Master Harold and the Boys

In discussions about Education and Coming of Age, Hally continues to patronize Sam. All of Sam’s proposals for a man of magnitude have merit, but Hally dismisses them because they do not align with his own view of the world. He rejects Shakespeare because he struggles to understand Shakespeare’s plays; he rejects Jesus because religion is not an important part of how he sees the world. Most saliently, he rejects Lincoln because he does not see the emancipation of Black people in America as a major, significant historical moment. It is only when Sam allows Hally to feel clever for guessing Alexander Fleming that Hally acknowledges the value of his suggestion. He finds it “deeply gratifying […] to know that [he hasn’t] been wasting [his] time” educating Sam (22). For Sam, these conversations are valuable because he is an intelligent man who has few opportunities to receive an education. He has an excellent memory and can readily recite facts that Hally taught him years earlier. Hally may be a poor teacher, but he is willing to help Sam improve his understanding of the world.

Hally, claiming that Abraham Lincoln is unimportant, informs Sam that he has “never been a slave” and that “we freed your ancestors here in South Africa long before the Americans” (18), but South Africa abolished slavery in 1834, just 31 years before the United States. Hally perceives the Racial Dynamics of South Africa as essentially normal and natural. In his mind, there is no slavery, so there is no racial injustice. It is ironic that he describes Black people living under apartheid as “free” in any meaningful sense because apartheid placed deeply unjust restrictions on the lives of Black people. Hally espouses what was a normal view for white people to hold at the time: he sees himself, and by extension all white people, as the benevolent teachers and benefactors of Black people. Though he does not express this view in so many words, it is evident in his condescending approach to educating Sam and his inability to question the continued existence of racism in his country.

The relationship that Sam and Willie have with Hally is necessarily a challenging one. They sometimes behave like friends, but they are aware that Shame and Systems of Power govern their interactions. Hally is not their friend; he is the son of their employer, and he holds power over them. At the same time, he is a teenager, and he often seems harmless. Hally also has his own feelings of shame in relation to social power. When Sam makes him a kite, he is ashamed of its shabby appearance. He assumes that Sam cannot make a kite that will be able to fly, even asking outright, “[W]hat the hell does a black man know about flying a kite?” (27). What should be a happy childhood memory of flying a kite with a friend is immediately subsumed by the power dynamic between Hally and Sam.

This section of the play introduces one of the central metaphors of the text: the kite and the rainy day. Sam and Hally first flew the kite when the weather was nice. Now, it is raining. Hally suggests flying another kite, but he figures that they will all have to wait for the weather to get better first. Flying the kite was a moment of connection between Sam and Hally where they were able to spend time together even if Hally thinks a Black man and a white child flying a kite together was a bit strange. Given that the play takes place in 1950, and apartheid came into effect in 1948, the kite memory belongs to a time when racial segregation was less violent (though certainly not absent). It was a time of metaphorical good weather. Now, under apartheid, the weather is bad: a moment of connection between a Black person and a white person is almost out of the question. Perhaps one day, if the weather improves and the country’s racist laws are repealed, there will be another opportunity to fly a kite and to connect across the boundary of race.