Master Harold and the Boys

“HALLY. Anyway, that’s my man of magnitude. Charles Darwin! Who’s yours?

SAM (without hesitation). Abraham Lincoln.

HALLY. I might have guessed as much. Don’t get sentimental, Sam. You’ve never been a slave, you know. And anyway, we freed your ancestors here in South Africa long before the Americans.”

Sam and Hally’s disagreement over Lincoln is ironic. Hally is right that South Africa, a British colony at the time, did abolish slavery in 1834, just over 30 years before America. However, a form of slavery continued until the late 1800s through “inboekstelsel,” which was the legal act of enslaving orphaned or abandoned children. These children usually remained enslaved for their entire lives.

“HALLY. Not many intellectuals are prepared to shovel manure with the peasants then go home and write a ‘little book’ called War and Peace. Incidentally, Sam, he was somebody else who, to quote, ‘…did not distinguish himself scholastically.’”

Hally is inspired by Tolstoy’s ability to work alongside his peasant laborers and be a great writer. In Hally’s journey of Education and Coming of Age, he also admires Tolstoy as someone who did not do well in school, like himself. These comparisons help Hally to feel as if he, like Tolstoy, is an ally to his subordinates even though he benefits from unequal systems of power.

“HALLY. After your last contribution I’m beginning to doubt whether anything in the way of an intellectual agreement is possible between the two of us.”

Hally demonstrates the patronizing view that many white South Africans had of Black people in the 1950s. Despite his youth and relative inexperience with the world, Hally still sees himself as more intellectually capable than an adult Black man and believes that Sam has a limited capacity for learning.

“HALLY. […] Tolstoy may have educated his peasants, but I’ve educated you.”

The Racial Dynamics in South Africa are once again evident in Hally’s words. He equates Sam with Russian peasants; indeed, Sam is probably paid as little as a peasant and referred to as a servant. Hally also takes a paternalistic view of Sam as someone who needs to be educated by a generous white person. Hally needs to feel as if he’s educated Sam to compensate for his shame regarding his own failures as a student.

“WILLIE. So then you two didn’t play fair.

HALLY. It was for your benefit, Mr. Malopo, which is more than being fair. It was an act of sacrifice.”

This conversation between Hally and Willie refers to their checkers games but also reflects white colonial attitudes toward Black South Africans. White colonizers enacted systems that were not fair to native Africans but saw themselves as acting selflessly. They believed their colonization would educate and civilize the people they subjugated.

“HALLY. […] The sheer audacity of it took my breath away. I mean, seriously, what the hell does a black man know about flying a kite?”

At the time, Hally could not imagine Sam as being capable of building or flying a kite even though he was a competent adult. If the kite is a symbol of liberation for both Hally and for Sam, Hally does not believe that Sam is capable of building or even imagining such a future, because he views Black people as fundamentally incompetent.

“HALLY. I wanted to stay, you know. I was a little scared of having to look after it by myself.

SAM (Quietly). I had work to do, Hally.”

Hally is so caught up in his own euphoria of flying the kite that he does not recognize Sam’s position in their interaction. Sam cannot sit with him because he is expected to go back to work. Hally’s naïveté about this situation foreshadows the revelation about the bench later in the play when Sam reveals the role of racism in this memory.

“HALLY. Me and you.

SAM. What’s strange about it?

HALLY. Little white boy in short trousers and a black man old enough to be his father flying a kite. It’s not every day you see that.

SAM. But why strange? Because the one is white and the other black?

HALLY. I don’t know. Would have been just as strange, I suppose, if it had been me and my Dad…cripple man and a little boy! Nope! There’s no chance of me flying a kite without it being strange.”

Shame and Systems of Power are inescapable for Hally. He believes that a white boy and a Black man spending time together is a strange sight, even a shameful one, though he will not admit why. He would also be ashamed to be seen with his father, who has a disability, because he is ashamed of his father’s disability. Systems of power have taught Hally to believe that having a disability and being Black are things to be ashamed of.

“SAM. We’re still together.

HALLY. That’s true. It’s just that life felt the right size in there…not too big and not too small. Wasn’t so hard to work up a bit of courage. It’s got so bloody complicated since then.”

When Hally yearns for a return to his uncomplicated past, he is demonstrating his struggle in his journey of Education and Coming of Age. As a child, he could ignore certain aspects of reality; Sam forgave his naïveté about racial dynamics because he was young. Now, he is confronted with the discomfort of his own complicity in the oppressive Racial Dynamics in South Africa.

“HALLY. Sam! Willie! (Gabs his ruler and gives WILLIE a vicious whack on the bum) How the hell am I supposed to concentrate with the two of you behaving like bloody children.”

Hally punishes Willie as if he were a schoolboy in a shocking display of the disrespect that white systems of power had for Black adults in apartheid-era South Africa. The idea that a white child should have the power to punish a Black adult reinforced white supremacy in South Africa and degraded Black adults.

“HALLY. But what makes me bitter is that I allow you chaps a little freedom in here when business is bad and what do you do with it? The foxtrot! Specially you, Sam. There’s more to life than trotting around a dance floor and I thought at least you knew it.”

Hally often acts as if showing Sam and Willie any kind of kindness or fair treatment is an act of great magnanimity on his part. Here, he demonstrates that he does not see Sam or Willie as adults, but rather as children whom he “allows” to have a bit of fun at work. The passage also demonstrates irony that Sam and Willie, because they see the value in dancing, understand more about the world than Hally does.

“SAM. You still haven’t told me what’s wrong with admiring something that’s beautiful and then trying to do it yourself.”

To Sam, the ballroom competition is a symbol of hope for a beautiful, better world of liberation. He holds to that hope to deal with the reality of living in a racist, segregated society. Hally’s dismissal of this dream without being to articulate his reasoning demonstrates his childish engagement in the argument.

“HALLY. Old Doc Bromely—he’s my English teacher—is going to argue with me, of course. He doesn’t like natives. But I’ll point out to him that in strict anthropological terms the culture of a primitive black society includes its dancing and singing. To put my thesis in a nutshell: The war-dance has been replaced by the waltz. But it still amounts to the same thing: the release of primitive emotions through movement.”

Even though all cultures have dance traditions, and waltzing specifically comes from Europe, Hally sees Black people participating in dance as “primitive,” because he fundamentally sees Black cultures and people as primitive. He believes that his view is a kind one, and pointing out that his teacher is straightforwardly hateful of Black people makes him feel like his own paternalizing racism is morally superior.

“SAM. To be one of those finalists on the dance floor is like…being in a dream about a world in which accidents don’t happen.”

Dancing represents the possibility of liberation. Where the current world is full of violence, struggle, and injustice, the dance competition strives to imagine a world without those things, where everyone dances in harmony and there are no collisions where people hurt each other.

“SAM. That’s what I’ve been trying to say to you all afternoon. And it’s beautiful because that is what we want life to be like. But instead, like you said, Hally, we’re bumping into each other all the time.”

Sam underscores the reality of apartheid-era South Africa. Despite Sam’s beautiful hopes and dreams for future liberation, the present world does not reflect these dreams. Racial Dynamics in South Africa, as well as the grip of Shame and Systems of Power, have created injustices that Sam struggles to communicate to Hally.

“HALLY. But is that the best we can do, Sam…watch six finalists dreaming about the way it should be?

SAM. I don’t know. But it starts with that.”

Despite his prejudices and contradictions, Hally is often frustrated by the injustices of the world; he is unsatisfied with the idea that dreaming of a better world is the best that anyone can do. Sam cannot offer him actionable steps to take to address injustices because that would require him to ask Hally to confront his own complicity in upholding white supremacy. Because of the unequal Racial Dynamics in South Africa, Sam is unable to challenge Hally’s complicity without risking his job and possibly his life.

“HALLY. Yes!! That’s what all our talk about a decent world has been…just so much bullshit.

SAM. We did say it was only a dream.

HALLY. And a bloody useless one at that. Life’s a fuck-up and it’s never going to change.”

The biggest injustice in Hally’s life is his father’s treatment of him. When Hally learns that his father is coming home, he becomes angry and unable to see the value in dreaming of a better world if dreams do not change reality. His problems are personal, rather than systemic; he does not understand that dreaming of a better world can be a source of strength and solidarity.

“HALLY. Of what? The truth? I seem to be the only one around here who is prepared to face it. We’ve had the pretty dream, it’s time now to wake up and have a good long look at the way things really are. Nobody knows the steps, there’s no music, the cripples are also out there tripping up everybody and trying to get into the act.”

Hally is bothered by injustice only when he’s on the receiving end, at which point he will use systems of oppression (like racism or, in this case, ableism) to justify his frustrations. When he is asked to think about the injustices facing Sam and Willie, he cannot engage and instead turns the conversation back to himself and his shame and anger over his father’s returning home.

“HALLY. All that concerns you here, Sam, is to try and do what you get paid for—keep the place clean and serve the customers. In plain words, just get on with your job. My mother is right. She’s always warning me about allowing you to get too familiar. Well, this time, you’ve gone too far. It’s going to stop right now.”

When Hally feels like his authority is being questioned, he becomes an enforcer of racist Racial Dynamics in South Africa. Apartheid required everyday white citizens to participate in rigid systems of power that upheld white supremacy; here, Hally does just that. He degrades Sam and Willie, fractures their relationship, and acts as though he is superior to them.

“HALLY. He’s a white man and that should be good enough for you.

SAM. I’ll try to forget you said that.”

Hally’s assertion that Sam should respect his father just because he is white is another way that racial hierarchies were enforced and upheld in apartheid South Africa. Sam is angered by the idea someone is worthy or unworthy of respect because of their race, particularly because he cannot respect Hally’s father’s treatment of his family, his racism, and his alcohol addiction. This is one of Hally’s most overtly racist statements as he tries to rationalize his shame.

“HALLY. He agrees with my Mom. He’s always going on about it as well. ‘You must teach the boys to show you more respect, my son.’”

The use of the word “boys” to describe Sam and Willie demonstrates the complete lack of respect that many white people had for Black people under apartheid. To call adult men “boys” infantilizes and degrades them; the irony that he’s the only “boy” present is lost on Hally.

“SAM. And you’re a coward, Master Harold. The face you should be spitting in is your father’s…but you used mine, because you think you’re safe inside your fair skin…and this time I don’t mean just or decent.”

Sam points out that Hally is being cruel to him and to Willie because he is angry with his father, but, because of Shame and Systems of Power, Sam cannot confront him without disrespecting him. Rather than disrespect his father, a white man, Hally uses his position in society to take out his frustration on Sam and Willie, who are “beneath” him in the apartheid system. Sam calls Hally out for hiding behind white supremacy to justify his cruelty.

“SAM. If you ever do write it as a short story, there was a twist in our ending. I couldn’t sit down there and stay with you. It was a ‘Whites Only’ bench. You were too young, too excited to notice then. But not anymore.”

Sam forces Hally to confront his complicity in the apartheid system. This moment demonstrates how Hally has been able to largely ignore the injustices of the Racial Dynamics in South Africa for the benefit of his own comfort, because the injustices do not hurt him. Sam does not want Hally to continue to live in willful ignorance; he wants Hally to face reality so that he can work to change himself and their world for the better.