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Master Harold and the Boys

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Master Harold and the Boys
Master Harold and the Boys Play

Master Harold and the Boys, a play written by famous playwright Althol Fugard, shares the story of a seventeen year old white boy, Hally, who spends time with two African- American servants, Sam and Willie. While the majority of the play is a conversation between the three inside a tea room, Fugard does a brilliant job of exposing the struggles that is dealt with at the time. The context of Master Harold and the Boys is deep and meaningful, especially since the play sets in South Africa. He depicts how industrialized racism really is, showing that when an individual lives under a certain set of assumptions, it is really easy to catch others views of hatred, bigotry, and at the time, apartheid. Fugard shows his true artisism for publishing this play because it takes a true artist to be able to confront problems that a society deals with and to be able to make people more considerate of their actions towards others. There is a great deal of emotional value that comes with this play. When this play was written back in 1982, South Africa was still dealing with apartheid which is similar to the United States' time of segregation. In fact, the emotional value of this play was so enormous that it was actually banned in South Africa at the time. The plot is heavy because it takes Hally's childhood innocence and turns him towards a poisness bigotry, just like what most of the adult society did during that time. The real turning point is when Hally finds out about his father returning home from the hospital. In the beginning of the play, Sam and Willie talked about ballroom dancing. They could relate to readers of the play who also dance because they might understand the pressures of dancing and

the amount of skill that goes into it. However, no matter what the pressures of dance may be, it is never acceptable for a man to hit a woman. Fugard might have showed this side of Willie because domestic relationships were very

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