The ending of "This Earth of Mankind" was an extreme disappointment, not because it was bad, but because it wasn't the happy ending that I expected. Something that I was wondering while reading was why did Dr. Martinet drug Annelies to the point of unconsciousness. The government doctor kept asking Minke and Mama why Dr. Martinet drugged Annelies to the state that she was in.
Going along with what we discussed last class, after finishing the novel, I believe that Dr. Martinet was telling Minke his true feeling of how to cure Annelies. Dr. Martinet also confessed that he tried to get Annelies to love him, but failed.
When the family is struck with the tragic news that Mr. Maurits Mellema is suing for the property and for Annelies, but weren't able to defend her and keep her in their safety, I was in utter shock. The fact that Annelies wasn't able to stay with her birth mother and her husband is tragic. It was true dejavu how things turned out for Annelies like it did for her mother, Mama.
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I must agree the ending was rather melancholy and bitter. I can see that Toer took meticulous efforts to build up his story to a peak of happiness and good, where nothing bad would seem to come between Ann and Minke, only to smash it down with a hammer of reality. The setting is colonial society that suffers a great deal Toer establishes all too happy of a setting for a nation that is undergoing too much racism and inequality. The main characters never quite seems to suffer like how most people should be suffering. Instead, Toer shows us it was simply a matter of time before the inevitable descends down upon them. All the education Minke acquired does him no good to protect the love of his life.
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