AFRICAN DRAMA Athol Fugard: Sizwe Bansi is Dead
Comment on the theme of the search for identity in the play.
Explanation
Comment on the theme of the search for identity in the play.
central to the play is the theme of the search for identity. The cruel system of apartheid pitched against the black man has not only destroyed him psychologically, it has succeeded in eroding the fundamental aspects of his personality that go to make up his identity – self-respect, pride, dignity, status, etc.
Most of the characters in the play are caught up in the complex web of character denigration to the point where they have accepted it as a way of life or at most look for corrupt ways around their predicament. Zola houses Sizwe illegally and when caught in one of the police raids is forced to go and live with Buntu. Buntu is compelled by economic exigencies to father only one child who does not even live with them because his wife works as a live-in maid and only mimes over for weekends. Outa Jacob’s sad story of labour, rejection and death adds to the tale of woe for the Blackman, and Sizwe Bansi’s coming over to Port Elizabeth is also fated to go through similar, if not worse, experiences, even after the corrupt acquisition of Robert’s passbook. If Styles is redeemed by his singular act of setting up his own office in order to regain his self-respect, Zola, Buntu, Sizwe and others are doomed to follow the path of Outa Jacob.
The encounter of Sizwe and Buntu with the dead body of Robert Zwelinzima highlights the theme of the search for identity. The crucial point here is that the passbook has been used as a tool of denying the Blackman of an identity. The Blackman is no longer a living being with a personality and an identity, he is a piece of information kept in a computer. So the death of Robert Zwelinzima and the resurrection of Sizwe in his stead symbolizes the death of the identity of every Blackman in South Africa and their concomitant existences as ghosts. Buntu tells Sizwe: When his little child calls you ‘Boy’ You a man circumcised with a wife and four children Isn’t that a ghost? …. Be a real ghost” the point here is that a man’s identity encompasses his dignity, self-respect and pride which if he is bereft of, he :eases to exist. Sizwe’s confusion in asking Buntu “I’m all mixed up. Who am I?” is quite significant in bringing out the identity crisis that faces every South African. Style’s photographic studio is very important in restoring the denigrated image or identity of the black man. Quite significantly, it is the Blackman’s picture which is used to represent his identity in his passbook; therefore, the pictures Styles takes of the Blackman are a complementary effort to rebuild the image of the Blackman and place him in the ght perspective in the history of South Africa. Styles himself tells us: This world and its laws allows us nothing, except ourselves. There is nothing we can leave behind when we die except ale memory of ourselves” there is certainly a distinction between the way the Blackman wants to be regarded and the way he is perceived by the white man. It is this, more than anything else, that forms the basis of the identity crisis in the play.