Mr Anela Myalata

Mr M shows his opposition to apartheid education by arranging a debate between his own learners and those from a neighbouring white girls’ school. He invites the top girl debater to join his brightest learner in a forthcoming literature contest and forms a close relationship with them while they prepare for it. He believes Thami has a great future as a leader. Mr M refuses to take part in the school boycott and tries to bring an end to it by giving the names of some activists to the police. He is branded as an informer but ignores Thami’s warnings and refuses to flee from the school. While he is ringing the school bell he is killed by the crowd.

Thami Mbikwana

Thami opposes Isabel Dyson in a debate that Mr M arranges between his school and hers and they “take a liking to each other”. He rejects Mr M’s views on the benefit of education and instead joins the school boycotts. He tries in vain to warn Mr M about the plot to burn down the school and kill Mr M. Realising that he is suspected of being one of the killers, he flees South Africa.

Isabel Dyson

Isabel is invited along with some classmates to take part in a debate against a neighbouring black school. She becomes friendly with the opposing main speaker, Thami, and accepts Mr M’s invitation to partner Thami in an English literature contest. This plan is overtaken by school boycotts in which Mr M is killed. “She says her last farewell to him” at the top of the Wapadsberg Pass, where he was inspired to take up teaching."

ACT 1 SCENE 1: THE GREAT DEBATE

    1. At the end of the “heated argument” between Isabel and Thami, he accuses her of saying women were more emotional than men, but she insists that she’d used the word intuitive.

    2. ringing the school bell loudly

    3. “shouting down the opposition so that they cannot be heard”

    4. In addition to saying that women’s liberation is a Western idea, Thami can perhaps also be seen as “outrageous” for claiming to speak not as himself but as “the great ancestors of our traditional African culture” and for saying that “Western Civilisation has meant only misery” for African people.

    5. “values and principles in traditional African society”

    6. “hold back Africa’s progress”; being sacred

    7. sitting at a sewing machine; trying to breast-feed a baby; making war

    8. operating computers; flying a space shuttle

    9. differences between groups; prejudice

    10. “wild”; “polite”; “frivolous and irresponsible”

    11. both Thami and Isabel; his own face

    12. playful; earnest

    13. against Thami; the shameless way he had tried to exploit their loyalty

    14. it involved white girls; “free and easy”; “stuffy affairs”

    15. d. THAMI: They are all my friends. e. THAMI: You won’t find it here. I don’t want to leave any part of me in this classroom.

    16. “It’s got nothing to do with him”

    17. what is best for Thami to do with his life

    18. [Sharply].

    19. apologising; placatory

    20. study journalism at Rhodes University

    21. promise to be objective; giving her his speech

    22. “I’ve got opinions of my own”

ACT 1 SCENE 2: ISABEL’S FIRST MONOLOGUE

    1. the ugliness; the prettiness

    2. “the first thing that greeted any visitor to town”

    3. the absence of TV aerials

    4. and his deliveryman, Samuel

    5. c. the issues around white privilege under the apartheid government.

    6. disdainful

    7. none of them smiled

    8. Isabel and her two friends

    9. feel grateful to her; her equal

    10. master-servant relationship

    11. watershed; listened to her

    12. “world of its own with its own life that has nothing to do with us”; “there’s a hell of a lot of people living in it”

    13. “only a small fraction of what it could be”; is assisting township people

    14. visit Auntie when she was sick; deliver medicine to the clinic

ACT 1 SCENE 3: INVITATION TO THE QUIZ

    1. “one of your schoolmates said I would find you here”

    2. c, d, a, b

    3. Mr M: [Bowing] Then doubly welcome, young Isabel. ISABEL: [Curtsy] I thank you, kind sir.

    4. “you managed to leave so many friends behind you”

    5. “Splendid! Splendid! Splendid!”

    6. he lost the debate against Isabel/Camdeboo Girls High

    7. about a minute and a half

    8. combine their strengths; fighting each other

    9. the forced separation of race groups under apartheid

    10. “Mr M, you’re a genius!”

    11. irony; the opposite of what they say

    12. reproachful

    13. see more of her new friends at Zolile

    14. a very good idea

    15. apprehensive/fearful; being on an equal footing with blacks

    16. grateful

    17. bravo; approval

    18. instruction

    19. dictatorial; respect for authority

    20. of Thami’s rebelliousness; Mr M is ignorant of it

    21. been proud of; learn; a leader

    22. unruly; a disease that she caught in the location

    23. what blacks and whites can achieve when they work together

ACT 1 SCENE 4: MR M’S FIRST MONOLOGUE

    1. old age is coming on; forgetting his sorrows

    2. thought; learning; dangerous

    3. his heart prompted; be right; gentle; heart attacks

    4.

      4.1 proper education

      4.2 educate the young people of the township

    5. will have been killed; dramatic irony

ACT 1 SCENE 5: THAMI AND ISABEL PRACTISE FOR THE QUIZ

    1. English and Afrikaans

    2. “friendly”

    3. he doesn’t play hockey and doesn’t have a hockey stick

    4. how to lose

    5. “I owe you a lot, Mr M”

    6. Isabel says that Thami would be more forthcoming if Mr M treated him as an equal (as a friend) instead of as a pupil.

    7. “and … everything else.”

    8. That the learners were planning to boycott school.

    9. Revealing a confidence (splitting) is condemned among school children and it can end a friendship.

    10. It would be in Thami’s interests (“for his own good”) for Mr M to know.

    11. she lost by far more than that (four-one)

    12. doesn’t mind losing; has no bad feelings about losing

    13. revenge

    14. battleground

    15. “Service” and “love” (“One-love”)

    16. Here Thami and Isabel are competing against each other whereas in the inter-school quiz they will be on the same side.

    17. One-love means that Isabel has scored a point for asking a question that Thami couldn’t answer; so he scored nothing – “love”. One-all means that Thami has successfully answered Isabel’s request for the first line of a poem by Coleridge.

    18. playful

    19. amused

    20.

      20.1 The first number called belongs to the one asking the question.

      20.2 Thami and Isabel have taken turns to quote the poem by John Masefield.

    21.

      21.1 That Thami is beating her by nine points to four.

      21.2 She pretends to want to attack Thami with it because he’s out-scoring her.

      21.3 He enjoys winning and enjoys the effect this has on Isabel.

    22. The slaves could have overpowered the soldiers in a bid for freedom.

    23. “A love of liberty characterises his poems and the desire to see the fettered nations of Europe set free.”

    24. fun; deadly serious

    25. 19th century poetry; the present political situation in South Africa; the quiz

    26. freedom; to fight for it

    27. His efforts to educate black children. 28.

      28.1 White leaders whose statues have been erected in South Africa.

      28.2 Apartheid authorities.

    29. [Cutting him] “Do I make myself clear?”

    30. He accepts Isabel’s invitation to have tea and meet her parents on behalf of both of them, even though Isabel tries to get Thami to answer for himself.

    31. “He speaks for me on nothing!”

    32. That their daughter is romantically involved with him/that she is getting involved in protest politics.

    33. That’s not true

From: Tone of voice
“They’re always nervous” to “want to meet you after all?” reasonable and reassuring
“Honestly,” to “being scared like that.” exasperated
“What’s going on, Thami?” to “isn’t there?” aggressive/probing
“No you don’t” to “the first day we met.” scornful
“But it’s more than that now” to “you’re doing it?” puzzled

ACT 1 SCENE 6: THAMI’S MONOLOGUE

    1. He should sound like a seven-year-old schoolboy.

    2. He should revert to his normal (adult) speaking voice and not sing at all.

    3. He was eager to learn and he was clever.

    4. His father works for a “baas”; black people are poorer than whites; the way out of poverty is via education (becoming a doctor); a successful young black provides his family with a decent house to live in.

    5. pills and medicine

    6. The inspector flatters the learners in an attempt to co-opt them into supporting Bantu Education and thereby making it look acceptable. The danger is that he would become a sell-out if he complied.

    7. He objected to the learners standing to greet him.

    He swore, using the word “bloody”.

    He distanced himself from anything military and therefore oppressive (“I’m not a sergeant major.”)

    He lowered the register of his dress (loosened his tie, removed his jacket, rolled up his sleeves)

    He code-switched to Afrikaans, implying that he felt at home with the learners.

    He joked about there being “green ones out there”.

    8. The “wonderful future of peace and prosperity” is a myth, since the majority of black people will remain as badly off as they are now.

    9. It is wrong for the relatively few whites to have so much wealth while the many blacks have so little, especially when the blacks occupied this country long before the whites arrived.

    10. It deals exclusively with the arrival of whites and events since then whereas the history of the struggle is what future generations of learners are going to deal with.

    11. This “school” would exist wherever people met to talk about the struggle for freedom – who the leaders were, what their views were and what fate befell them. This “school” is poised to erupt in serious protest (“shouting”).

ACT 2 SCENE 1: THAMI DECIDES TO JOIN THE BOYCOTT

Page in your school edition Words Tone of voice
82 ISABEL [Abandoning the notes] Why am I doing this? You’re not listening to me. THAMI Sorry ISABEL [She waits for more, but that is all she gets] So? Should I carry on wasting my breath or do you want to say something? THAMI No, I must talk. ISABEL Good. I’m ready to listen. THAMI I don’t know where to begin. annoyed/impatient/irritable/displeased/exasperated meek/apologetic/neutral annoyed/impatient/irritable/displeased/exasperated resigned/resolute aggressive/provocative/conciliatory uncertain/uneasy/awkward/troubled
83 ISABEL We’ve got a problem, have we? THAMI I have. ISABEL [Losing patience] Oh, for God’s sake, Thami. Stop trying to spare my feelings and just say it! aggressive/provocative resigned/apologetic annoyed/impatient/irritable/angry/exasperated
83 ISABEL You shouldn’t have made it so hard for yourself, Thami. sympathetic/kind
84 THAMI Talk about what? Don’t you know what is going on? ISABEL Don’t be stupid, Thami! Of course I do! exasperated indignant/impatient
85 ISABEL So think about it. Please THAMI [Nervous about a commitment] It’s hard to say, Isabel but ja … maybe we could … I’m not sure ISABEL Not much enthusiasm there, Mr Mbikwana! You’re right. Why worry about a stupid competition? pleading/earnest uncertain/uneasy scornful/mocking/sarcastic
86 ISABEL And you go along with that? THAMI Yes. ISABEL Happily! THAMI [Goaded by her lack of understanding] Yes! I go along happily with that! surprised/amazed/disbelieving neutral indignant/scornful annoyed/hostile

2. Isabel is keen to prepare for the literary competition and to strengthen her friendship with Thami. She is blunt in expressing her views and feelings, imagining that she can dominate Thami and persuade him to come round to her point of view. (She is used to being able to give black people instructions.) Thami is polite and apologetic in the face of Isabel’s opposition, but it is clear that to him the literary competition is less important than his participation in the impending school boycott. Only when Isabel challenges this does he lose patience with her.

3.1 Isabel argues that the freedom Thami desires is negated if others decide who he can be friends with and what he can and can’t do. Thami says that the restrictions Isabel mentions are the discipline that is necessary at this point in the struggle against the total denial of freedom under apartheid. Once that freedom has been achieved, the need for this kind of discipline will end.

3.2 Mr M always told his classes that he saw it as his duty to “sabotage” Bantu Education by liberating the minds of his learners. Thami is living proof that he succeeded in this. Thami refuses to give Mr M credit for his ability with words. Mr M taught him to “whisper”, whereas he has learned outside the classroom how to “shout”. Big words alone would not bring about liberation.

3.3 Armoured cars are impervious to stones and petrol bombs whereas words could get inside the armoured cars and in fact inside the heads of those inside the armoured cars.

4. Mr M says he has been told to make a list of all those who take part in the boycott, and he does not deny that he will obey this instruction.

ACT 2 SCENE 2: MR M’S SECOND MONOLOGUE

    1. Armoured cars are likened to dung beetles and the rioters to shit. The effect is to personify the armoured cars as insectlike/inhuman and therefore merciless. Meanwhile the rioters are depersonalised/dehumanised/vilified as excrement. This recalls the disregard for life that led to the deaths of 176 learners in the 1976 riots in Soweto.

    2. The slogan “Liberation before education” devalues education, whereas Sipho’s concern that it should be spelled correctly contradicts this and is therefore ironic.

    3. By calling to Mr M for help the detainees co-opt him onto their side in the school boycotts, so it is ironic that the same boycotters murder him the following day. This is “dramatic” irony, as the implications are not seen by the actors at the time but become apparent to the audience later in the play

ACT 2 SCENE 3: MR M IS KILLED

1. The police will claim that victims were struck by stray bullets but in fact they aimed their rifles with the intention of hitting people.

The speech beginning Tone of voice
“But what can I teach you?” despairing
“I ring this bell because according to my watch it is school time” defiant
“Of course not. What’s the matter with me? sarcastic

3. Mr M rings the school bell, and rings it wildly.

4. Thami waits because he expects Mr M to deny that he is an informer and that he gave names to the police. Mr M does not do so because in fact the denunciations are true: he did give names to the police.

5. It heightens the audience’s awareness of the possibility of Mr M being killed and thus prepares them for it. Thami’s reluctance to actually say the words shows that he considers it to be drastic and he believes the Comrades are likely to actually do it.

6. He must sign a declaration that he was wrong and has decided to join the boycott and he must have nothing further to do with the school until all of the Comrades’ demands have been met.

7. The way he “studies Thami intently” when saying “You don’t believe that I am an informer” implies that he should believe it; and a little later he says “Why take a chance like that to save a collaborator?”, implying that he is one.

8. “they won’t be hurting an innocent man.”

9. He hopes for affirmation: that Thami will acknowledge his importance – the relationship that Isabel alluded to as “Mr M and his brilliant protégé”.

10. He refused to accept payment for providing the information.

11. He had told himself that he approached Captain Lategan as a matter of conscience so as to put an end to what he considered to be madness. He realises, however, that he did it out of spite and jealousy because Thami had deserted him in favour of the Comrades.

12. When he was ten years old he went on a school trip to Somerset East to play rugby. The lorry he was travelling in stopped at the top of the Wapadsberg Pass for the boys to relieve themselves. He looked in amazement at the vastness of the Karoo below the mountain and asked the teacher where he would get to if he started walking in the direction he was looking. When the teacher named the rivers and mountains and the African peoples to the north, Mr M asked if he’d seen it all himself. The teacher’s reply, that he’d seen it all through reading, inspired Mr M to become a life-long reader and to be proud of his African heritage.

13. The body of the little child in the tribesman’s arms represents the defeat of Mr M’s hopes for what he wanted to achieve as a teacher (the “splendour”). Boycotting school starves his learners of education; educationally speaking they are corpses.

14.1 That he confronted Mr M who denied being an informer. Thami believes him.

14.2 That Thami cares for him because of the special relationship they had in the classroom.

14.3 That the Cause would suffer if they falsely accuse and harm innocent people.

14.4 Thami now knows that Mr M is NOT innocent. The Cause will therefore not “suffer” if it harms him. Thami’s continued willingness to lie to protect Mr M therefore suggests that he cares for him or is grateful to him. His refusal to admit it is puzzling – and tragic, since it drives Mr M to his suicidal confrontation with the mob.

15. There is nothing worth living for if the very flower of his efforts as a teacher – Thami – denies that he gained anything from it or feels anything for Mr M.

ACT 2 SCENE 4: ISABEL CONFRONTS THAMI

1. “met to prepare for the literary competition.”

2. It was dramatic because Thami cut his ties with Mr M by challenging him to write his name at the top of his list of boycotters and because he left the stage without giving the other two a chance to react.

Thami Isabel
polite hostile
concerned impatient
uncomfortable sarcastic
puzzled hurt
stern despairing

4.1 An informer spies for the police over an extended period (and gets paid for it).

4.2 He went to the police only once, as a matter of conscience, out of concern for his people.

4.3 murder; self-defence

4.4 The students who killed Mr M assumed that he was a paid informer of long standing and as such was “a terrible danger” to them. Five of those whose names Mr M had given to the police had been arrested and Thami himself was about to flee the country to avoid being arrested too. Therefore, killing him was acting in self-defence.

5. She probably imagined him confronting the mob with a plea not to kill Mr M.

6. He appealed to Mr M to deny that he had been to the police, intending to take this denial to the boycotters and in this way stop them from assaulting Mr M.

7. He says that he loved Mr M. Hearing this from Thami might have made Mr M less inclined to confront the mob in suicidal provocation. “I’ll never forgive myself for not trying harder with him and letting him know … my true feelings for him.”

8. The “movement” he intends to join is the military wing of the ANC, Umkhonto we Sizwe.

9. On the day after the killing she tried unsuccessfully to enter the location to ask witnesses why they hadn’t stopped it. Later she asked her father to phone the police to find out where the body was so that she could visit it.

10. Her offer of money suggests that she understands Thami’s point of view and forgives him for it. (Also perhaps that she stereotypically assumes that white people give black people money.) By declining her offer Thami asserts his self-sufficiency and self-respect. (Perhaps also that it is beneath him to accept charity from a white person.)

ACT 2 SCENE 5: ISABEL’S SECOND MONOLOGUE

1. Wasted lives.

2. She probably intends to work with black people as allies instead of fighting against them.



Act One Evidence from the text
Act 1 Scene 1

[They are now beginning to relax with each other.] [It is obvious that they both want to prolong the conversation]

Act 1 Scene 2

2.1 “I’ve always thought”

Act 1 Scene 3

3.1. “A waste! They shouldn’t be fighting each other. They should be fighting together!”

Act 1 Scene 4

4.1. Hope, which he keeps alive by educating (feeding) educationally malnourished black children.

Act 1 Scene 5

5.1. “I know Thami trusts you. I was wondering if he had told you what they were whispering about.”

6.1. “He would like to topple/vandalise the statues of white leaders.

6.2. Mr M proposes that statues of black heroes should be erected instead.

6.3. Thami says “They would pull down that statue so fast.”

7.1. [A few seconds of truculent silence between the two of them]

8.1. “That classroom is a political reality in my life … it’s part of the whole political system we’re up against”

Act 1 Scene 6

9.1. “At the beginning of this year”

Act Two Evidence from the text
Act 2 Scene 1

10.1. Yes. The Comrades don’t want to mix with whites.

11.1. Mr M: “You must thank me for all that, Thami.” THAMI: “No I don’t. You never taught me those lessons.”

12.1. [He leaves the rest unspoken]

13.1. “Government stooge, sell-out collaborator.”

Act 2 Scene 2

14.1. “No! No! Do something, Anela. Do something. Stop the madness! Stop the madness.”

Act 2 Scene 3

15.1. “Before they kill you all”

16.1. “If they find you here …. [Pause]”

17.1. “they won’t be ‘hurting’ an innocent man.”

18.1. “Thami tries to save Mr M but Mr M confronts the mob and is killed.” “[Ringing his bell furiously]”

Act 2 Scene 4

19.1. Thami sent a message to Isabel, asking her to meet him at an unspecified place, and she acceded to this request.

20.1. “He was one of the most beautiful human beings I have ever known and his death is one of the ugliest things I have ever known.”

21.1. “Was I one of the mob that killed him?”

22.1. “They were defending themselves against what they thought was a terrible danger to themselves.

Act 2 Scene 5

23.1. “there’s nowhere for me to go and … you know … just be near him.”

Planning and organising an essay

Main points and topic sentences
Thami’s decisions What is lost How Thami sees it
1. To join the school boycott A matric certificate apartheid
2. To withdraw from the literature competition” The chance to show that black and white youth can combine and excel. He has to put solidarity with the Comrades first.
3. Not to be seen with Isabel Their budding friendship. Solidarity first
4. To persuade Mr M to join the boycott He fails to do so, and Mr M is killed. He tried his best.
5. Not to affirm Mr M or his teaching Mr M’s sense of worth after a life devoted to teaching. He regrets it.
6. To flee the country Family and home. He has no choice – he faces arrest if he stays in South Africa.

Supporting quotations

1. “they will make all of you apply for readmission, and if your name is on that list … [He leaves the rest unspoken]”

2. “ISABEL: Because that’s what you’re trying to tell me, isn’t it? That it’s all off? THAMI: Yes.”

3. “[Trying] Visiting you like this is dangerous. People talk.” OR “The Comrades don’t want any mixing with whites. They have ordered that contact be kept at a minimum.”

4. “A waste! They shouldn’t be fighting each other. They should be fighting together.”

5. “ISABEL: I mean … Can we go on meeting, just as friends? THAMI: [Warily] When?”

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