Askari: A Story of Collaboration and Betrayal in the Anti-Apartheid Struggle Literary Elements

Non fictional book

The action described in the book takes place from the 1940s till the end of the 1990s in South Africa.

The action is told from the perspective of a third-person objective point of view.

The tone and mood in the book are neutral.

The protagonists are the members of the apartheid and the antagonists are the members of the predominantly white government.

The major conflict is a racial one and is between the black native population living in South Africa and between the white people who controlled the government.

The story reaches its climax when the black population in South Africa was granted the right to vote.

The narrator begins the book by talking about the ways in which the colonizers mistreated the black population when they first reached South Africa. This is also used to foreshadow the description of the way in which the white government treated the black population in the 20th century.

When the narrator quotes the white political leaders as saying that they have the best interest of the African population at heart is an understatement because their actions proved the opposite.

One of the main allusions we find here is the idea that the reason why the black population did not gain control sooner in South Africa was that there was a large part of the black population that was ready to betray its own just to acquire more money or substantial financial gain.

One of the most important images appears at the beginning of the story when the narrator describes the African land before the colonizers arrived and took control. This image shows just how much the civilized world had a negative effect on the natural habitat and how the damage they had done is irreversible.

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A parallel is drawn between the way in which the black population was treated in America during the Jim Crow period and the way in which the black population was treated in South Africa. This parallelism is an important one and has the purpose of transmitting the idea that racism is an innate characteristic that can be found in all societies, no matter their educational level or their financial status.

Money is used in the book as a general term through which the narrator makes reference to the idea of power.

We have a personification in the line "and the ground wept for the fallen ones.