Summary
Act I, Scene 4
Mr. M is alone onstage; he delivers a monologue directly to the audience. He starts by talking about Confucius's ideas about life, since he identifies as a Confucian. Specifically, he talks about the idea that someone eagerly pursuing knowledge forgets all sorrows and other concerns, saying that it is not exactly true for him, even if he does pursue knowledge eagerly. He moves on to another idea of Confucius's—that he could do anything his heart prompted without transgressing what was right. He says he is envious of Confucius, that he could be so sure of his morals to be able to wake up and know you will only do things that are right. Even though he is old, Mr. M says he cannot have such a calm heart, and he describes his state of constant inner turmoil as being like a zoo full of mad, hungry animals. He extends the metaphor to say one of the animals, Hope, has broken out; this, he says, is why he is a teacher—to keep his hope alive.
In closing, he summarizes his life. His full name is Anela Myalatya and he is a 57-year-old bachelor who lives a simple life going back and forth between his small home and his small classroom. He compares these two spaces to matchboxes, describing his bare room which only has a table, a chair, and a bed. He describes how people yell to him as he runs between his two places, telling him that he'll be late, and he remarks that they are right—"History has got a strict timetable. If we're not careful we might be remembered as the country where everybody arrived too late" (p.34).
Act I, Scene 5
Mr. M waits in the place where he, Isabel, and Thami will practice for the competition. Isabel rushes in carrying her hockey gear. Mr. M asks her about the hockey game she has just come from and she talks expressively about how they lost and how it made her feel like hitting a girl with her hockey stick. They talk about being bad losers, with Mr. M confessing that he too can be petty when he doesn't win. Isabel says she thinks Thami is a good loser, and Mr. M hesitantly agrees. He asks her about their recent friendship and she tells him that they have become close. She tells the teacher that she owes him a lot and that Thami would probably like to tell him the same thing if he would let him. She scolds him for keeping such a strict teacher/student relationship, which limits the amount Mr. M can actually understand about Thami. Mr. M asks about Thami's problems, and Isabel doesn't want to talk about Thami behind his back, but Mr. M confesses that he's worried about Thami stirring up trouble outside of school. He has heard dangerous whispers about trouble coming in the location, and he asks Isabel to tell him if she's heard Thami talking about such things. Isabel tells Mr. M that he hasn't said anything like that, but that she wishes he hadn't asked her since he would have ended their friendship if he had told her something and she told it to his teacher. Mr. M apologizes and asks her not to say anything to Thami.
Suddenly, Thami enters, also directly from a hockey game. Thami says that they lost, and Isabel gloats over being right about him being a good loser. Mr. M asks what they are focusing on today and Thami responds that they are set to discuss 19th century poetry. They get started, with Thami and Isabel asking questions to one another and scoring a point every time they get a correct answer, switching "service" (p.39) every time Mr. M says to. They cover Wordsworth, Coleridge, Southey, Byron, Tennyson, Shelley, Wollstonecraft, and Keats, focusing mostly on events in their lives. Mr. M prompts them to focus on actual poetry more, and they start to recite poems for the other student to complete.
The practice goes off the rails when Thami starts to talk about the pyramids being built by slaves in the Bible; he notes that there were many more slaves than masters and that, unlike them, the black people of South Africa "won't leave it to time to bring them down" (p.45). Mr. M questions who exactly Thami is referring to and Thami says "The People" (p.45). Mr. M questions whether he counts as one of those and Thami tells him that he can choose to by identifying with the fight for freedom. Mr. M argues back, saying that he must be one of The People then since he does want their freedom, but saying that he's been fighting for it in a different way for a long time. He tells Thami that lawlessness is not okay for anyone, the government or the people, so nobody should be toppling each other's statues.
Isabel cuts back in to try to get them back on track with literature. Mr. M agrees that they should pick some novelists to study, and sets it to them to make a list of 20. Isabel also invites them to tea with her family; Mr. M immediately accepts, but Thami doesn't respond. Mr. M leaves.
Isabel and Thami are left alone together, and she tries to keep talking to him about coming to tea. They start to argue about why they would want to meet him, and Isabel changes the subject, understanding that it's really a problem between Thami and Mr. M that is causing tension. Isabel tells Thami that she's seen him giving Mr. M critical looks, and now Mr. M has started to give him critical looks back. When Isabel pushes further, Thami tells her that he thinks Mr. M is out of touch with how younger black South Africans feel; people are pushing for radicalization to get change faster, but Mr. M has old-fashioned ideas about how to make change in society. Isabel asks whether them working together on the competition is one of those old-fashioned ideas, and Thami tries to avoid answering. When Isabel asks him again, he says that their friendship isn't one of those old-fashioned ideas, but doing the competition together may be. Isabel encourages him to talk to Mr. M, but Thami says the problem is bigger than just him and Mr. M and that what he needs is to get out of his classroom since it is part of the prejudiced government system. Isabel encourages him again to talk to Mr. M, but now Thami gets angry, telling her to keep her advice to herself. Isabel apologizes heatedly and tells him on the way out that they shouldn't use the word friendship to describe their relationship if they aren't truly friends.
Act I, Scene 6
Thami is alone onstage. He starts his monologue singing a song in Bantu and then translating it into English; the song is about going to school. He returns again to the story of how much he loved school as a child. His teachers praised him and he was always eager to get into the gates in the morning. When he was in Standard Two, his teacher liked an essay he wrote so much that she asked him to read it about an assembly; the essay was about how he wanted to be a doctor when he grew up, describing how he would treat white people for pay and black people for free.
Thami says that he has to update his essay now that he is older. He doesn't want to be a doctor anymore; he wants people to be cured through freedom. However, he doesn't know what exactly to dream of anymore because the possibilities of "bright young blacks" (p.53) like himself are so limited under apartheid. He says that he can't sit in class making his teachers happy and proud anymore.
He describes how the Inspector of Bantu Schools in the Cape Midlands Region made a visit to their school and told them how they were special and were going to be the "shareholders in the future of [South Africa]" (p.54). The whole time, Thami describes questioning what wonderful future the man could be talking about, since all he saw were poor, tired blacks struggling to survive in the land their ancestors had possessed for generations. He asks if, especially with the education he is talking about, the inspector thinks the students are blind or stupid enough to not see the differences in the way whites and blacks are treated by the South African government. He says that he has started to forget the history he was taught in school, but to remember dates from the history of the black struggle. He says they do not need the government schools anymore, but rather to teach and remember with one another, "lessons about our history, about our heroes" (p.56).
Analysis
By this point in the play, the pattern of scenes with dialogue alternating with scenes with only one character delivering a monologue is clear. Fugard uses these monologues throughout the play to build characterization and themes and allow characters to reveal things to the audience that they wouldn't to other characters in the play because of their differences in race or gender or the propriety necessary to their relationships. These monologues are not written as happening in a specific location, so the director has the choice to have them performed on a blank stage, as if they are the thoughts in a character's mind, or in another location from the play.
The first of the three dates in black South African history that Thami says children will need to learn and remember some day is 1955 in Kliptown. This date and location corresponds to the adoption of the Freedom Charter by the Congress of the People. The meeting was multi-racial and intended to create better conditions for black people in South Africa. Through this meeting, the National Action Council was created. However, apartheid obviously continued long after this meeting, despite the international backing of its goals.
The second date in black South African history is 21st March, 1960 in Sharpville. This date refers to "anti-pass" protests that occurred in response to the policy of making black people carry an internal passport at all times demonstrating their identity. The passes created tensions with the police, so in 1960 the Pan-Africanist Congress launched a campaign to abolish them.
The third date in black South African history is 16th of June, 1976 in Soweto. The date refers to a protest march about the Bantu Education Policy. The uprising on 16th June began in Soweto, South Africa and spread throughout the country. The event also led to increased international support for anti-apartheid groups because of pictures published of police brutality.
Isabel believes that Thami does not respond to her offer of tea with her parents because he is upset about the situation with Mr. M. However, there is more symbolic meaning in his refusal to drink tea. Tea is a symbol of the impact of British colonialism persisting in South Africa even once it became a sovereign state. Thus, Thami's hesitance to go to Isabel's house for tea shows his discomfort with these people who have a role in his and all black South Africans' subjugation.
