Gray sees Head’s work idealistically in its depiction of the defeat of prejudice, as exemplified by Maru’s marriage to Margaret Cadmore. However, Gray fails to acknowledge Margaret’s patent unhappiness in the marriage. Though she retains the dignity of understanding and overcoming some of the limitations of her ethnicity, she is not a fighter for social justice, and she ends up married to Maru, rather than the man whom she truly loves, Moleka.

Rather than embodying power and overcoming prejudice, Margaret simply becomes invisible. No one acknowledges her outside of her relationships to powerful figures: first, Margaret lives under the protection of Margaret Cadmore, the missionary’s wife.