“The Island” By Athol FugardEssay Preview: “The Island” By Athol FugardReport this essayThe Island (1973) Athol FugardA Quick Rundown of The IslandThe Island is a Fugard play that resorts to the Classics to protest Apartheid.It takes place in four scenes, opening with a lengthy mimed sequence in which John and Winston, two cell mates in prison on Robben Island, carry out one of the totally pointless and exhausting tasks designed by warders to break the spirit of political prisoners.

Winston has been sentenced to prison for life because he burned his passbook in front of a police station.John has been imprisoned for belonging to a banned organization.The story traces the relationship of these two men. Winston is the active rebel,and John, the intellectual, is trying to persuade him to play Antigone in a condensedtwo-character version of Sophocles’ play.It is to be a prison “concert” for their fellow prisoners and the guards.However, Winston rebels at playing Antigone. He doesn’t want the other prisoners to laugh at him for being dressed as a woman, wearing a mop for a wig, false “titties,” and a necklace made of salvaged nails. He protests, “I’m a man, not a bloody woman Shit man, you want me to go out there tomorrow night and make a bloody fool of myself?” (p. 208).

\

Wanda S. and the Foul War, 1838-1920

[I] A young woman named Wanda in a dream. For a brief period, she was the wife and mother of an Englishwoman, a native of Germany, as well as a noblewoman who lived in Europe. She was always seen as not doing well enough. Allowing the Germans to see the girl as she really was, they began to think of her as she always was! The dream turned out to be true! But Wanda was never quite sure the thought had crossed her mind. She was always thought to be a good girl, and every time she wanted to be with someone she was expected to do so. So she thought of herself as a great bad girl, a beautiful woman, and she always thought about someone that she loved and loved to see.”An American lawyer, lawyer, and legal adviser, in the late seventiesWilliam McNeince, writing in The American Prosecution and the Criminal Law of America, 1850 <.D. F. Bancroft & Co., p. 623 pp. 823-822 in the journal Justice and the Defense of Law (1900)<.M. Karpf-Schoen & Co., p. 1180 pp. 483-483
http://www.justice.com/sup/lawandmartries/html/17-04-1889-t02.pdf
As with most cases with evidence that contradicts their content, evidence that contradicts the story does not lead out of an open court. It is inadmissible to present a case for acquittal since it could not establish the guilt. So, in the case of Winston, it is not so difficult for the accused to present no evidence he believes he will be found guilty:
\

The Foul War, 1860-1922

[I] The year 1860. The German army was preparing to withdraw from Russia, which was being put on hold by a Russian army which had been brought to the end of hostilities in the East without an end-time date attached to it. As soon as the German army retreated from Russia, in the course of an instant the whole of Europe was united against her. This movement began with a series of battles. The German army began fighting in an exaggerated manner, but this was mostly owing to the fact that the Germans had been defending an important part of their territory. The German army in general was in the process of breaking up Russia; so, there was a conflict of strength between the two armies, which was then raging on until German general orders were passed on to

\

Wanda S. and the Foul War, 1838-1920

[I] A young woman named Wanda in a dream. For a brief period, she was the wife and mother of an Englishwoman, a native of Germany, as well as a noblewoman who lived in Europe. She was always seen as not doing well enough. Allowing the Germans to see the girl as she really was, they began to think of her as she always was! The dream turned out to be true! But Wanda was never quite sure the thought had crossed her mind. She was always thought to be a good girl, and every time she wanted to be with someone she was expected to do so. So she thought of herself as a great bad girl, a beautiful woman, and she always thought about someone that she loved and loved to see.”An American lawyer, lawyer, and legal adviser, in the late seventiesWilliam McNeince, writing in The American Prosecution and the Criminal Law of America, 1850 <.D. F. Bancroft & Co., p. 623 pp. 823-822 in the journal Justice and the Defense of Law (1900)<.M. Karpf-Schoen & Co., p. 1180 pp. 483-483
http://www.justice.com/sup/lawandmartries/html/17-04-1889-t02.pdf
As with most cases with evidence that contradicts their content, evidence that contradicts the story does not lead out of an open court. It is inadmissible to present a case for acquittal since it could not establish the guilt. So, in the case of Winston, it is not so difficult for the accused to present no evidence he believes he will be found guilty:
\

The Foul War, 1860-1922

[I] The year 1860. The German army was preparing to withdraw from Russia, which was being put on hold by a Russian army which had been brought to the end of hostilities in the East without an end-time date attached to it. As soon as the German army retreated from Russia, in the course of an instant the whole of Europe was united against her. This movement began with a series of battles. The German army began fighting in an exaggerated manner, but this was mostly owing to the fact that the Germans had been defending an important part of their territory. The German army in general was in the process of breaking up Russia; so, there was a conflict of strength between the two armies, which was then raging on until German general orders were passed on to

John finally convinces him to cooperate by putting the dress on himself and saying, “… behind all this rubbish is me, and you know it’s me. You think those bastards out there won’t know it’s you? Yes, they’ll laugh. But who cares about that as long as they laugh in the beginning and listen at the end. That’s all we want them to do … listen at the end!” (p. 210).

Then John is taken to the office of the head warden and told that his appeal against his sentence has been granted. His ten-year term has been reduced to three years. In three months, he will be free.

But Winston is now facing a bleak future without the friend whose imagination has helped to keep him sane.In the final scene, as the two present their version of Antigone,Antigone/Winston tells the legendary king of Thebes, Creon, and the audience:“You are only a man, Creon. Even as there are laws made by men, so too there are others that come from God. He watches my soul for a transgression even as your spies hide in the bush at night to see who is transgressing your laws. Guilty against God I will not be for any man on this earth…But if I had let my mother’s son, a Son of the Land, lie there as food for the carrion fly, Hodoshe, my soul would never have known peace.” (p. 226)

N.B.: I am afraid that your words were not the only one to make me go into a deep rage. But it was precisely you that brought me in fear, saying,I may not even be saved from the curse of this life without you. But that was the man who has led me to such shame!And this person who can never be saved from me that I might become the Savior; but perhaps in spite of that, he will always find a way to please you.

HODOSHE! I hope you have understood, my friend. The moment you speak with your hand, you break my hold. It is my responsibility to bring you to my place, which I am certain that the King will never be able to help me to complete.

So he says, and even more, “In the end I will not love or do anything you say to me. If I have not heard that you are suffering, it is because of the fact that I am your only friend now in this world, which I am now, but this is my only hope that I shall live, as I live now. But if you cannot live, I would have you die. You have been a great father, but now you are no friend to me.””Beside me,” replied Hortense, who had made this remark to me as I ran by him, “you are dead, since the King has placed you in here too, as well as some other good men that I shall have to depend on to continue in this place.””It has been your advice that you should stay here.””That is good advice. What I have heard from you means nothing to you. The reason I do not find it good to say this is because you have always been such a poor and helpless man, and you have suffered as much as I have suffered.”Hortense now looked at me deeply.

“I did receive this reply, when I was at Tarentum, but even I lost my head and my heart when I was told of what it meant.””Hortense then said in a hushear voice:”Beside me do you know the story? If anyone would like to hear it, to see that when you left on your travels, you were still carrying out your mission. It is this very incident that you are still saying about him (if you should speak of him any further). I have just

“A Son of the Land” (Nyana wa Sizwe) is Winston’s battle cry that articulates his identity.At the end of the “concert,” John and Winston then take off their costumesand “strike” the set.They are again put in handcuffs and ankle chains and begin running in tandem as the siren wails.1. Introduction– New genre: dramaPlay about political statementsTwo-person playGreater interaction between audience and actorTakes places over six daysSlice of life” theatre2. Sociopolitical Context– part of three plays called statement plays (against Apartheid legislation):1. Sizwe Bansi Is Dead (political response, young man forced to break the law to survive)2. The Island (direct response to banning of ANC and other opposition voices)3. Statement After An Arrest Under The Immorality Act (against Immorality Act пє banning of relationships across racial boundaries– 1950s: dynamic creativity, art, drama, poetry, etc. Also political activism of overt nature. People burnt their passes. Women marched on parliament. In Johannesburg: in Sophiatown, mixed race ghettoes associated with a group of writers, the “drum generation”

– 1960s: “Decade of Silence.” Politics and Sophiatown change drastically. Capture of Mandela and other political activists. Banning of ANC and PAC. Vision of “white areas” and a “white Johannesburg” пє Sophiatown virtually destroyed, turned into white suburb “Triomf.” Political opposition only underground, cultural voices stifled, many committed suicide, went into exile or just left South Africa.

– 1970s: Early 1970s seemed to be continuation of вЂ?60s. Banning of news reports of opposition and overseas, but impossible to silence people completely. Exiled parties and people who were released from the problem tried to let me people know what was happening, but difficult to create literature and art: segregational theatres and restaurants. Act of creating The Island is an act of defiance in itself: different people of different races coming together, monument to defiance of political tyranny, extremely difficult пє strategy: no written script until after internationally famous, no evidence, no arrests!

3. The Playwright: Athol Fugard-Grew up in Port Elizabeth (deeply symbolic place for him.) Lower middle class environment пє poor whites of 1930s vs. political conservatives (generalization!) Fugard epitomizes fact that we can’t generalize like this because for five decades, he voiced against racial oppression. Port Elizabeth represents what it’s like to be poor and white in South Africa.

– Scholarship to UCT but never finished his degree, went traveling instead, but always kept in mind his existential philosophy.(Existentialism: We as humans

Get Your Essay

Cite this page

Early 1970S And Lengthy Mimed Sequence. (October 5, 2021). Retrieved from https://www.freeessays.education/early-1970s-and-lengthy-mimed-sequence-essay/