internally. Amadou feels immense guilt over helping to recapture Khadija the first day she tried to run away, and for hiding in the corner of the shed instead of trying to stop the bosses from raping Khadija. His guilt shows that he has retained his sense of compassion and humanity. He may have made some mistakes, but he recognizes them. Amadou also feels guilty for things over which he had no control. For example, he feels it’s his fault that Seydou was injured because he wasn’t there in the fields to protect him. Moussa recognizes his guilt and exploits it, reminding Amadou he should have been there to maintain control over him. Finally, Sullivan uses a flashback to explain what happened when Amadou and Seydou tried to escape. Seydou’s scars from the bike chain he was whipped with fill Amadou with guilt daily. Sullivan shows how the bosses use guilt to keep Amadou enslaved, as well as how Amadou has enslaved himself in his guilt. His constant guilt takes a toll on his relationship with Seydou and keeps him from blaming those who are truly guilty: the bosses.
As she highlights the bosses’ use of guilt and its effect on Amadou, Sullivan also develops complexities in Moussa’s character. Seeing Moussa from Amadou’s first-person perspective, it’s difficult to pinpoint whether Moussa is completely evil or not. Although he beats Amadou and uses Amadou’s care for Seydou against him, he also seems gentle and caring at times. For example, he gently carries the injured Seydou and gives him medical attention by stitching his wound and trying to bring his fever down. Khadija thinks Moussa only cares about Seydou because of the money that he’s worth as a worker, but Amadou seems to see a different side of him. Sullivan toys with the reader’s judgments of Moussa, showing him as evil one moment but somewhat caring the next. In this way, she showcases the way Amadou is so desperate for affection and approval, that he has no choice but to get it from the bosses when he can. Even though Amadou fears Moussa, he has no one else to turn to, and no sense of what a caring, compassionate adult is really like. In many ways, his judgment of Moussa’s character has been clouded because of his desperate situation.
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