Boesman and lena play summary. Boesman and Lena Study Guide 2022-10-18
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Boesman and Lena is a play written by Athol Fugard in 1969. It is set in South Africa during the time of apartheid, and tells the story of a mixed-race couple, Boesman and Lena, as they struggle to survive in a world that treats them with contempt and discrimination.
The play begins with Boesman and Lena arriving at a mudflats in the middle of nowhere, having been forcibly removed from their home by the government. They are forced to live in a makeshift shelter made of cardboard and old blankets, and are constantly on the move, searching for food and shelter.
Despite their difficult circumstances, Boesman and Lena try to maintain their dignity and hold on to their love for each other. However, their relationship is strained by the constant hardship and discrimination they face. Boesman is bitter and angry, and takes out his frustration on Lena, often lashing out at her and making her feel worthless. Lena, on the other hand, is more forgiving and tries to find ways to keep their relationship strong despite the challenges they face.
As the play progresses, Boesman and Lena are joined by a third character, a young black man named Outa, who has also been displaced by the government. Outa represents the hope and potential of the future, and his presence helps Boesman and Lena see their own lives in a different light.
Despite the bleak setting and themes of the play, Boesman and Lena ultimately find hope and redemption in each other. Their love for each other helps them to survive and endure the hardships they face, and gives them the strength to keep going even when things seem impossible.
In conclusion, Boesman and Lena is a powerful and poignant play that tackles difficult themes such as apartheid, displacement, and the struggles of mixed-race relationships. It is a story of resilience, hope, and the enduring power of love.
Boesman and Lena Summary
Boesman forces her to make a choice—wine, a warm bed, and a bit of a roof over her head, or sobriety and a muttering old stranger outside in the chilly night air. Although the play does identify many universal themes, such as the destitution of homeless people, I feel the play is uniquely South African, as the circumstances for the poverty and homelessness is different. A few moments later, his woman Lena, who is also colored, enters. But, it does demonstrate how Boesman no longer feels the need to manipulate her, potentially signifying an end to the ongoing power struggle between them. She decides to go to the city and there she goes to school.
Seemingly, they have spent many of those years together looking out for one another, while at the same time taking out their anger and frustration on each other. Latest answer posted April 27, 2010, 6:24 am UTC 1 educator answer For his part, Boesman claims to want merely some peace and quiet while he again tries to build a life and a living for them. In 1935, his family moved to Port Elizabeth, South Africa. With all of the world seemingly stretched out before him, he still picked up an old piece of scrap metal and built another pondok on the banks of the Swartkops, just like he had done many times before. Lena is taken aback and sits beside the old man.
Disgusted, Boesman stalks off into the darkness to forage for wood and scraps, leaving Lena alone with her new companion. She learns that even if you move to a place with a higher population, you can still be alone. Fugard has presented a play on the plight of non-whites in Apartheid South Africa, and I feel that due to certain circumstances, such as the forced removals, the play is uniquely South African. This is one of the first instances in which Lena starts to deliberately take control of the power dynamic between them. Lena starts to laugh, and passes him everything she can find. They encounter an old black man, briefly take him in, then push onward when he unexpectedly dies in their squalid camp. Boesman then leaves to find more materials to build the pondok.
Retrieved 10 May 2020. She was overcome and cried with gratitude. With all of his newfound freedom, however, Boesman could still only return to the familiar and the mundane. Lena is livid, and asks the old man if he heard what Boesman said. This small scene is representative of how some white Africans are trying to reach out, but still do not understand the existing implications of… A Time to Kill - Argumentative Paper These two men grew up in an old fashioned southern town, a town that was well known for dominance of white males. Lena chooses Outa, partly out of spite and partly because she wants to make a human connection with another human being. The plot of the play, and Boesman's and Lena's relationship, turns in another direction when she spots a man sitting in the darkness across the mudflats.
Putting these towns in order might provide some structure to the chaos of her life. She tells him to go without her, saying goodbye. See eNotes Ad-Free Start your 48-hour free trial to get access to more than 30,000 additional guides and more than 350,000 Homework Help questions answered by our experts. He continued to perform with them through the 1970s and early 1980s. Throughout her rambling monologue, the old man just sits near their small fire and mumbles.
Boesman becomes very afraid, but then Lena suggests that the old man might not be dead. Just as Lena questioned earlier in the play how one would document her life, Boesman here asks the same questions. She asks him if they are going to stop here, and through his silence, she realizes that they are. The play begins with the couple on the move, after being forcefully removed from their home. Fugard was born in South Africa in 1932 to English and Afrikaner parents. Davis creates and positions his characters in ways which are constantly alert and under fire, and opposing the tyrannical white society. He is heavily burdened, carrying all his possessions as well as a piece of iron with which to make a shelter.
His response changes from mockery to accusation to wild defensiveness, and finally he attacks Outa's lifeless body, beating the corpse like he has beaten Lena so many times in the past. But the sense of stagnation hinders them each time, as they both recognize that they could not survive without the other. Boesman then mocks the old man and Lena, while Lena asks him to leave them alone. Even though the world was open, as he describes, he has no actual way of escaping the apartheid system that had caused his oppression in the first place. When Boesman comes back, he demands that Lena join him in the hut. As it turns out, the stranger is simply an old, poor black man who doesn't even speak English or Afrikaans, but mutters in Xhosa, a tribal language of South Africa. This ends Act One.
Lena is disgusted by his actions, and says that no one felt sorry for them. He is so manipulative that he completely altered her sense of reality, making her think that she made a mistake and then beating her for the mistake that he had made instead. He instructs her how to beg properly, getting on the ground and acting like a dog. Boesman and Lena is set during apartheid in South Africa, and racism drove the white ruling class to push homeless "coloureds" like Boesman and Lena as far away from white neighborhoods as possible. Earlier the same day, they were driven out of their old home when a bulldozer came to destroy the itinerant camp where they had built their "pondok" or hut. Knight needed a caregiver due to a broken leg.
He demands that Lena run the old man off so the two of them can share their wine and go to bed together on the filthy old mattress in their lean-to hut. Fugard has written over 30 plays, and in 2011 was awarded a Special Tony Award for Lifetime Achievement in the Theatre. Hoping for a new life and no more standing out, Lena easily gets disappointed. A series of racist legislation established places where members of each group could live and work. Disgusted at the sight, Boesman, who has been unable to find a way to hurt the white men who are his real oppressors, discovers another way to take his frustrations out on Lena. He then spent two years working in East Asia on a steamer ship, where he began writing.
