Discuss Xuma’s role in the novel, Mine Boy, and trace the development of his consciousness up to the point where he gains clarity of vision.

Xuma is the novel's protagonist. Xuma leaves his family farm in the economically depressed north to work in a Johannesburg gold mine, where he encounters the social problems and harsh living conditions that arise from racial and economic oppression. Xuma is characterized as naïve and good-natured, and he is often confused by the behaviors and attitudes of the city people he meets. Xuma is strong and good-looking, attracting the attention of multiple women.

Though Mine Boy was published two years before the first official apartheid law was enacted, the novel depicts the racial separation that would be increased during the apartheid era. The illegal beer selling Leah engages in results from a law that made it legal for white people to sell alcohol but prohibited black people from the business. The areas the characters live in and walk through are also divided by income, which, as far as Xuma can see, corresponds to race. Xuma also reflects on how white people have clean, open restaurants while black people are packed into filthy, confined eating halls. The socially enforced separation of society into black and white public spheres was legally entrenched in 1948 when the minority white ruling party adopted apartheid as an official policy.