Racism and Status Theme Analysis

Boesman and Lena are living in apartheid-era South Africa, in which people were classified and segregated based on their race, with white South Africans (mostly of Dutch descent, known as Afrikaners) holding a vast majority of the land and wealth, despite being a very small minority of the population. Apartheid is a prime example of institutionalized racism, with extensive laws supporting the oppression of Coloured people (mixed-race South Africans) and Bantus (black South Africans). Fugard goes to deep lengths to depict the destitution of Coloured and black South Africans, but in Boesman and Lena he also demonstrates why apartheid is so difficult to overthrow. By giving Coloured people a greater status over the Bantus, white South Africans were able to divide the people they oppressed into conflicting groups and thereby maintain rigid and racist social structures. Boesman and Lena is a clear illustration of this: despite the fact that both Coloured people and black people face discrimination, Boesman and Lena, who are Coloured, abuse the old man, who is Xhosa (a group that is classified as Bantu), based solely on the fact that he is black, which gives them relative power over him. The hierarchical racism of apartheid thus essentially maintains itself, as the oppressed turn on those of even lower status.

Apartheid is built on the idea of white supremacy. Even though there are no white characters, the shadow of these characters, and how they abuse Boesman and Lena, infiltrates the narrative. But in each case, Boesman and Lena view their inferiority to the white South Africans as normal, never questioning the political status quo. The imbalance of power between white people and Coloured people provides the impetus for the story. Boesman and Lena are forced out of their pondok at the beginning of the story when a “whiteman” bulldozes the area, forcing them to load all of their things onto their backs and walk to Korsten. But Boesman talks about how the whiteman “did [him] a favor” by pushing over the shanty, demonstrating how his ideas have been corrupted by ideas of white supremacy. There are other references to the injustices that Boesman and Lena suffer at the hands of white South Africans. Lena tells Boesman that she’ll leave him in order to go work for a white woman and take care of her children, telling two white children that had watched her as she counted her bruises after Boesman beat her to “Go ask [their] mother if she wants a girl,” meaning a girl to work in their house. Despite the fact that this is a position of servitude, she views it as an opportunity to escape from Boesman instead. Lena refers to a time in which a boer (farmer) had a gun and chased Boesman and Lena off of his land. Lena remembers this incident fondly, choosing to focus on Boesman’s comic running rather than the terror of the gun. All of these references demonstrate how the given political power of white South Africans has been normalized, to the point where Boesman and Lena don’t even question their social standing.

Boesman and Lena also actively reinforce this power structure. They themselves bear the same racism as their white counterparts when they interact with the old man, because they know they have  political power over him. When the old man wanders into their camp for the first time, Boesman’s first word when he realizes that the man is Xhosa is “kaffer,” a very derogatory racial slur that refers to black South Africans. The dynamic between the two groups is immediately reinforced when the old man is deferent to Lena’s aggressive speech towards him. As Boesman and Lena yell at the old man, he continues to sit at their camp as Lena instructed him, and accepts their abuse. As the night goes on, Boesman and Lena continue to make distinctions between them and the old man. Boesman says, that in contrast to himself and Lena, “He’s not brown people, he’s black people.” Lena calls Xhosa a “baboon language,” calling up a racist stereotype that equates black people with monkeys. Boesman and Lena’s abuse extends past their language. Boesman threatens the old man several times, and when the old man tries to leave while Lena is telling him a story, she “throws herself at him violently” and forces him to sit back down. After the old man passes away peacefully towards the end of the play, Boesman beats his body to be sure that he is dead.

All of these instances serve to demonstrate how Boesman and Lena do not question the existing power structure, despite the fact that it harms them more than it helps them. Instead, they take advantage of what little status they can over the old man because of the stratified social structure implemented by the Afrikaners. Over the course of the night, Lena starts to find more and more humanity in the old man, but the difficulty she has in overcoming her own racial prejudice demonstrates that treating people outside of one’s racial group with civility is far from the norm under the apartheid system. Through these dynamics, Fugard proves why apartheid was so difficult to dismantle: it gave even Coloured people an arbitrary sense of power, so that they would not feel the need to revolt against the exceptionally oppressive and racist system that harmed them.