My Children! My Africa!

An important irony in My Children! My Africa! is shown when Isabel and Thami fight about the Comrades and how the revolutionary group Thami has joined will limit their ability to be friends. Isabel asks how this group could be said to bring freedom when they themselves are limiting what Thami does. Fugard stresses this irony by having Mr. M enter the scene at the moment that Isabel makes this argument; the teacher asks Thami to answer the question even when Isabel gives up on getting a satisfactory answer. Thami finally answers both of them that there is no comparison between the "discipline" (p.63) enforced by the Comrades and the legal restriction of the freedoms of black people under apartheid, but this does not convince Mr. M that there is not irony in the process.