Mrs Plum by Es'kia Mphahlele: Summary, Themes and Questions
Quick answer: Mrs Plum by Es'kia Mphahlele: full summary with the ending, Karabo the narrator, Mrs Plum, Kate and Dick, themes of white liberalism under apartheid, and exam questions.
Karabo, a young woman from a village near Rustenburg, takes a job as a domestic worker in a Johannesburg suburb and discovers that her employer, a white liberal who marches against the government, is a harder study than any simple racist would have been. Es'kia Mphahlele's Mrs Plum is the long final story of In Corner B (1967), closer to a novella at around 60 pages, and a long-standing South African set text because it puts a servant's eye on the people who thought they were the good ones.
The story in brief, ending included
Karabo narrates in her own English, looking back. She comes from Phokeng to work for Mrs Plum in Greenside, a leafy white suburb. Mrs Plum is unusual: she insists Karabo eat at the table, encourages her to attend classes and political meetings, and belongs to a movement of white women protesting apartheid laws. Her daughter Kate treats Karabo as a confidante. Karabo watches, learns, and keeps her own counsel, noting the two dogs, Malan and Monty, that Mrs Plum fusses over more than she does the gardener Dick, who fears them.
Cracks appear. Kate falls in love with a Black doctor and Mrs Plum, for all her principles, is appalled. When police come to the house looking for servants without passes, Mrs Plum turns a hose on them, refuses to pay the fine, and is jailed for fourteen days. Later, after a rumour that servants are poisoning white people's dogs, Mrs Plum dismisses Dick, and Karabo, sickened, goes home to Phokeng. The story ends when Mrs Plum drives out to the village to ask her back. Karabo negotiates a higher wage and better terms before agreeing, and returns to Greenside on her own conditions.
Who is who
A household seen from the kitchen.
Themes and meaning
Exam readings: the contradictions of white liberalism, the servant's perspective on the master's house, and the growth of political consciousness. Mrs Plum can go to jail for a principle and still fire a man on a rumour.
The sharper observation is that the dogs are the story's measuring stick. Malan and Monty are named, fed, mourned and protected; the workers are not, and Karabo's dry attention to that difference is more damning than any speech.
The craft: the servant's eye
The turn is Dick's dismissal, when the liberal household behaves like every other, and Karabo's departure converts observation into action. The technique to steal is a narrator who is structurally powerless and perceptually in charge; every scene is filtered through what Karabo is allowed to see from the kitchen, and that limit makes her judgments feel earned.
For class and essays
Questions with two-line answers, then terms and one misreading.
What writers can take from this
- Frame an essay around the gap between Mrs Plum's public politics and her private household.
- Use the dogs as evidence in every paragraph; they are the story's most consistent symbol.
- Discuss Karabo's voice as craft, not as broken English.
- For writers, give your narrator a physical vantage point (a kitchen, a back seat) and let its limits shape what the story can know.
- End on a negotiation rather than a reconciliation when the power between characters is unequal.
Try it yourself
Write a story narrated by someone who works inside the home of a family that believes itself progressive. Let the narrator notice what the family gives to its pets or its possessions and withholds from its people, and end with the narrator returning to the job on terms they have set themselves.
Questions
What happens at the end of Mrs Plum?
After Mrs Plum dismisses the gardener Dick on a rumour, Karabo goes home to Phokeng. Mrs Plum drives out to ask her back, and Karabo returns only after negotiating a higher wage and better conditions.
What is the theme of Mrs Plum?
The contradictions of white liberalism under apartheid, seen from a domestic worker's point of view, and the growth of that worker from gratitude to independent judgment.
Why does Mrs Plum go to jail?
She turns a hose on police who come to her house looking for servants without passes, and refuses to pay the fine, serving fourteen days instead.
By the Writory editorial team, reviewed by working writers. Updated September 2026.
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