Structure

The short story “They Sold My Sister” by Leteipa Ole Sunkuli follows a simple structure: it presents the forced marriage of a Maasai girl as seen through her younger sister’s perspective. The story has a typical plot structure and focuses on the conflicts between African traditions and Western influences, reflected through the situation of Maasai girls who traditionally have no freedom of choice when it comes to marriage.

Title

The title of the story—“They Sold My Sister”—is intriguing before reading the story and hints at one of the main themes of the text— forced marriages. The title represents the narrator’s perspective on the traditional Maasai marriage negotiations: “My father's hands quaked as he took the money. My mother smiled. I rubbed my wet eyes. They sold my sister.” (ll. 17-19)

In the Maasai tradition, the family of a young woman is given a “dowry” (l. 21) by the man who wants to marry the woman. The family of the husband pays the family of the bride in money, cattle, and objects, without the bride having any say in how the marriage is arranged. Consequently, the title of the story illustrates the sad reality of tribal traditions which come into conflict with Western influences. The narrator, her sister, and her brother want to go to school and learn, but their family continues to follow the customs of the tribe, treating girls and women like breeding stock:

‘I am soon coming for your heifer.’
‘A human or animal heifer?’
‘Human.’ (ll. 156-158)

Beginning

The short story begins directly by announcing the plot of the story and intr...