The narrator and Mustafa Sa’eed both travel to London, the heart of colonial power, to pursue higher education. While the narrator is always eager to return home, he does not seem to have active disdain for the nation where he studies poetry. Mustafa Sa’eed, on the other hand, is deeply enmeshed in the legacy of colonialism. As an economist, he studies the effect of colonialism on colonial nations. In his personal life, he actively embraces racist stereotypes against Africans to seduce women. When four of these women have died and he is on trial for murder, he suddenly sees himself as the colonist, the intruder. His violence becomes a form of reverse-colonial revenge.

After hearing Mustafa’s tale, the narrator must wrestle with his understanding of colonialism once again. He begins to wonder if he could have easily fallen down the same path as Mustafa Sa’eed—and as the events of the novel unfold, it appears that the answer to this question is a resounding yes. When he returns to life in the Sudan, he finds it difficult to reconcile his Westernized perspective with the realities of the village.