55 pages • 1 hour read
Mark MathabaneKaffir Boy
Nonfiction | Autobiography / Memoir | Adult | Published in 1986A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Themes
The Horror of Apartheid
The horror of living under apartheid as a black person is apparent from the first chapter in Mathabane’s book, in which he describes his mother fleeing in terror from the Peri-Urban police and the police harassing him as a young boy. He and his family live in complete terror of the police, and they are also not permitted to live a life of decency or fairness. What they can do is limited by the rules of white Africa, and the author, incredulous, asks his mother at a young age why blacks have to listen to white rules. From an early age, he senses the unfairness and arbitrary nature of living under the white rules.
He documents how apartheid drives blacks to make choices such as living as prostitutes, as some young boys do in Alexandra. He also shows the way living under this system wears down his father, who increasingly turns to gambling and drinking, as do others around him. His father is almost a ghost by the time his son leaves for America—a gaunt figure angered and weakened by living as a black man under apartheid.
Tribal Tradition Versus Western Ideas
Mathabane’s father, Jackson, is under the sway of tribal ideas. Raised in a tribal reserve, he desperately clings to the idea that whites will be forced out of South Africa and that blacks will again reign supreme in their own land. When he is suffering bad luck, he visits a witch doctor in the hopes that it will exorcise his demons.
The author’s mother, on the other hand, is under the sway of Christianity and baptizes her children in the hopes that the Christian God will help her and her children lead better lives. The author sees the war between traditional and modern ways, and he comes to doubt the tribal ways of his father, leading to increased tension between them. The author doesn’t, however, endorse his mother’s belief in Christianity, as it believes the whites use religion to control blacks.
The Power of Education
The author is at first dubious about the need for an education, as many of the children of his age do not attend school and seem to live unfettered lives, begging and hunting in the dumps and going to the movies in the afternoon. The author’s mother continually urges him to continue his schooling, however, as she believes it is the only way her family will escape from poverty. She and her husband were never taught to read or write, so their opportunities are very limited. His father, on the other hand, derides Western education as useless, as he believes the white man will not allow educated blacks to get ahead.
Once the author begins to read, an entirely new world opens up to him. He begins to lose interest in fighting, and his former gang tries to get him involved in fighting again. When another boy’s eye is gouged out in the fight, the author entirely loses interest in fighting, and his life turns to schoolwork and tennis. It is his education that allows him to earn the passport to a better life in America.
