Africa, Fudged introduces characters who gradually envelop hope into Tootsie showing his true feelings: Morris, a man unable to walk due to a horrific mining accident, Boston, a man with his own sense of “decency’ but caught up in gang activity, and the baby and Miriam, teach Tootsie deference and maternal responsibility which enables Tootsie to become a loving sympathetic young adult. To begin with, Morris Attachable is a crippled man who gradually teaches Tootsie sympathy. As Morris is crawling away from Tootsie, Tootsie tells himself, “The truth persisted.
His man had escaped into a few more hours of troubled vying and he was desperately glad. It was obvious now what had been happening to him as he followed Morris Attachable down the main street. He was also right in thinking it had never happened before. He had felt for his victim” (105). Tootsie finally admits that to the truth of his experience that he feels for a poor helpless victim he is preying upon and that he has never felt this way before. He then followed Morris knowing he would not harm him he followed him to understand this growing sense of worth of others life. After cautiously tailing Morris more, Tootsie finally confronts him.
Through Morris’ rods however cause Tootsie to reflect, “He didn’t understand the outward meaning of the words. He didn’t need to. Their intimacy at that moment was of so fine a nature that the excitement, the wonder of the cripple broke through the personal context of his words and touched Tootsie” (114). Tootsie feels for Morris and decides to let him live. He learns that not every victim that crosses him has to perish, which he admits to Morris afterwards. Morris shortly after says, ‘ ‘With the instinct of his kind, he turned to beauty and gave back the most beautiful thing he knew. ‘Mothers love their children.
I know. I remember. They sing us songs when we are small. I’m telling you tootsie. Mortimer love their children”‘ (1 15). Tootsie sees the worth of letting others live through Morris’ beautiful words. It teaches Tootsie though ruined on the outside, it does not necessarily mean a person has to be ruined on the inside. TO a greater degree Boson’s somewhat flawed passion for decency and education affects Tootsie something no one else in the gang could do. Although at first Tootsie had lashed out in rage beating Boston, he reflected upon his words whilst attempting to push his feelings about them away.
He intended to push away those feelings of self-respect away until he reconciled with Boston about his past experiences, including Morris and the baby. In the midst of their talk Boston, “stretched out an arm and touched Tootsie, and waited for him to look at him, and then into those eyes, desperate eyes, he said: ‘l don’t know, Tootsie. I know nothing. I am blind, and deaf and almost dumb. My words are just noises, and make them in my throat like an animal. ‘ Then he gripped Tootsie’s arm very tightly because he was suddenly seeing something clearly and it might help to say it: ‘You are different. Tootsie .NET forward. You are changing, Tootsie,’ and then later, ‘You mustn’t be frightened. It happens, man (204). Though Boston is an intelligent man he confides to Tootsie that his not nearly as refined as Tootsie is with his emotions, self-respect, and the want to learn more about himself. He can see the change in Tootsie from where he had started to where he is now. After Boston decides to leave it is narrated, “Tootsie looked at his nakedness, and gave him trousers. He offered him sourcing and bread, but Boston refused. The last he saw of Boston was the figure of a man, stumbling, half running down the tree.
Ahead of him the sun had cleared the cooling towers of the gasworks. It was a new day” (206). Tootsie then learns that he does not need materialistic pleasure to get through life as he did with his gang. Sympathizing with Boston changed Tootsie’s overall perspective on life, a metaphor for baptism, depicting that Tootsie has been further cleansed this time with “decency’. Seeing Boston refuse basic necessities on the way to the fields of his youth portrays that all Tootsie needs is sense of self-respect and respect for others. With that new knowledge, it is a completely new day through Tootsie’s eyes.
Lastly a mother and a helpless baby teach Tootsie his most important lesson; maternal responsibility. He learns to own up to his actions and how to nurture another person. Shortly after finding the baby and buying the milk Tootsie thought to himself, “The baby did not belong and certainly none of the actions that had been forced on him as a result of its presence, like buying baby milk, or feeding it or cleaning it or hiding it with more cunning and secrecy than other people hid what they had from him” (56). Tootsie starts to gain paternal responsibility as soon as he finds the baby.
He says to himself that he is “forced” to care for the baby but any indecent hoodlum would have abandoned the baby and kept their money for their own needs. Instead he buys milk, feeds, cleans, and hides the baby better than he has to anyone else before, an unprecedented sense of paternal responsibility. Tootsie then, “squirmed with anger at the weak hold it had on his life. Yet in spite of this he carried on, stumbling from one moment of inadequacy to the next, swallowing his pride, curbing his impatience, carrying on because he knew very well he had taken it.
He was chancing his hand at a game he had never dared play and the baby was the dice, so to speak” (56). Tootsie admits that the baby has a foothold in his life now and has well accepted that he has taken the baby and will care for it. Even though it goes against everything that Tootsie believes in as of now, he takes his chances with the baby, curious as to see what will come out of the experience. Even though Tootsie strives to care for the baby, he is still new to being a parent and seeks someone who can assist him. Through searching he meets Miriam, a single mother after her husband sappers.
Miriam grows on Tootsie throughout the book with his numerous trips back to her place, showing Tootsie the importance of paternal responsibility and how to express it properly. The morning after Tootsie stays at Maria’s, it is explained, “He woke up late the next morning. He had slept long. The sun had cleared the rooftops and was already hot. It was a new day and what he had thought out last night was still there, inside him. Only one thing was important to him now. ‘Come back,’ the woman had said. ‘Come back, Tootsie. ‘ I must correct her, he thought. ‘My name is David (224).
Everything that Tootsie has experienced that learned about worth of life, respect, and paternal responsibility is still within him. It once again is a new day and Tootsie knows that those things are what is important to him now, which is also shown through the baby. As Miriam asks him to come back referring to him as “Tootsie”, he finally regards himself by his actual name, “David Madonna”, instead of thug”. This is the final transformation of Tootsie before he sacrifices himself, attempting to save the baby. By the end of his life Tootsie is completely transformed compared to where he started.
