Student Question
What themes are linked in Athol Fugard's plays The Road to Mecca and My Children! My Africa!?
Quick answer:
Athol Fugard's plays explore themes of oppression by social systems. In "The Road to Mecca," Miss Helen's struggle against societal norms in a conservative village reflects the oppressive forces against individual expression. Marius, representing apartheid supporters, embodies societal repression. In "My Children! My Africa!," apartheid's impact is more overt, highlighting racial segregation's consequences. Both plays critique apartheid, showcasing its divisive nature and the hardships it imposes on individuals and communities.
While Athol Fugard's play My Children! My Africa! more overtly
concerns apartheid than his play The Road to Mecca, both very clearly
concern the theme of being crushed by an oppressive
social system.
The Road to Mecca is set in New Bethesda, a predominantly white
village established by the Dutch Reformed Church, 1875, in the Karoo, South
Africa's semi-desert. Being set in a predominantly white village, the play does
not contain the same overtly racial tensions found in My Children! My
Africa!; however, since Fugard was a strong critic of apartheid who wrote
all of his anti-apartheid plays in exile, both plays certainly contain
critical anti-apartheid tones.
In The Road To Mecca, since her husband's death, the protagonist Miss
Helen has felt at liberty to pursue her true creativity. The result is that she has filled her yard with cement statues of animals and...
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Wise Men--all facing towards Mecca in the east. Yet, all who live in the village think she has gone completely insane. People, like Marius, the minister, continue totry to imprison Miss Helen by insisting she move
into an assisted living facility. Marius's belief that she should be in an
assisted living facility, rather than continue to live independently and freely
express herself, represents an oppressive social system and
helps develop Fugard's theme concerning oppressive social systems. It
represents a repressive social system because it shows how much society has a
tendency to believe that those who move against the grain of society should be
repressed.
In addition, Marius represents those in favor of
apartheid, which further helps develop Fugard's theme concerning
oppressive social systems. We see him subtly express a favorable opinion of
apartheid when he makes the following comment to Elsa:
There are no hungry people, white of Coloured, in this village. (p. 43)
His comment reveals his blind optimism, an optimism
fueled by racial prejudices. We further see his racial prejudices when
Miss Helen bemoans the news that the Divisional Council is moving her African
friend Katrina out of the village. Marius wrongfully interprets her comment as
bemoaning the fact that she is losing a faithful servant, as we can tell when
he says in reply, "I'll lend you my faithful old Nonna" (p. 53). His comment
exposes his racism because it shows he only equates Africans with
servitude, not friendship as Miss Helen does. Marius's racism further
serves to develop the theme revealing the hardships and
consequences that go hand in hand with oppressive
societies.
Similarly, in My Children! My Africa!, Fugard develops the theme
concerning the hardships of oppression through his plot and characters. Set in
a Bantu classroom, the play much more overtly concerns the topic of apartheid.
The star student, Thami Mbikwana, is involved in publicly protesting
against apartheid and the Bantu Education Act of 1953, which
segregated schools into white and nonwhite schools and permitted the government
to stop funding nonwhite schools. While Thami's teacher, Mr. Anela Myalatya,
called Mr. M for short, acknowledges the hardships segregation causes, he
strongly objects to the violent methods of protest Thami is
involved in, methods Mr. M refers to as "vandalism and lawless behavior."
Fugard uses Thami's actions to develop the theme concerning the hardships and
consequences of an oppressive society. In addition, though Mr. M and Thami both
oppose apartheid, the ending of the play is tragic because Thami and his
comrades murder Mr. M for having given to the police the names of his students
who participated in the school boycott. The dramatic ending serves to
illustrate that an oppressive society can even divide those
who should be united, a further consequence of apartheid.