Tsotsi Day 1

Review vocabulary.

Important info from the intro:
South Africa
1. 1913 Land Act appropriated 77% of the country for white use
2. 1948: white voters elected the Afrikaner Nationalist Party, which employed apartheid practices.
3. Apartheid (pic 1, 2, 3, 4, 5) restricted the movement, work, rights of the black majority. Apartheid lasted until 1991 when Nelson Mandela was elected president of the ANC: African National Congress.

Fugard/Tsotsi
1. Theme central to his work: "the struggle of people trapped in bonds of family, love or dependency, oppressed by systems to which they lack the keys of analysis or insight."
2. Idea central to his work: "The effect of its (apartheid) regime of humiliation, he suggested, was to abort hope and drive the persecuted to turn on those lower down the survival chain."
3. Where identity comes in: ... yet Tsotsi knows nothing of himself, not name nor age nor origins. Shorn of history, he has no identity, and when he thinks of himself he thinks of darkness. How does one reach an accommodation with such an entity? Initially Fugard implies that it cannot be done; his character appears to have no point of human access, like the malevolent system that created him."

Points for Discussion
1. Compare the descriptive language used to introduce Tsotsi, Boston, Die Aap, and Butcher. How do the descriptions differ? What are we to think of this gang of males? How do these males symbolize pieces of the South African society?
2. Close reading of passage on bottom of p.6 to top of p.7. How does this balance with the descriptions with the males?
3. Gumboot Dhlamini: How does Fugard develop Gumboot's story? Why does Fugard develop his story so completely?