32 Athol Fugard, Blood Knot

Prof. Ipshita Chanda

1. Introduction
   • Author- personal details
   • His Work
   • Features of his Work
   • Background to the play
2. The Play in Brief
   • Summary
   • Plot
3. Themes and Issues in the play
   • Race
   • Identity
   • Poverty
   • Capitalism
   • Symbiosis of Brotherhood
4. Important Aspects of the Play
   • Play on the word ‘pass’
   • Symbolism of colour
   • Language
   • Setting
   • Playing games
   • Alarm clock as a prop
   • The motif of control
   • Religion
5. Conclusion- Fugard and Bertolt Brtecht

INTRODUCTION 

I. 1. About the Author

Athol Fugard born in 1932 is a South African playwright, novelist, actor, and director. He currently lives in America. His parentage is mixed: while his mother is an Afrikaner, his father is of Irish, English and French descent. They lived in Port Elizabeth. Though Fugard enrolled himself at the University of Cape Town to study Philosophy and Social Anthropology he dropped out in 1953. He went to North Africa and spent two years working in East Asia on a steamer ship. After marriage to Sheila Meiring, they moved to Johannesburg in 1958, where he worked as a clerk in a Native Commissioners’ Court which sensitised him to the injustices of apartheid.

Afrikaners are a Southern African ethnic group descended from predominantly Dutch settlers first arriving in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries and they have traditionally dominated South Africa’s politics and agriculture.

Fugard supported the Anti-Apartheid Movement (1959–94) that led to government imposing restrictions on his work, life and movements. Fugard received many awards, honours, and honorary degrees from the government of South Africa, and he is also an Honorary Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature.

Harold Athol Lanigan Fugard is a South African playwright, novelist, actor, and director who writes in English and currently lives in the USA. 

I. 2. Fugard’s Work:

Fugard began his career by organising a multiracial theatre in which he played multiple roles—as writer, director, actor and producer of several plays. Along with black South African actor Zakes Mokae, Fugard performed many plays. Later, influenced by Bertolt Brecht’s production of The Caucasian Chalk Circle, Athol and Sheila Fugard started ‘The Circle Players’. Later he formed the ‘Serpent Players’ in 1960 with all black actors. A theatre complex named after him ‘The Fugard Theatre’ opened in Cape Town in 2011.

As his plays often opposed apartheid, he came into conflict with the government and was forced to stage his plays outside South Africa. Blood Knot (1961) was initially banned in South Africa. His passport was also confiscated. The restrictions were relaxed to some extent in 1971.

Fugard who dropped out of a university was eventually awarded honorary degrees by seven universities!

Fugard plays are often political in nature. Plays like Blood Knot (1961), Sizwe Bansi is Dead (1972), Master Harold … and the Boys (1982) deal with themes such as hatred, violation of the human rights under apartheid, influx control laws that control all black peoples’ lives, and the ‘Immorality Act’ which prohibits miscegenation. The Island (1972) that focuses on two cell mates is inspired by Robben Island on which Nelson Mandela was imprisoned for twenty seven years.

His introspective and psycho-mythological plays include Dimetos (1975) which takes us into a land of allegory, and, The Road to Mecca (1984) in which Miss Helen after the death of her husband creates her own “Mecca”.

His plays, such as Valley Song (1996), The Captain’s Tiger: a Memoir for the Stage (1997), and, Victory (2007) are considered post-apartheid plays which focus on personal issues. Many of his plays are produced internationally and several of them are made into films.

Fugard acted in films such as Tsotsi, The Killing Fields, Gandhi! 

I. 3 Distinctive features of his work

Athol Fugard’s plays though they originate in a particular locale and background, have a wider appeal to audiences around the world.

A unique feature of his drama is the number and the choice of characters in his plays. His plays deal with two or three characters bound together by blood, friendship or love and struggling to find a solution in a bleak situation.

His plays often dramatize the frustrations in the lives of the characters which resonate with the audience who are forced to analyse the situation of the characters in a Brechtian fashion which draws them into the action.

Some of Fugard’s plays take a real life story as a starting point or have an autobiographical element as in The Captain’s Tiger: A Memoir for the Stage (1997) and Master Harold…and the Boys (1982) and Blood Knot and A Lesson from Aloes (1978) .

1.4 Background to Blood Knot

The play should be read against the system of apartheid and racial segregation in South Africa. Even after Independence in 1948, the all-white government continued to enforce the system of segregation called apartheid. The majority of South Africans, who were non- whites, were forced to live in areas separate from the whites and use separate public facilities, and contact between the two groups was limited.“Pass laws” required non-whites to carry documents authorizing their presence in restricted areas. Worse still, various Land Acts set aside more than 80 percent of the country’s land for the white minority.

Additionally, The Population Registration Act of 1950 classified all South Africans by race as Bantu (black Africans), Coloured (mixed race), and white. Later a fourth category, Asian (Indian and Pakistani) was added. In some cases, the legislation split families with parents classified as white, while their children were classified as coloured. Or as we find in the play, the two brothers fall into different categories despite their blood knot. It speaks of a tangled relationship and the traumas of the two brothers.

2 Blood Knot—the play in brief

SummaryThe play centres around two half-brothers—born to one woman but to different fathers. Morris is light skinned while Zacharias is dark skinned. While Morris is educated and has dreams for a better future, Zachariah the illiterate brother has no dreams. Zachariah works as a gatekeeper at a park. His job is to prevent the black people from entering the park. He comes back every evening with foot sores from standing for long hours.

Apparently Morris has joined Zachariah in his one-room shack a year ago and he is content to keep the house, cook the meals, prepare hot water for Zach and also save money for their future—to buy a small farm for themselves and live on their own.

The ‘pass laws’ made it mandatory for the blacks to carry ‘pass books’ containing details of their employment history and rights of residence. 

Plot:

The plot begins to thicken with Morris’ attempts to infuse some enthusiasm into his brother Zach who shares no interest in the future envisaged by Morris. Zach yearns for his former times of fun and pleasure and the women he enjoyed. Morris suggests that he could have a woman pen pal. Together they go through the newspaper and as Morris reads out for Zachariah, out of the three classifieds, they decide to write to Ethel Lange who turns out to be white woman.

During their correspondence she expresses her wish meet Zachariah on her visit to Port Elizabeth. They realize they are playing with fire and are excited by the crime of it all. Zach persuades Morris to pass off as a white man and spends all his savings in buying a suit, hat, shoes, socks, umbrella for him and even a handkerchief for Ethel. Morris is actually torn between his skin colour and his blood ties. He knows he cannot do it and even contemplates leaving the shack. But the crisis is resolved when Ethel writes in her next letter that since she was engaged to be married and her fiancé disapproves of pen-pals, she would not like to continue their pen-friendship. And the two return to their original state of penury and an impasse in their personal and socio-economic status because of apartheid.

Believe it or not! In the late 1970s, the daily average prison population was  almost 100,000, one of the highest rates in the world. Of these, the majority were imprisoned for statutory offenses against the so-called pass laws.

3   Themes in the play

Race

Athol Fugard wrote this play as a protest against the injustices of apartheid and racism. When it was first performed in 1961, the South African authorities not only banned it but passed censorship laws that prohibited racially mixed casts or even audiences in theatres in South Africa. The South African authorities also passed the ‘Immorality Act’ that prohibits miscegenation or inter-racial marriages.

Therefore, Morris in the play is aghast when he comes to know that Ethel is a white woman. Her brother Cornelius being in police spells more danger. It could mean that they could be punished without a trial and without being indicted. Morris, therefore, wants to burn the letters between Zach and Ethel. But, Zach is thrilled by the act of defiance against the oppressive regime of apartheid by continuing to write the letters.

Though Zachariah on account of his sore feet requests that he be sent to his previous job at the Park as he suffers from calluses, his request is rudely turned down. His overseer simply tells him: “Go to the gate or go to hell” (56). Both the brothers are saddened by the ‘insult’ ‘injury’ and ‘inhumanity’ they have to face in their lives. While Zach thinks that Morris is spared from it all, Morris reminds him of his plight which is worse. Morris is trapped as black man in light skin. His identity is at stake as he is torn between his colour and his race.

Fugard won his first international success with Blood Knot.

Identity

Morris being a black man in white skin speaks of a double-ness of racial identity. Morris can actually pass off as a white man. Morris apparently left Zachariah to find a better life for himself as a white skinned person. But he comes back as he was torn between his skin colour and his blood ties. In scene five, Zachariah splurges all his money on purchasing a suit and other accessories so that Morris can meet Ethel Lange as a white man (as Zacharia). The moment he wears the clothes, the distinction between their rehearsal and reality gets blurred and Zach looks at Morris as a ‘different sort of man’, a white man.

Zach realises that Morris can take advantage of his situation and pass off as a white man. However, Morris puts on the clothes but tells Zach that whiteness is neither constituted in the clothes nor in the skin. It is ‘that white something inside’ them that gives a ‘special meaning and manner of whiteness’. That is why he knew that he could never really be a white man or a so-called gentleman while he can pass off as one. So there is a tension of this double consciousness in Morris as the black man with a light skin.

PovertyThe playwright highlights the pitiable conditions of the blacks by portraying their surroundings and their homes. As a labourer, Zachariah lives in a one-room shack of cardboard and corrugated steel in a town outside Port Elizabeth. They live amidst industrial pollution. The fact that neither Morris nor Zachariah owns a suit testifies to their penury.

When Ethel writes to Zach, she hopes that he has a car and they can go for a ride. Morris hopes to extricate themselves from this grinding poverty and slavery and dreams of having a farm of their own. Unfortunately, at the end of the play, having spent all their savings on clothes and other things, they are left in a worse condition of having nothing but each other.

The play was televised in 1967 in UK and USA by the BBC.   

Capitalism

Zachariah comes home every evening with sore feet and Morris keeps warm water with foot salts ready. In the very first scene, Zach expresses his displeasure with the old brand of salt used which only smelt good without being as efficient as the new one which is more economical. When Morris makes him see reason for choosing the new brand, Zach says:

So he’s making more profit on the old stuff…But that’s what you been buying, man! Ja – and with my money, remember! So it happens to be my profit he’s making. Isn’t that so? … Hey. I see it now. I do the bloody work—all day long—in the hot sun. Not him. It’s my stinking feet that got all the hardness. But he goes and makes my profit.

Symbiosis of brotherhoodRight from the beginning of the play we find Morris to be bound to his brother. The fact that blood is thicker than water is exemplified in their manifestations of love, care and concern for each other. In addition to preparing food, Morris scrubs the floor, keeps the water ready for Zach and keeps vigil for Zach’s return every day.

In one of their moments of frustration, at the end of Scene Five, Zachariah realises that Morris can actually pass himself off as a white man. Though he appears torn between the natural impulse to exploit his skin colour, Morris is unable to break his blood knot. He says: “Anywhere, any place or road, there was always you, Zach. So I came back” (107). It is the blood knot with Zach that compels Morris to return.

Morris puts up with all the temper tantrums and mood swings of Zach. As a typical uneducated black man, Zach seems content with his day-to-day existence and has no dreams. But Morris helps his brother come out of his yearning for drinks and women. In an angry outburst, Zach gets violent in Scene One and hurls off his slice of bread and pushes away his plate, pounds his fists on the table. However, it is poignant to watch Morris put his own plate of food in front of Zach and clean the floor and make himself sandwiches.

It is endearing to see Morris sewing Zach’s coat, looking out for his arrival, and worrying about his working conditions and sore feet. Similarly, in the exchange between the brothers about who should wear the new clothes and meet Ethel, and by spending all his savings to buy clothes for Morris, Zach demonstrates his love for Morris. In their deepest disappointments, the brothers console each other by playing games.

Fugard started working in the late 1950´s with a group of actors in Johannesburg, including Zakes Mokae, who were influenced by Strasburg’s method acting which was different from Bertolt Brecht. Fugard was influenced by Brechtain theatre called –‘Epic theatre’. 

5   Critical analysis of the play

Play on the word ‘pass’

As mentioned earlier, according to the ‘pass laws’ of the apartheid regime in South Africa, it was mandatory for all non-white people to carry ‘passes’ all the time. In Blood Knot, Fugard constantly plays on the word ‘pass’ to suggest a variety of things. The notion of a black man with a light skin ‘passing himself off’ as a white man becomes a possibility and almost a reality when Zach forces Morris into a suit and asks him to imagine himself as a white man meeting a white woman, Ethel. Morris ‘passes’ the test as he really gets into the role and even uses the abusive language used by the whites for a black man. However, Morris knows that being white is not a matter of clothes or skin colour but something essentially intrinsic and therefore rejects ‘passing himself off’.

Even though Zach is a black man, the nature of his job as a gatekeeper in the park forces him to perpetuate racial discrimination. His duty is to stop black people from passing through the gate. As such, he really cannot allow Morris to pass off as a white man and becomes violent when Morris uses the abusive term for Zach. Ironically, they play this game of Morris as white man at the park where Zach works and lose their grip on reality.

Morris himself knows the hollowness, the sense of guilt and betrayal that he experienced when he tried to pass off a white man. Therefore, he decides not to bypass Zach and decides to live in a non-white slum with Zach.

5.2. Symbolism of ColourThe motif of colour works at two levels. It is both a binding and a separating factor. At the end of scene one, Morris though light skinned, puts on Zachariah’s coat and says “…you get right inside a man when you can wrap up in the smell of him” (67). It is a symbolic acceptance of his brother’s dark skin. Morris, bound by the blood can get inside a black man, by wearing Zach’s coat. But he cannot get inside a white man though he wears a suit, shoes and is almost is close to a white man in appearance. The colour of the skin is also a dividing line. It makes it impossible for them to have a relationship with Ethel.

Language

Fugard occasionally uses Afrikaans—the language of the coloniser to convey the sense of oppression and racism. Both the brothers use the term Ja (‘yes’) frequently and particularly the abusive term ‘swartgart’ (‘black-arse’).

The settingThe entire play is set in a one-room shack in Korsten, a poor non-white slum in Port Elizabeth. The pitiable conditions and the squalor of the black brothers is evident in the walls which area patchwork of scraps of corrugated iron, packing-case wood, flattened cardboard boxes, and old hessian bags. The two beds, a table, two chairs and a cupboard with a few pots, oil-stove bear witness to their poverty.

Playing gamesThe brothers often escape the harsh realities by playing imaginary games. They reminisce about the games played in their childhood. Zach goes through the motions of driving a car, racing it and slamming on the brakes. Sometimes, playing games leads to forgetting the difference between imagination and reality. For instance, Zach begins to think that Ethel Lange is just a game. Again, at the end of the play, Zach forces Morris to play the role of a white man and they become violent and abusive towards each other. Zach tells him it was only a game but they were carried away. Their frustrations of life and the injustices of apartheid find a release in the games / role playing.

The alarm clock as a propThe alarm clock, frequently set at regular intervals by Morris regulates his daily chores. In addition to alerting him to the arrival of Zach, keeping hot water ready, and preparing meals, the alarm clock serves the important function of breaking the tension in some of their violent moods, or, brings them to back reality when are lost in game-playing or nostalgia.

Motif of controlThroughout the play we can sense the underlying sense of control that the system of apartheid wields over the black South Africans. They are mostly poor, uneducated and exploited without any means to improve their lot. The sense of oppressions looms large over them with laws against prohibiting miscegenation. The ‘institutional control’ exercised by the police,  the army and the economy is evident when the brothers live in abject poverty and constant fear of being overheard by someone. Often employed in industries or in menial jobs, they dream of a freedom and a farm of their own. They know the futility of dreaming about racial equality hence their dreams are exclusive to themselves.

5.7 Religion

When Morris tells Zach that he could not be a Judas, it equates Zach to Christ. The characters take turns to read the Bible and pray which sometimes evokes humour. But it is interesting to look at the Lord’s Prayer recited by Morris at the end of the play. Zach takes control in the game playing, Morris goes down on his knees and we find a different version from the Biblical prayer. Morris says: “Our Father, which art in heaven, because we never knew the other one…My sins are not that black… Yours is the power and the glory, ours is the fear and the judgement of eyes behind our back for the sins of our birth…” (122). There is a subtle sarcasm and indictment against God who is responsible for the difference in skin colour and also at all the injustices in the world.

6  Conclusion

The play Blood Knot assumes great significance as it cast a white and a black actor as brothers on stage which was quite revolutionary for its time. The act of watching them struggle together as a result of their blood ties and honouring family bonds without inflicting violence on each other made the play both an artistic and a political success.

Though the criticism against apartheid is subtle, influenced by the Bertolt Brecht’s ‘epic theatre’, Athol Fugard is successful in provoking the audience to introspect over the action witnessed on stage. Instead of an emotional identification that might only lead to a cathartic effect, Fugard, has been indeed successful in forcing his audience to develop a critical perspective on the injustices and work towards bringing in a change in the real world.