Education as Metaphor for Hope
Life in the South African ghettos is hard and fraught with dangers of most every kind: crime, violence, illness, and near constant starvation, just to name a few. Anyone seeking to escape these hardscrabble conditions would be fighting an uphill battle so when Mark is given an opportunity to improve his life through education he takes that and fights with everything he has to learn as much as he can. While Mark struggles to top his class he also has to fight against poverty, hunger, and racial discrimination that plagued South African society during his formative years.
Tennis as a Metaphor for Self-Improvement and Escape
Tennis wasn’t only a sport that Mark excelled in, it was his eventual means of escape and self-improvement. He was not just a gifted student but also a gifted athlete. After having learned to play tennis informally he soon excels in the sport enough to earn him an eventual spot in the varsity team, despite a racial ban on blacks. Tennis is also how he get connected with Sam Smith, a legend in the sport who gave him his first real break that paved the way for him to escape Apartheid South Africa. Given these new opportunities that tennis opens up for Mark, the sport can be seen as a metaphor for escape and self-improvement.
Friendship as a Metaphor for Strength
Mark credits his eventual success as an adult not just to his natural academic aptitude and athletic prowess but more to the deep and meaningful friendships that he and his mother form over the years with several individuals who become pivotal in his journey of maturity. His friendships as a young boy allow him to overcome the challenge of lacking uniforms and school supplies as many kind students lend him what he needs. The respect and deference he shows his teachers and the staff when he starts playing tennis allows him entry into a world that would have otherwise been denied him. These friendships that he manages to form thus become a metaphor for strength, as they allow him to surpass the challenges that he faces.
Poverty as a Metaphor for Defeat
Poverty is a metaphor for defeat and it proves to be one of the most persistent obstacles that Mark needs to overcome. Poverty is written by the author almost like adversary and in many ways it does function as an antagonist for a young Mark. It robs him of strength because his family is too poor to afford regular meals, it robs him of dignity as he is forced to borrow school supplies and books because he cannot afford to buy them. The greatest harm that poverty deals to him however is robbing him of hope, and although poverty doesn’t completely overwhelm him there were many instances when it could have.
Criminality as a Metaphor for Hopelessness
Growing up abject poverty in the black ghettos of South Africa there were few options for self-improvement that presented itself. Many young men Mark’s age turned to criminality thinking that it would provide them with the money that they desperately needed to survive, and not explicitly stated, power and respect---a matter that they so desperately craved. Young as Mark was though, he was not fooled by the lure of easy wealth brought by joining a street gang as he knew that these gang members were only powerful and comfortable for a brief season. All these young criminals eventually ended up in the morgue or some ditch outside the city borders. Turning to criminality was the equivalent of giving up all hope.
