Sam – A Beacon of Hope and Reconciliation for Freedom in Fugard's Play Anonymous College

In the play Master Harold and the Boys, Athol Fugard forces his readers to go back in time to the 1950’s when apartheid was predominant in South Africa. Athol Fugard connects the themes of pride, privileges and freedoms (or lack of them), political and institutional segregation. His play is full of narration, flashbacks, dialogue and foreshadowing which all question the true” differences” among privileged whites and others across time and space. Fugard’s points of view allow his readers / spectators not only to cross borders but also social classes, cultures, educations, genders and even religions. Athol Fugard weaves his play with visions of real (apartheid) and unreal worlds (magical perfect ballroom competitions) so that his readers gain insights from both his primary and secondary characters about the different ways they enjoy or struggle for needs and freedoms. The two protagonists, Hally and Sam, are Fugard’s key messengers about the coming of age of Hally, a seventeen year – old white teenager.

Fugard’s chose to contrast Hally, a white middle-class adolescent, whose father is a crippled alcoholic, with Sam, a forty-year-old black man who has worked for Hal’s mother for decades. Their unlikely but mutually beneficial...