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Act 1, Scene 3
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, Mr. M quotes Confucius, who said that the love for knowledge led him to forget food, sadness, and even old age. But Mr. M jokes that he hasn’t managed to forget these things and might be the only Black Confucian around. He reads and rereads a short book about Confucius, who is full of wisdom. For instance, in old age, Confucius told his disciples that “he could do whatever his heart prompted” without acting immorally, and Mr. M thinks it would be amazing to live like that, with freedom and a clear conscience.
Mr. M hopes that he can inspire young people through education in the same way that his unlikely role model, the Chinese philosopher Confucius, has inspired him to pursue wisdom and moral perfection. At the same time, Mr. M recognizes that he falls short of Confucius’s ideal. This shows that Mr. M recognizes his own limitations and views education and self-improvement as lifelong processes.
Themes
Every day in the location, Mr. M sees things so horrible that the newspapers can’t even print them. Because of the brutal violence and hardship he sees, he can’t totally trust his instincts, unlike Confucius. Mr. M’s heart is like a zoo fully of unruly animals, including hate, despair, and especially hope, which he only keeps alive by teaching. Sometimes, he feels like he’s sacrificing young people to feed this monstrous hope. He’s 57 and unmarried, and he lives out of a tiny room in the Reverend’s house. His entire life takes place between this room and the school—he’s constantly rushing back and forth between them, because when it comes to making history, there’s no time to waste.
South Africa’s political situation is the key force holding Mr. M back: he finds it difficult to stay morally pure and optimistic when he sees injustice all around him every day. In fact, this speaks to the broader question of how South Africans can imagine and build a democratic future after suffering brutal white supremacist rule for centuries, under colonial empires and then the apartheid government. Because Mr. M dedicates all his time and energy to teaching, he feels that he has to maintain hope, even if it’s unrealistic or counterproductive. Otherwise, his life would lose its purpose.
Themes
