By Can Themba (In memoriam)
There is a certain hour on the Soweto line, just before the six o’clock stampede, when the Dube train becomes a beast. Not the iron-and-steel kind they write about in the engineering manuals. No. This beast has a pulse. It breathes the thick, sweet-sour breath of a thousand souls crushed into carriages meant for cattle.
I was late that evening. Late like a sinner at the gates of heaven. The platform at Dube Station was already a sea of fed-up faces, each one a mask of the day’s indignities. The white man’s factory, the white man’s garden, the white man’s kitchen—we carry all of it in our spines. And now we must carry each other.
The train groaned in, doors sliding open with a mechanical sigh that was almost human in its weariness. We did not walk into that carriage. We were poured. Like sorghum porridge from a pot. A woman with a bundle on her head—a parcel of sadness wrapped in bright shweshwe—did not choose a seat. The seat chose her. She landed upright, miraculously, her neck a pillar of patience.
I was pressed against a window. Not looking out, but looking in. Across from me, a young man in a cheap blue suit held a briefcase to his chest like a shield. His tie was loosened, and his eyes had that hollow look of a man who had just been told “no” by a world that only knows how to say “no.” Beside him, an old man with a face like cracked earth. He wore a greasy cap and muttered prayers to a God who must have lost the address of this place.
Then the trembling started. Not the train—the people. A shudder passed through the carriage. A woman shrieked. The young man dropped his briefcase. A cascade of curses, whispers, and the sharp slap of a palm against a thigh.
“Jacks!” someone hissed.
The word slithered through the crowd like a mamba. Jacks. The tsotsis. The thieves who ride the Dube train not to go home, but to take your home from you.
I saw him then. A man in a leather jacket, no shirt beneath, his chest a map of scars. He moved not like a walker, but like a blade—slicing between bodies, his fingers dancing near pockets, near handbags, near the soft flesh of fear. His eyes were dead. Not angry. Not hungry. Dead. Like two bullet holes in a wall.
No one moved to stop him. We are brave in our living rooms, you understand. We are lions when the danger is a story. But here, in the belly of the beast, we are rabbits. We look away. We hold our breath. We pray the blade passes us by.
He reached the old man with the cracked-earth face. The man did not flinch. He simply lifted his eyes from his prayer and looked straight into the dead eyes of the tsotsi. And he spoke. Not loud. But the train went quiet to hear him.
“You,” the old man said, “are also someone’s child.”
The tsotsi stopped. For a heartbeat, the dead eyes flickered. A boy’s face peeked through the monster’s mask. Then it was gone. He snarled, shoved the old man’s shoulder, and moved on. He took a watch from a sleeping laborer. He took a purse from the woman with the shweshwe bundle. She did not cry out. She had already given everything she had to the day. Dube Train Short Story By Can Themba
The train pulled into Phefeni Station. The doors opened. The tsotsi vanished into the purple dusk, swallowed by the same darkness he carried inside him.
We stood in silence. The train exhaled. The laborer woke, felt his naked wrist, and cursed. The woman unwrapped her bundle—empty now of everything except a child’s small shirt. She held it to her face.
I looked out the window. The township lights were coming on, one by one. Small, stubborn flames against the falling night. And I thought: This train is not a beast. It is a mirror. We do not ride it. We become it. Crowded, broken, full of thieves and saints, prayers and curses. But still moving. Still carrying each other home.
The Dube train groaned again. And we rode on.
The Dube Train " by Can Themba is a foundational work of South African literature that vividly captures the claustrophobic and violent reality of life under apartheid. Written in the 1950s, the story uses a morning commute from the Dube township to Johannesburg as a powerful allegory for the systemic oppression and social decay of the era. Core Elements of "The Dube Train"
Setting: The story takes place on an early morning commuter train heading toward Johannesburg, South Africa. The passengers are confined to "third-class" carriages, reflecting the racial segregation and dehumanizing conditions imposed by the apartheid regime.
The Narrator: A young, male first-person narrator who begins the story feeling "Monday-bleared" and depressed. His mood mirrors the "sour-smelling humanity" of the overcrowded train. Key Characters:
The Tsotsi: A young thug who terrorizes the passengers, particularly a young woman. He represents the lawlessness and aggression born out of a broken social system.
The "Hulk" (Big Man): A massive, quiet passenger who eventually intervenes. He serves as a symbol of "people power" and the latent strength of the oppressed.
The Brave Woman: A woman who challenges the tsotsi’s behavior when the men remain silent, showing more courage than the male passengers. Major Themes & Symbolism
Indifference vs. Unity: Much of the story focuses on the "indifference" of the crowd. Passengers initially turn a blind eye to the tsotsi’s violence, reflecting how systemic oppression can paralyze a community. The eventual intervention suggests that unity and resistance are the only ways to defeat such "thuggery".
The Train as a Microcosm: The train itself symbolizes the South African state. Its physical decay—broken windows and doors—parallels the moral decay and "incessant struggle" of black South Africans under apartheid law. The Dube Train By Can Themba (In memoriam)
Violence and Survival: The story highlights how city life in the townships could make people uncaring or prone to violence as a survival mechanism. Literary Significance
Can Themba was a leading figure of the "Drum Generation," a group of writers who combined investigative journalism with fictional vignettes of township life. His style is noted for its sharp wit and "self-lacerating cynicism," which he used to unmask the harsh realities of the 1950s. Theme Of The Dube Train - 840 Words - Bartleby.com
The Heavy Silence of "The Dube Train": Life Under Apartheid Can Themba’s " The Dube Train
" isn't just a story about a morning commute; it’s a visceral, unflinching snapshot of the moral and physical decay wrought by apartheid South Africa. Set on a third-class train heading into Johannesburg, the story uses the cramped, dilapidated carriage as a microcosm of a society suffocating under racial oppression and collective fear. A Study in Indifference
The narrative is driven by a profound sense of indifference. As a young woman is harassed and assaulted by a tsotsi (a street thug), the other passengers—exhausted and "Monday-bleared"—look away. This silence isn't necessarily a lack of care, but a survival mechanism in a world where violence is the daily baseline.
The Narrator: He feels "rotten" and depressed, viewing the crowd as "sour-smelling humanity".
The Hulk: An enormous man sitting opposite the narrator, whose initial passivity represents the suppressed power of the black working class.
The Conflict: The tension breaks when a woman finally stands up to the tsotsi, showing more courage than the men on the train. This sparks a violent confrontation where "The Hulk" finally intervenes, ultimately hurling the tsotsi from the moving train. Why It Matters Today
Themba, a legendary figure of the Drum magazine era, captures the "self-lacerating cynicism" required to survive the 1950s. The story ends on a somber note, reflecting the tragedy of wasted young lives and a society so hardened by injustice that even an act of "justice" (the death of the tsotsi) is met with the same cold silence. Theme Of The Dube Train - 840 Words - Bartleby.com
Here’s a write-up for Can Themba’s short story "The Dube Train" (often referenced as Dube Train), suitable for a literary blog, study guide, or review.
The central philosophical tension of the story is between the traditional African concept of ubuntu ("I am because we are") and the brutal individualism required to survive the city. In the morning, everyone is selfish. By evening, they remember they are neighbors. Themba suggests that apartheid tried to kill ubuntu, but the Dube train—a place of enforced intimacy—accidentally preserved it.
The story is deceptively simple in its plot. It takes place on a train traveling from Johannesburg to the township of Dube. The protagonist, simply referred to as the man in the brown suit, is an educated, respectable figure trying to get home after a long day. A Historical Document: It preserves the exact sounds,
However, the setting is anything but peaceful. The train is a microcosm of Apartheid society—overcrowded, tense, and simmering with the potential for violence. The atmosphere shifts when a group of tsotsis (gangsters) boards the train. They begin to harass the passengers, eventually singling out a young woman. They demand she perform a degrading "act"—to smile and show she is enjoying her harassment.
The train carriage becomes a pressure cooker. The passengers are terrified, the police are complicit or absent, and the tsotsis rule through fear.
"The Dube Train" is more than just a story about a train ride. It is a psychological portrait of oppression. Can Themba masterfully shows how Apartheid didn't just oppress people physically; it corrupted their souls, forcing them into impossible choices between safety and morality.
The writing style is electric. Themba uses "tsotsitaal" (township slang) and vivid imagery to put the reader right inside the rattling, swaying carriage. You can feel the grit, smell the sweat, and hear the menacing whispers of the gangsters.
To understand "The Dube Train," one must first understand the geography of oppression. Under the Group Areas Act, Black South Africans were forcibly removed to peripheral townships like Soweto, far from the economic hubs where they worked as clerks, domestic workers, and laborers. The journey to work was not a simple commute; it was a daily ordeal.
Trains like the Dube train were overcrowded, dangerous, and deliberately underfunded by a regime that saw Black labor as necessary but Black comfort as irrelevant. In Themba’s era, the trains were literally falling apart—windows shattered, doors hanging off hinges, lights flickering. Into this chaos, Can Themba stepped with a reporter’s eye and a poet’s heart.
Throughout the story, dignity is a fragile commodity. The tsotsis strip the passengers of their humanity, treating them like playthings. The man in the brown suit clings to his dignity (his suit) until he realises that dignity is useless if you are dead. The story suggests that in a brutal society, survival often requires one to abandon the veneer of civilisation.
Tragically, Can Themba died young (in 1968, exiled in Swaziland), a victim of the very system he exposed, succumbing to alcoholism and a broken spirit. However, "The Dube Train" outlived him.
For modern readers, this story serves as:
Can Themba did not have a happy ending. His defiance of the apartheid regime (specifically the Immorality Act, which banned interracial relationships) led to his banning, his exile to Swaziland, and his death from alcohol-related illness in 1968. He was only 43.
But his voice remains frozen in ink. "The Dube Train" is a masterclass in how to write place. You learn the geography of Dube, the schedule of the engines, the smell of the leather straps, the taste of the dust.
When you finish the story, you realize that Can Themba never really wrote about trains. He wrote about resilience. He wrote about how a people, stripped of everything except each other, turned a rickety carriage into a kingdom. He wrote about the truth that as long as the train runs, the spirit survives.