Master Harold…and the Boys notes
Athol Fugard
Athol Fugard was born in Middelburg, South Africa in 1932. His full name is Harold Athol Lanigan Fugard and as a child he was known as Hally before he decided he wanted to be called Athol. He is white with English and Afrikaner parents. He was brought up in Port Elizabeth, South Africa with English as his mother tongue. He describes himself as an Afrikaner writing in English.
Almost always set in South Africa and steeped in the politics of the day (apartheid and now post-apartheid). However the politics never affects his insight into people. Fugard creates characters with strengths and weaknesses which make them unable to fit into what society requires.
Of all his plays, none is more personal than "Master Harold" . . . and the Boys; because it relates a boyhood incident which involved himself and which haunted him for years until he tried to atone by writing this play in 1982.
In 1950, Fugard was 17. It was in these years that apartheid began (starting in 1948). The play has been criticized for not overtly acknowledging this fact, yet awareness of increasing racial tension may lurk in the background. If we see the play as reflecting the world as viewed by "Master Harold," he may not have absorbed the impact of these changes.
Great strength: his ability to move us deeply by showing the plight of ordinary people caught up in the meshes of social political racial and even religious forces which they are unable to understand or control.
Great weakness: “he cannot reflect upon or analyse these forces himself…he is obsessed with the idea that what he has to say can only be said indirectly.”
His plays and attacks on apartheid have brought him into conflict with the South African government, and in 1962 he supported an international boycott against the practice of segregation of theatre audiences. Athol Fugard still lives in Port Elizabeth, and also has a home in New York.
Fugard wrote a play about human relationships that are put to the test by societal and personal forces.
The play is known to be a work of Post-colonialism criticism, and is frequently cited as a depiction of how institutionalized racism, bigotry or hatred can become absorbed by those who live under it. It is also world-renowned for its sparse setting and design (its components are frequently described as "Three actors, one set and a black man's ass") and the sheer quality of its dialogue.
http://www.iainfisher.com/fugard.html
http://www.enotes.com/master-harold
http://www.doollee.com/PlaywrightsF/fugard-athol.html
http://www.bedfordstmartins.com/LITLINKS/drama/fugard.htm
http://www.answers.com/topic/master-harold-and-the-boys
Apartheid
Definition:
An official policy of racial segregation formerly practiced in the Republic of South Africa, involving political, legal, and economic discrimination against nonwhites. But in general it is any policy that segregates people by using race or colour.
Background:
The National party introduced apartheid (separateness) in their campaign in 1948, and when they won the elections the apartheid policies were carried out until the early 1990s. Although apartheid ended officially the social, economic, and political inequalities between white and black South Africans continues to exist.
Apartheid was based on segregating policies and laws. These laws classified people into three races: white; Bantu, or black Africans; and Coloured, or people of mixed descent. The laws determined where members of each group could live, what jobs they could hold, and what type of education they could receive. Laws prohibited most social contact between races, authorized segregated public facilities, and denied any representation of nonwhites in the national government.
In 1912 the African National Congress (ANC) was founded to fight these unfair government policies. In the 1950s, after apartheid became the official policy, the ANC declared that “South Africa belongs to all who live in it, black and white,” and worked to abolish apartheid. But then the government banned all African political organizations, with that the ANC.
More urban revolts erupted and, as external pressure on South Africa intensified, the government's apartheid policies began to unravel. In 1990, the new president, F. W. de Klerk, proclaimed a formal end to apartheid with the release of ANC leader Nelson Mandela from prison and the legalization of black African political organizations.
Men of Magnitude:
Nelson Mandela:
He is a black activist against the apartheid. He drove the ANC into more militant direction against the increasingly discriminatory policies of the government. He was charged with treason and put into jail. In December 1996 Mandela signed into law a new South African constitution. The constitution established a federal system with a strong central government based on majority rule, and it contained guarantees of the rights of minorities and of freedom of expression.
Bishop Desmond Tutu:
Was born in 1931 in Klerksdorp, Transvaal.
Desmond Tutu has formulated his objective as "a democratic and just society without racial divisions", and has set forward the following points as minimum demands:
1. equal civil rights for all
2. the abolition of South Africa's passport laws
3. a common system of education
4. the cessation of forced deportation from South Africa to the so-called "homelands"
The South African Council of Churches is a contact organization for the churches of South Africa and functions as a national committee for the World Council of Churches. The Boer churches have disassociated themselves from the organization as a result of the unambiguous stand it has made against apartheid. Around 80 percent of its members are black, and they now dominate the leading positions
Stephen Bantu (Steve) Biko:
Date of birth: 18 December 1946, King William's Town, Eastern Cape, South Africa
Date of death: 12 September 1977, Pretoria prison cell, South Africa
From an early age Steve Biko showed an interest in anti-Apartheid politics. After being expelled from his first school, Lovedale, in the Eastern Cape for 'anti-establishment' behaviour, In 1972 Biko was one of the founders of the Black Peoples Convention (BPC) working on social upliftment projects around Durban.
Links to look at:
*Apartheid Definitions:
http://dictionary.reference.com/search?r=2&q=Apartheid
* History of Apartheid:
http://www-cs-students.stanford.edu/~cale/cs201/apartheid.hist.html
*Further History:
http://www.un.org/av/photo/subjects/apartheid.htm
*Encarta Encyclopedia (apartheid):
http://encarta.msn.com/encyclopedia_761561373/Apartheid.html
* Encyclopedia (apartheid):
http://www.reference.com/search?q=Apartheid
*Social Implications:
http://www.wickedness.net/els/els1/burke%20pap.pdf
*Nelson Mandela:
http://encarta.msn.com/encyclopedia_761556825/Mandela_Nelson_Rolihlahla.html
*Desmond Tutu:
http://nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/peace/laureates/1984/tutu-bio.html
*Steven Biko:
http://africanhistory.about.com/library/biographies/blbio-stevebiko.htm
Page no.
4 Note the distinctly unromantic words to the song Willie sings at the beginning. Boet means "brother" or "comrade."
5 Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers were the most famous dancing team in Hollywood. Why do you think Willie has to understand romance through their image?
6 Sarah Vaughan was a great American jazz singer, some say the greatest ever. "Struesgod"="It's true as God" or "I swear by God it's true." "Wellfed"="Welfare." Since both Willie and Hilda are black, his remark that only the baby's hair looks like him is probably sarcastic.
7 "Hiding"=beating.
8 Count Basie: leader of the one of the most famous jazz bands ever, very popular with dancers.
9 Watch Hally's relationship with Sam and Willie. How friendly is he with them? Does he treat them as an equal? Do they treat him as an equal? Are there tensions between them?
11 Like Tarzan, Jungle Jim was a white hero in black Africa, extremely popular in the forties and fifties but exercising a baneful influence on people's notions about Africans.
12 "Bum"=rear end. Speakers of English slang think it's hilarious that Americans walk around with the words "BUM Equipment" plastered across their chests.
15 What is Hally's reaction to learning about how black prisoners are beaten? Does he see it as a racial issue?
16 "Naught"=zero.
18 What does Sam mean when he says "I'm all right on oppression?" Napoleon, paradoxically, helped to institute modern laws while sometimes behaving in an extremely tyrannical fashion.
19 Why is it ironic that Hally has hidden Darwin in the Theology section of the library?
20 How does Hally react to Sam's choice of Abraham Lincoln as a hero? Note the strong influence of America on this culture. Can you characterize this influence? What sort of things are influential? On whom? Why would Julius Caesar be an attractive play to somebody like Sam?
21 Hally's knowledge of Tolstoy is somewhat scrambled. He wrote War and Peace 1865-1869, long before he abandoned literature to become a full-time social reformer, working in common with the serfs on his estate. War and Peace is notoriously one of the longest novels in the Western canon.
23 Why does Sam know about so many of the great figures of history?
24 "Donkey's years," a common English cliché for "many years," punning on "donkey's ears."
25 Characterize Hally's relationship to Sam and Willie when he was younger. "Certified": certified insane.
26 The Nazis used Joe Louis' defeat at the hands of the German Max Schmeling in 1936 as a demonstration of the superiority of the white race. However, when Louis defeated him in one round in 1938 to become heavyweight boxing champion of the world, the event was celebrated across America, especially by American blacks, who felt his victory was not only a blow against fascism but against American racism. Clearly he became an idol in South Africa as well. It is not clear whether it is Willie's or Fugard's memory that is at fault in remembering a longer fight. A photo of movie star Rita Hayworth in a swimsuit was the most famous pinup in World War II.
28-30 What does the kite story tell us about Hally? Try to distinguish between what must be going through the minds of the men and what is going on inside Hally throughout this scene.
31 Note how Hally compares a little boy with a crippled father to a white boy with a black man.
32-33 What do we learn about Hally's father?
35 How does Hally change in his attitude toward the men after the phone call?
38 Note how Hally goes from bad to worse in his treatment of Sam and Willie during the following scenes. Why is he behaving so badly? What does his behavior reveal about him? What are the cruelest things he says?
40 Why does Hally realize "he has to be careful?"
43 Is Hally's choice of an essay topic a compliment or an insult to the blacks?
46 How does Sam turn the dance contest into a metaphor for their lives?
49 "Kip and a toss in your old Uncle Ned;" "snack and drink in your bed." Note that the comics are for Hally's dad.
54 What does Sam mean by saying "If you make me say it once, I'll never call you anything else again."
56 In many cultures "mooning" is an extreme insult, a gesture of contempt. What is Sam's diagnosis of what's wrong with Hally?
57 Earlier Hally told Sam that he'd failed in educating him. Note how Sam more seriously says the same of his attempt to educate Hally.
58 What was it that Sam tried to prevent? What is the significance of the story of the bench? How does Sam behave toward Hally after his long speech to the boy?
60 Note how Sam's example influences Willie. What do you think is the significance of the song at the end of the play?
This play has been accused in some quarters of personalizing racism and avoiding confrontation of its systemic, societal qualities