Line #3 Literature/MufarosBeautifulDaughters


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7	[[quoteright:350:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/mufaros_beautiful_daughter.jpg]]
8	''Mufaro's Beautiful Daughters'' is a 1987 children's book written and illustrated by John Steptoe. It is based on the Xhosa folktale, "The Story of Five Heads".
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10	In a humble village, a man named Mufaro lives with his two daughters. Both of the girls are beautiful, but Manyara is bad-tempered and Nyasha is kind. When the king announces that all the loveliest women in the land must appear before him so he can choose a queen, Mufaro plans to send both his daughters to see him the next day. Manyara, however, decides to set out that night so she can get there first. Along the path are many opportunities to show one's true character. Nyasha, who follows the same path the next day, makes different decisions—with different results and a surprising ending!
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13	!! ''Mufaro's Beautiful Daughters'' by John Steptoe provides examples of:
14	* AdaptationExpansion: The original folktale was extremely short, being solely about the sisters' contrasting journeys. The book adds a little more detail by showing the sisters' relationship and [[spoiler:adding the ending reveal of the king's test.]]
15	* AdaptationNameChange: Nyasha and Manyara were respectively named Mpunzanyana and Mpunzikazi in the original folk tale.
16	* AdaptedOut: In the original folktale, there were five characters that both of the sisters encountered on the way to meet the king--a mouse, a frog, a hungry boy, an old woman, and the king's sister, plus the laughing trees. The book pares it down to just the boy and old woman with the laughing trees.
17	* AfricaIsACountry: The story states that the characters live in an African village, but never specifies where that is, and the cover's subtitle is "An African Tale". The author's notes claim that the inspiration for the book was a folktale in a collection called "Kaffir Folktales"[[note]]Retitled "Xhosa Folklore" in some editions, due to the word "kaffir" being a slur[[/note]], which consisted of Xhosa stories, and the illustrations were based on the wildlife in Zimbabwe. The characters' names are all in Shona, also a Zimbabwe language.
18	* BeautyEqualsGoodness: Played with. Both of Mufaro's daughters are lovely to behold, but Manyara is a bully who emotionally and verbally abuses her sister and claims that Nyasha will one day be her servant. Nyasha plays it straight, being as kind as she is beautiful.
19	* BitchInSheepsClothing: Manyara belittles Nyasha mercilessly in private, but takes great care to behave herself in front of their father.
20	* CompositeCharacter: [[spoiler:In the folktale, the characters that both sisters encountered during their journeys to meet the king--the mouse, frog, boy, old woman, and king's sister--were all different individuals. Here, the characters that Manyara and Nyasha each meet--the boy and the old woman--are revealed to be the king's disguises.]]
21	* ADogNamedDog: Nyasha names the garden snake she befriends "Nyoka", the Shona word for "snake". [[spoiler:Subverted when it turns out that the snake was actually a shapeshifting man in disguise.]]
22	* FreudianExcuse: Manyara treats Nyasha badly because she believes that Mufaro favors Nyasha over her.
23	* FriendToAllLivingThings: Nyasha sings along with the birds while doing her chores and is friendly with a garden snake she finds while gardening, which she names Nyoka. [[spoiler:The snake reveals itself in the end to have been the king in disguise.]]
24	* GenderBender: [[spoiler: The king shapeshifts and poses as an old woman as part of the SecretTestOfCharacter he gives the girls]].
25	* GreenEyedMonster: Manyara mistreats Nyasha out of envy over her popularity with the other villagers, who praise her for her kindness, and their father's perceived favoritism of her.
26	* KingIncognito: [[spoiler:Nyoka the garden snake, the hungry boy, and the old woman turn out to be the king in disguise, due to the king using his shapeshifting powers to test the girls.]]
27	* LaserGuidedKarma: [[spoiler:Manyara becomes a servant in Nyasha's household when the latter becomes queen, in a reversal of her boasting at the beginning about how she would be queen and Nyasha would someday serve her.]]
28	* MeaningfulName: Mufaro's name means "happy man", Nyasha's means "mercy", and Manyara's means "ashamed" in Shona.
29	* MissingMom: The girls have a father, but no mother is ever mentioned.
30	* NamedByTheAdaptation: Manyara and Nyasha's father, Mufaro, was unnamed in the original folktale. This is inverted with the king; his name was Makanda Mahlanu ("Five Heads") in the source material, but his name is never revealed in the book. [[spoiler:His name was technically Nyoka at one point, but that was a nickname for his garden snake disguise.]]
31	* NiceToTheWaiter: Manyara and Nyasha demonstrate their respective characters by how they treat the small boy and the old woman on their journeys to see the king. While Manyara refuses the boy's request for food and ignores the old woman's advice about the laughing trees, Nyasha gives the boy a yam and listens to the old woman (and gives her sunflower seeds as thanks). [[spoiler:It turns out this was invoked by the king, who shapeshifted into the forms of the boy and the elderly woman to test them.]]
32	* TheReasonYouSuckSpeech: [[spoiler: The king delivers this off-page to Manyara while in the form of a five-headed snake, calling her out for her cruelty and selfishness in addition to threatening to eat her. It reduces Manyara to tears and makes her beg Nyasha not to go into the king's chamber to meet the snake.]]
33	* SecondaryCharacterTitle: The titular Mufaro is a minor character, and his only plot-relevant action is to tell his daughters to get ready for the journey to see the king so that one of them will be chosen to be queen.
34	* SecretTestOfCharacter: [[spoiler: The king secretly tests the characters of both Manyara and Nyasha to see how they behave to people, in order to see which of them is worthy to be his wife. He does this by taking the forms of a small boy, an old woman, and a snake on their journeys.]]
35	* SiblingYinYang: Nyasha is kind and compassionate, while Manyara is bad-tempered and proud.
36	* SparedByTheAdaptation: [[spoiler:In the original story, the king (in his five-headed serpent form) struck Mpunzikazi with his tail and killed her. Mpunzikazi's equivalent here, Manyara, barely escapes the five-headed serpent with her life.]]
37	* VirtueIsWeakness: Manyara believes this, and constantly ridicules Nyasha for her kindness.
38	* VoluntaryShapeshifting: [[spoiler: The king possesses this power, and uses it to test the girls.]]

Context Literature / MufarosBeautifulDaughters