Sizwe Bansi is Dead

            
             When we die, there is nothing we can leave behind except for the memory of ourselves. When we think of our life, we usually believe in looking at our past through a photograph. Photographs are recollections of the "preserved past." We may also use a photograph to compile a narrative of one's life, and to remember them long after their death.
             In Sizwe Bansi is Dead he has his photograph taken to send to his wife; we bear in mind a defined man, well, dressed posing in a distinguished manner. He wanted to be remembered as a worldly man with intelligence and someone with the means necessary to smoke cigars and travel the world. Photographs to Sizwe were the memories of everyday people who can be remembered loved one's in a special way.
             Do our lives change, if we take the identity of someone else? The change in our identity, the change of our name can change who we are. Our name is our life, it is how we identify ourselves, and how others identify us. If we change our name, we take on the identity of someone else, we eventually become that person. Although we become that person, the memories that we have still live on. .
             In the play, Sizwe's identity changed but the memories that he had lived on. He made sure he took photographs of his past so his family and himself would have vivid memories of the past. He became that person, yet as time went on, he recited his life through photographs.