Mathabane's Synthesis Essay

In this quote, Mathabane describes his struggle to find meaning in school during the apartheid through his father's comments about education. Mathabane uses parallel structure to demonstrate the contrast between his father’s view of the value of an educated man and the value of an uneducated man. His father, having grown up in an impoverished tribal reserve, is unable to understand the use of an education to his son’s wellbeing. He uses the word “books” (151), as metonymy to represent education as a whole, equating the apparent uselessness of expensive books and education as a whole, in a world in which survival is the first priority. To demonstrate the unwavering firmness of his father’s belief, Mathabane uses a hyperbolas such as the word “million” (151). Mathabane’s father—uneducated like the majority of black South Africans—is unable to see a clear
He describes his life as a black person living in apartheid South Africa as “black-life,” (167), showing that he is unaware that black people elsewhere don’t live under the same extreme oppression as he does. Mathabane sees violence, pain, and suffering, as an inevitable consequence to being born as a black person. Furthermore, Mathabane also uses childish words such as “grown-ups” to remind the reader that although his ideas are mature, he is only a child. Mathabane's message in this quote is to impress upon readers that children were forced to suffer the same psychological effects under the apartheid system as adults. To stay alive, children had to let go of their childhood quickly, and mature as they learned harsh survival lessons. Mathebane shows the reader how the apartheid’s psychological effect on children changes them, as the constant fear and suffering forces them to grow up faster mentally than they do