Similarities Between Things Fall Apart And Master Harold

When those in power create a “single story,” this silencing of other perspectives results in a dangerous ignorance of the true story among those who are exposed only to authority’s narrative. In both Things Fall Apart and Master Harold, characters of European descent are seen to discover facets of Igbo and South African culture of which they have not previously been aware, indicating the limitedness of the narrative to which they subscribe. Hally, having received the aforementioned indoctrination into the prejudiced mentality of apartheid, prominently demonstrates significant and potentially harmful misconceptions about the culture of Africans in South Africa. He sees the dance Sam and Willie practice as nothing more than a “release of primitive …show more content…
By internalizing the notion that Africans are less than human, the Europeans can seemingly rationalize the abuse of those people whom they see as inferior and uncivilized. A common manifestation of this mistreatment is the prison systems implemented by Europeans, which are notable examples of the oppression of Africans in both Things Fall Apart and Master Harold. In Things Fall Apart, not only do the Europeans establish an entirely new system of government without the consent of the governed Igbo, they also construct a prison, where inmates can “[eat] nothing,” are “not even given any water to drink,” cannot so much as “go out to urinate,” and are “taunt[ed]” by the guards, who “knock [the prisoners’] shaven heads together” (Achebe 195). While it is Africans who actually carry out these actions, they have been indoctrinated into the creed of the Europeans that views Africans as “primitive” and therefore sees nothing wrong with treating them much as the Europeans would an animal—such are the effects of the widespread dehumanization of a group of people. These horrific practices are all too similar to those employed by South African police officers in Master Harold, who “make [those in jail] lie down,” “hold [their] ankles…and [their] arms,” and then beat them with a cane (Fugard 15). Even Hally, a seventeen-year-old schoolboy, gives Willie a “vicious whack on the bum” with a ruler merely for being loud, and does so seemingly without a second thought—to beat a grown (African) man is apparently second-nature to him (38). Once again, the link to the “single story” is clear: both Hally and the officials look down on Africans and see them as inferior, and this belief is to them sufficient justification for such treatment. This is also society’s rationalization of the exclusion