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Act 1, Scene 1
Themes
Key
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in My Children! My Africa!, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
Protest, Dissent, and Violence
Apartheid, Race, and Human Connection
Education
The Future of Africa
Summary
Analysis
In a monologue, Isabel describes Brakwater, the Black township on the outskirts of town, where Thami lives. The town’s white residents just call it “the location” and consider it an undesirable eyesore. While the town is full of well-maintained old buildings like Isabel’s family’s shop, “the location” is full of corrugated metal shacks, potholes, and trash. Isabel remembers visiting and imagining living there—like her family’s maid, Auntie, who shares a two-room shack with eight family members. Isabel says that she’s lucky to be white.
Apartheid has divided Isabel and Thami’s city in two: the best services, buildings, and infrastructure are reserved for white people, while Black people are forced to live in a slum. Notably, white residents like Isabel do not think critically about this arrangement, even though it’s specifically designed to benefit them. This is largely because they rarely visit. Isabel understands that Black South Africans live in far worse conditions, but she cannot fully conceptualize what their lives are like. So, when she remarks that she’s lucky to be white, this suggests that she sees the division in South African society but does not yet understand where it comes from or what it’s like to be a non-white person under apartheid.
Themes
Isabel explains that she went to Brakwater after her school principal invited her to an inter-school debate there. She and her two teammates were excited for the debates, which they saw as a “‘pioneering’ mission,” and reminded themselves to use simple language, because English isn’t the Black students’ native language. She was astonished to debate in such a “bleak, depressing, dingy classroom,” and although she was uncomfortable there, she was confident in her debating skills and excited to show the Black kids how to do it well.
Before attending the debate, Isabel assumed that she would naturally be a better debater. She viewed the debate as a “pioneering mission,” language invokes the European colonization that Thami referenced in the previous act. Isabel expected to be teaching the Black students, not learning from them. Of course, she thought that she would be superior simply because she is white, and the other students would be worse debaters because they are Black. This shows how white supremacist ideas were considered common sense for many white South Africans—after all, white supremacy was the apartheid government’s explicit ideology. Meanwhile, Isabel’s surprise at the “bleak, depressing, dingy classroom” where the debate was held further speaks to the idea that within apartheid South Africa, white people tend to be somewhat ignorant of the poor living conditions that non-white people are expected to endure.
Themes
But when Isabel got up to speak and looked out the audience, she explains, she realized that they weren’t there to celebrate her generosity: they were there to judge her arguments, “on the basis of total equality.” This was the first time Isabel ever interacted with Black people as equals. Like most white South Africans, she knows some Black people—like Auntie, her maid, and Samuel, the deliveryman for the pharmacy—but in Brakwater, she was in “their world” as an outsider for the first time. She felt horribly “exposed!” Although she started off shakily, her teammates assured her that she finished strong. Indeed, during her opening address, she realized that speaking to this new audience let her see herself in a new light.
Through interacting with Black people “on the basis of total equality,” Isabel realized that her earlier assumptions were totally wrong: white and Black people really are equal. This revelation came about easily after she debated with Thami and spoke with him briefly, which shows how easy it is for people to recognize one another’s equality and form genuine connections when they’re given the chance to collaborate and socialize across racial lines. In turn, this helps explain why the apartheid system is so obsessed with enforcing social divisions: this prevents white South Africans from joining other groups’ fight for equality and democracy.
Themes
Isabel concludes that the was a transformative experience for her: it showed her “a new world” that she hadn’t realized was there. She used to see the location as her town’s “embarrassing backyard,” but now she sees that it’s “a whole world of its own.” It’s an amazing realization, but it’s also unsettling, because it means there’s so much more to the universe than the place where she grows up. Isabel is eager to get to know more of it.
Rather than looking down on Brakwater as an insignificant and shameful “backyard” to the main town, Isabel now sees it from its residents’ perspective. “The location” is “a whole world of its own,” and it’s a dignified place that’s just as important as her own neighborhood. This transformation in her perspective shows that Isabel is starting to empathize with Black people and recognize the injustices they face under apartheid.
Themes
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