"Struggle For Education" In "Kaffir Boy", Mark "Johannes" Mathabane's mother strives to send him to school. She does not let anything get in the way of her ambition. Even though her husband disapproves, she will not let anything get in her way, but now her desires for her son to be educated are stronger. Her courage speaks louder than the consequences she will face with her husband. It seems as though her husband is dealing with a great amount of jealously. A jealously that will decipher Johannes's decision about school. "Did you hear what that woman said!" "Do you want the same to happen to you?" A statement and question raised by his mother to show Johannes the importance of an education. "They finally did. But what a battle it was, it took me nearly a year to get all them papers together." Since it took his mother so long to get everything together there was no way she was going to let everything she worked so hard for go down the drain. Even though Johannes's mother and father were from different tribes, that did not stop her from putting her son in school. "Your father and I fought today because I took you to school this morning." Johannes's mother expresses her courage throughout the story. "He had told me not to, and when I told him that I had, he became very upset. He was drunk. We started arguing, and one thing let to another." She shows her courage by disobeying her husband's orders. Unlike her husband, she wants Johannes to have a future and getting an education is the only way for a future. Being beaten was the consequence of disobeying her husband, but the beating how no effect for Johannes's mother wanted to see her son succeed in the world. Johannes's father seems to be jealous that his own son may have a chance to be educated. He says, "he doesn't have money to wasted paying for you to get what he calls an useless white man's education." It seems that he does not understand that school will keep Johannes off the streets.
In his autobiography, Kaffir Boy, Mark Mathabane demonstrates the hardships of growing up in the black ghetto of Alexandra in South Africa during the 1960s and 1970s. ... The word kaffir comes from Arabic origin and means "infidel". ... Members of the African Bantu-speaking peoples were often called "kaffirs". ... Kaffir Boy can be related to postcolonialism. ...
Kaffir boy was an extremely honest tale of what life was like during apartheid. Apartheid was a system designed by Holland settlers to separate the native Africans from their settlers. They conformed them into small ghettos or tribal reserves which where unpractical and unsanitary. Although man...
Throughout his book, Kaffir Boy, Mark Mathabane describes in intricate detail how the white South Africans controlled South Africa in the 1960's and 1970's. ... As a boy, Mark would help the people who could not read get the documents they needed to keep their books in order. ...
Experience is Not Always Better The novel The Power on One written by Bryce Courtenay tells a story of the experiences and the hardships that a boy named Peekay must face. ... It was only a kaffir, a dirty stinking yellow man, why you hitting a white man over a kaffir?" ... Peekay helps the "kaffirs". ...
Frikkie is a white boy who has a Dutch descent while Tengo is a native black African boy. ... On the farm, he used to play with a white boy named Frikkie at his age. The white boy was the farm owner's nephew. ... At the same time, the madam came in and told Frikkie's sister in a sharp voice, "you should never let a kaffir boy into your room again!" Afterward, Tengo felt extremely angry and then he realized that there was a line between him and the white boy that must not be crossed. ...
During the unfair treatment a young boy endured, he had to decide if the value of friendship can overcome extreme tensions risen by a unfavorable system. ... Tengo was a black boy who laborer on the farm of Frikkie's uncle. ... He was accustomed to privileges, such as freedom and schooling, and did not have to encounter the poverty and afflictions of Kaffirs (the black boys). ...
In a way, "Kaffir-town- could represent an African scheme, and this realization is not lost on Roy when John's arrest means a return trip to Edinburgh: "Edinburgh to me represented serfdom. I realized that it was exactly the same situation as Johannesburg; the only difference was that the Kaffirs were white and called schemies or draftpaks- (Welsh 80). ... His assault of the boy seems to be South Africa/Uncle Gordon's influence in all of this. ...
They take away books that they feel Nyasha should not be reading, forces their daughter to eat when she says that she is not hungry, and even uses violence to reprimand her for staying out too late with a boy. ... Nyasha pretends to be a settler and insults her father by calling him a "good boy, a good munt. A bloody good kaffir" (Dangarembga 200). The use of the term "boy", which implies the bottom of social hierarchy, shows that black African men are perceived to be inferior and forced to be obedient to the white settlers. ...
