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Kaffir Boy Essay

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Part I: (A) Alienation Alienation has a big role throughout the Kaffir boy. It is defined as emotional isolation or dissociation from others. Johannes, along with all the young children who battle apartheid each and every day are constantly being put down and are isolated from the rest of the people in south Africa. They are even on some level totally alienated from their parents as well. Johannes had been living proof that it is in fact extremely hard to rise above the life style that has been made for these people. His mother had taken it on as her role to provide for her family many times, due to either his father being in prison or just being to arrogant to realize what was best for his family. On page 77 it tells us how …show more content…

It blinds him from the possibilities of what his future might hold. His fear of starvation ties in with the apartheid. Because the government creates numerous obstacles for the black people to overcome, it makes it so surviving in South Africa almost impossible. The apartheid requires every adult to have a job, if they do not then they will be arrested, yet they make it as difficult as possible for one to keep one in order. Thus making it impossible for his parents to get jobs so they can put food on the table for Mark and his siblings.
.. (D) Apartheid 
 Mark's family, like the black families surrounding them, suffers constantly. They routinely experience extreme hunger, malnutrition, and disease. But it isn't just the hunger and starvation that afflict them. Life under apartheid is designed to make people suffer in other ways: they are dominated by feelings of helplessness, hopelessness, and inferiority. We see how suffering affects individuals when Mark decides to leave the gangster life behind and focus on school. His mother tells him that all young black men growing up in the ghettoes have to make the important choice to be a tsotsi (a gangster) or not to be a tsotsi. Mark has chosen a non-violent path, but we learn that his choice is rare. Other young people chose to respond to their suffering by boycotting the schools, or joining the resistance. Mark's father responds to his suffering by oppressing his family. On the one hand, constant suffering was a

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