Athol Fugard's "Master Harold"

Athol Fugard's play, "Master Harold" . . . and the Boys takes place in a South African tea room--St. George's park Tea Room. The time is 1950, at the beginning of the apartheid era in South Africa, an era in which a more strict separation of the races was enforced and in which blacks were allowed in certain White areas only by day and only to work. This play in many ways reflects the history of black and white relations in South africa in this century, beginning on a note of tolerance and agreement and ending in rancor and racist epithets. Apartheid was a deliberate creation of the White power structure to prevent the Blacks from gaining political power, and while racial segregation had been the norm through most of this century before that, apartheid codified this and made it harsher and more certain than it had been before. In the context of this play, the White anger directed at Blacks was an anger that was general, meaning the Blacks were being made scapegoats for whatever other problems and concerns the Whites might have.

The youth of Hally is an important component in the play, for his innocence in the beginning is certain to appeal to the audience, while his racist anger at the end become that much more of a shock because of the shift involved. Indeed, his youth and exuberance fits with the way the play opens--it seems more like a musical as Sam and Willie rehearse for the upcoming dance contest:

In two weeks' time when the judges look at you and Hilda, they must

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into trouble with his mother for hanging around with the servants quarters. Indeed, it is made clear as Hally and Sam talk that they have shared a good deal in the young man's life and those memories are warm. These scenes increase the sense of good feeling which is shattered by the end of the play. One of the techniques used by Fugard is for a character to tell a story, and both Hally and Sam do so in this play, each showing the ability to remember the past and to make it vivid. Hally tells the story of a kite, and this story comes from the past relationship of the man and the boy. Sam creates an equally vivid story concerning the 1950 Eastern Province Open Ballroom Dancing Championships, and for Sam, the dance floor is a vision of the ideal life. Hally sees the dance as a "lot of people dancing around and having a so-called good time" (1017), but Sam corrects him--this is the championship, not just another dance: The sound of the big band, Hally. Trombone, trumpet, tenor and alto sax. And then, finally, your imagination also left out the climax of the evening when the dancing is finished, the judges have stopped whispering among themselves and the master of Ceremonies collects their scorecards and goes up onto the stage

Category: Literature - A