Previous
Act 1, Scene 2
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
Mr. Myalatya comes onstage and surprises Isabel, whom he calls “Miss Dyson.” He’s been looking everywhere for her, and he’s delighted that Isabel knows to call him “Mr. M”—he says that she’s like part of his “extended family” of students. She asks him to just call her “Isabel,” and he asks if she would be interested in visiting his school again. Isabel gladly accepts and explains that she enjoyed the last debate because both she and the audience got to be a little “unruly.”
The informal rapport between Isabel (who’s white) and Mr. M (who’s black) shows that they manage to understand and respect each other across South Africa’s racial divide. By treating his students as a metaphorical “extended family,” Mr. M shows that he feels responsible for their development and accomplishments. This is why he views teaching as inherently political: it allows him to influence South Africa’s future by shaping its youth.
Themes
Mr. M proposes that Isabel and Thami should work together as a team, because it was “a waste” to watch them fight each other. He comments that his job is full of such wastes: he constantly watches his curious young students stagnate and fail because of “this country’s lunacy.” He explains that he has proposed that Thami and Isabel enter an upcoming quiz tournament about English literature as an inter-school team. Isabel enthusiastically agrees; Mr. M warns her that it won’t be easy, but she doesn’t mind. Mr. M is delighted, too—he wasn’t sure what she would say, and he definitely didn’t expect such a positive response.
At the same time as Mr. M feels responsible for his students’ fate, he is distraught to watch the “lunacy” of apartheid deprive them of opportunities and waste their potential. He sees the literature quiz competition as a way to help Thami succeed, because it’s one of the few realms in which racism won’t stop him. Isabel and Thami’s collaboration for the quiz competition is also a metaphor for the way Black and white South Africans have to work together to overcome apartheid and build a better future for their country.
Themes
Mr. M asks why the debate mattered so much to Isabel, and she explains that it allowed her to meet Black people in a way she never could otherwise. In fact, people like her mother have never met Black people as equals, so they’re frightened of the idea. Isabel admits that she was apprehensive about visiting the location at first, but her friendly conversation with Thami changed all that. Mr. M concludes that “knowledge has banished fear,” and he’s overjoyed.
Through meeting Thami and Mr. M, Isabel realized that her previous assumptions about Black people were wrong—there’s nothing inherently inferior about them. Mr. M’s proclamation that “knowledge has banished fear” reflects both the way that education can transform people’s lives and the way that overcoming social divisions can actually be as simple as meeting people from another group.
Themes
Isabel asks Mr. M about the literature competition, and he explains that the winning schools will get 5,000 Rand for books. She asks if he’s asked Thami yet, but Mr. M says he plans to tell Thami what to do, because he’s “an old-fashioned traditionalist” about education. Isabel says this seems “dictatorial,” but Mr. M explains that Black African people emphasize respect for authority more than white people do.
Mr. M’s “traditionalist” (or “dictatorial”) attitude toward Thami contrasts with his deference and respect for Isabel. While Mr. M chalks this up to African tradition, it also clearly has to do with the fact that Isabel is white and therefore has considerable power over him in apartheid South Africa, despite being much younger than him.
Themes
Get the entire My Children! My Africa! LitChart as a printable PDF.
Isabel asks if Thami is Mr. M’s favorite student, and Mr. M jokes that it’s unfair to pick favorites but then confirms Isabel’s hunch. He explains that Thami is eager to learn and endlessly curious—he’s clearly “a born leader” who can help change South Africa for the better. In fact, Mr. M hopes that the quiz competition will help Thami get a university scholarship. Isabel loves this idea, and Mr. M is happy to see her enthusiasm. He says that they’ll start preparing for the competition next week.
Mr. M has deep faith in Thami’s potential and views the quiz competition as a way for him to fulfill that potential. Nevertheless, Mr. M strongly believes that he knows what’s best for Thami, even if Thami is likely to disagree. Mr. M specifically hopes that Thami can become a leader through powerful institutions like universities, even though these institutions’ place in South African society is up for debate during the anti-apartheid movement.
Themes
