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Sizwe Bansi is a nervous yet hopeful Black South African man living under apartheid. He comes from a rural area around a small city, King William’s Town. Married to Nowetu, Sizwe believes being a man means supporting her and their children—but he cannot find work near home. He travels to a larger city, Port Elizabeth, to find a job. When white authorities discover Sizwe’s passbook does not prove that he’s allowed to be in Port Elizabeth, they stamp his passbook, but Sizwe, who cannot read, doesn’t know what the stamp says. A friendly acquaintance, Buntu, informs Sizwe the stamp orders him to go home. That the authorities are indifferent to Sizwe’s responsibilities as a husband and father shows how officially imposed racial identities interfered with Black South Africans’ ability to fulfill their personal identities. Sizwe suggests burning his passbook and becoming a gardener or potato-seller—but Buntu shoots these ideas down, pointing out that Black men in South Africa are legally required to carry passbooks. Sizwe’s ideas illustrate the irrepressibility of dreams even among oppressed people, while Buntu’s responses show how apartheid’s laws and economic hierarchies limited Black people’s options. When after a night of drinking Buntu and Sizwe discover a dead man in an alley, Buntu suggests Sizwe take the dead man’s passbook, which includes a permit for seeking work in Port Elizabeth. Though Sizwe hesitates to give up his name, he ultimately steals the dead man’s identity and becomes “Robert Zwelinzima” for his family’s sake. That an official identity document becomes Sizwe’s means of avoiding oppression shows how documentation can be misleading rather than informative when it comes to trying to understand oppressed people’s lives. Under the name Robert Zwelinzima, Sizwe goes to the photographer Styles’s studio so he can get photographs taken to accompany a letter he’s sending to Nowetu explaining that he has taken a new identity and gotten a job. The photographs, with which the play ends, indicate the fulfillment of Sizwe’s dreams but perhaps also their impermanence—since Sizwe doesn’t know how long he can get away with being Robert Zwelinzima.
Sizwe Bansi/Robert Zwelinzima/Man Quotes in Sizwe Bansi Is Dead
The Sizwe Bansi Is Dead quotes below are all either spoken by Sizwe Bansi/Robert Zwelinzima/Man or refer to Sizwe Bansi/Robert Zwelinzima/Man. For each quote, you can also see the other characters and themes related to it (each theme is indicated by its own dot and icon, like this one:
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Sizwe Bansi Is Dead
Quotes
STYLES: Always helping people. If that man was white they’d call him a liberal.
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MAN: I don’t want to leave Port Elizabeth.
BUNTU: Maybe. But if that book says go, you go.
MAN: Can’t I maybe burn this book and get a new one?
BUNTU: Burn that book? Stop kidding yourself, Sizwe! Anyway, suppose you do. You must immediately go apply for a new one. Right? And until that new one comes, be careful the police don’t stop you and ask for your book. Into the Courtroom, brother. Charge: Failing to produce Reference Book on demand. Five rand or five days.
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BUNTU: I’m also married. One child.
MAN: Only one?
BUNTU: Ja, my wife attends this Birth Control Clinic rubbish. The child is staying with my mother.
BUNTU: That’s it, brother. The only time we’ll find peace is when they dig a hole for us and press our face into the earth.
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[Our man is amiably drunk. He addresses the audience.]
MAN: Do you know who I am, friend? Take my hand, friend. Take my hand. I am Mister Bansi, friend. Do you know where I come from? I come from Sky’s place, friend. A most wonderful place. I met everybody there, good people. I’ve been drinking, my friends—brandy, wine, beer . . . Don’t you want to go in there, good people? Let’s all go to Sky’s place.
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MAN: It will tell you in good English where he stays. My passbook talks good English too . . . big words that Sizwe can’t read and doesn’t understand. Sizwe wants to stay here in New Brighton and find a job; passbook says, ‘No! Report back.’
Sizwe wants to feed his wife and children; passbook says, ‘No.’
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MAN: [Turning away from Buntu to the audience.]
What’s happening in this world, good people? Who cares for who in this world? Who wants who?
Who wants me, friend? What’s wrong with me? I’m a man. I’ve got eyes to see. I’ve got ears to listen when people talk. I’ve got a head to think good things. What’s wrong with me?
[Starts to tear off his clothes.]
Look at me! I’m a man. I’ve got legs. I can run with a wheelbarrow full of cement! I’m strong! I’m a man. Look! I’ve got a wife. I’ve got four children. How many has he made, lady? [The man sitting next to her.] Is he a man? What has he got that I haven’t . . . .?
MAN: [handing it over]. Take it, Buntu. Take this book and read it carefully, friend, and tell me what it says about me. Buntu, does that book tell you I’m a man?
[Buntu studies the two books. Sizwe turns back to the audience.]
That bloody book . . . ! People, do you know? No! Wherever you go . . . it’s that bloody book. You go to school, it goes too. Go to work, it goes too. Go to church and pray and sing lovely hymns, it sits there with you. Go to hospital to die, it lies there too!
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BUNTU: It’s your only chance!
MAN: No, Buntu! What’s it mean? That me, Sizwe Bansi . . .
BUNTU: Is dead.
MAN: I’m not dead, friend.
BUNTU: We burn this book . . . [Sizwe’s original] . . . and Sizwe Bansi disappears off the face of the earth.
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BUNTU: When the white man sees you walk down the street and calls out, ‘Hey, John! Come here’ . . . to you, Sizwe Bansi . . . isn’t that a ghost? Or when his little child calls you ‘Boy’ . . . you a man, circumcised, with a wife and four children . . . isn’t that a ghost? Stop fooling yourself. All I’m saying is be a real ghost, if that is what they want, what they’ve turned us into.
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BUNTU [angry]. All right! Robert, John, Athol, Winston . . . Shit on names, man! To hell with them if in exchange you can get a piece of bread for your stomach and a blanket in winter.
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MAN: A black man stay out of trouble? Impossible, Buntu. Our skin is trouble.
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Sizwe Bansi/Robert Zwelinzima/Man Quotes in Sizwe Bansi Is Dead
The Sizwe Bansi Is Dead quotes below are all either spoken by Sizwe Bansi/Robert Zwelinzima/Man or refer to Sizwe Bansi/Robert Zwelinzima/Man. For each quote, you can also see the other characters and themes related to it (each theme is indicated by its own dot and icon, like this one:
).
Sizwe Bansi Is Dead
Quotes
STYLES: Always helping people. If that man was white they’d call him a liberal.
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MAN: I don’t want to leave Port Elizabeth.
BUNTU: Maybe. But if that book says go, you go.
MAN: Can’t I maybe burn this book and get a new one?
BUNTU: Burn that book? Stop kidding yourself, Sizwe! Anyway, suppose you do. You must immediately go apply for a new one. Right? And until that new one comes, be careful the police don’t stop you and ask for your book. Into the Courtroom, brother. Charge: Failing to produce Reference Book on demand. Five rand or five days.
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BUNTU: I’m also married. One child.
MAN: Only one?
BUNTU: Ja, my wife attends this Birth Control Clinic rubbish. The child is staying with my mother.
BUNTU: That’s it, brother. The only time we’ll find peace is when they dig a hole for us and press our face into the earth.
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[Our man is amiably drunk. He addresses the audience.]
MAN: Do you know who I am, friend? Take my hand, friend. Take my hand. I am Mister Bansi, friend. Do you know where I come from? I come from Sky’s place, friend. A most wonderful place. I met everybody there, good people. I’ve been drinking, my friends—brandy, wine, beer . . . Don’t you want to go in there, good people? Let’s all go to Sky’s place.
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MAN: It will tell you in good English where he stays. My passbook talks good English too . . . big words that Sizwe can’t read and doesn’t understand. Sizwe wants to stay here in New Brighton and find a job; passbook says, ‘No! Report back.’
Sizwe wants to feed his wife and children; passbook says, ‘No.’
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MAN: [Turning away from Buntu to the audience.]
What’s happening in this world, good people? Who cares for who in this world? Who wants who?
Who wants me, friend? What’s wrong with me? I’m a man. I’ve got eyes to see. I’ve got ears to listen when people talk. I’ve got a head to think good things. What’s wrong with me?
[Starts to tear off his clothes.]
Look at me! I’m a man. I’ve got legs. I can run with a wheelbarrow full of cement! I’m strong! I’m a man. Look! I’ve got a wife. I’ve got four children. How many has he made, lady? [The man sitting next to her.] Is he a man? What has he got that I haven’t . . . .?
MAN: [handing it over]. Take it, Buntu. Take this book and read it carefully, friend, and tell me what it says about me. Buntu, does that book tell you I’m a man?
[Buntu studies the two books. Sizwe turns back to the audience.]
That bloody book . . . ! People, do you know? No! Wherever you go . . . it’s that bloody book. You go to school, it goes too. Go to work, it goes too. Go to church and pray and sing lovely hymns, it sits there with you. Go to hospital to die, it lies there too!
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BUNTU: It’s your only chance!
MAN: No, Buntu! What’s it mean? That me, Sizwe Bansi . . .
BUNTU: Is dead.
MAN: I’m not dead, friend.
BUNTU: We burn this book . . . [Sizwe’s original] . . . and Sizwe Bansi disappears off the face of the earth.
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BUNTU: When the white man sees you walk down the street and calls out, ‘Hey, John! Come here’ . . . to you, Sizwe Bansi . . . isn’t that a ghost? Or when his little child calls you ‘Boy’ . . . you a man, circumcised, with a wife and four children . . . isn’t that a ghost? Stop fooling yourself. All I’m saying is be a real ghost, if that is what they want, what they’ve turned us into.
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BUNTU [angry]. All right! Robert, John, Athol, Winston . . . Shit on names, man! To hell with them if in exchange you can get a piece of bread for your stomach and a blanket in winter.
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MAN: A black man stay out of trouble? Impossible, Buntu. Our skin is trouble.
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