BLOOD KNOT- ATHOL FUGARD

BACKGROUND

Harold Athol Lanigan Fugard was born in Middleburg South Africa on 11th June 1932 to an English –
speaking South African father and an Afrikaner mother. He usually referred to himself as an Afrikaner
writing in English. Though light skinned, he felt a sense of originality and liked to share on Afrikanarism.
He went to University of Cape town but dropped out before the exam to hitch like through Africa.
Thereafter he worked as a seaman in the Far East for two years, and made a few trips overseas where he
worked in theatre and Television in England, America and Europe. His active engagement in theatre
came when he met his wife, Sheila Meiring who was an actor in Capetown. Later after moving to
Johannesburg, he got a job as a clerk in a Native Commissioners’ court which handled statutory offences
against blacks who never carried the press book. After all these experiences, Fugard later steeped into
the politics of the day that is apartheid and post-apartheid though it never affected his insights into the
people. In his various writings, Fugard explores the world of secrets with their powerful effects on
human behaviour and the trauma of their revelation. This as well is the dynamos that generate all the
significant action in his plays.

Athol Fugard masterminded a lot of writings other than the Blood Knot, these include “Hello and
Goodbye”, “Boesman and Lana,” “Under the Immorality Act” “No –Good Friday,” “People are Living
there”, and “Nongogo” which altogether share the inspiration from the South African Apartheid
situations. Important to note is Athol Fugard’s sense of brotherhood and blood ties which is evident in,
The Blood Knot. It equally appears in the “Boesman and Lena”, and ”Hello and Goodbye”; the three of
which have been occasionally referred to as a trilogy and sometimes a family which was synonymous
with Greek drama and theatre. He presents the two brothers in the Blood Knot, the child and Parent in
“Hello and Goodbye” and the parent and parent in the “Boesman and Lana” which shows how Fugard
was ardently concerned with Blood ties.

Particularly, The Blood Knot is a comedy which is at times unbearable in its intensity and whose
moments of laughter are just as painful to witness. With its setting in the Apartheid South Africa, Fugard
Satirical and Sarcastic qualities are founded in Korsten, which a non-white stem adjoining one of the
factory areas.

Parochially, he seems to dwell all his work from here but his indispensable craftsmanship allows him to
plough in the unbearable repercussions of Apartheid. In his excellently woven plot, he, through
Zachariah and Morris who are the two main characters, tells us about the whites like Ethel Lange, her
brother who is a policeman, her friend Lucy, Zachariah’s bosses. Above all, he inevitably contains the
theme of how brotherhood, personal care and commitment can overcome the sense of alienation
caused by social or cultural separation. His plot is well apportioned into the six parts of a good plot.
That is the exposition, the inciting incident, the rising action, the climax, the falling action and the
resolution. The play is exposed off when the characters are introduced, described and when the setting
is defined before the first scene. When action starts, Zachariah is entering from work while Morris
prepares for him hot water to soak his feet. So the action rises with the conversation between the two
in which the hot water and the salts incite it. After a lunch of challenges for Morris who tries to woo his
brother into his future plans of a two man farm, he faces amore solid challenge of his brothers’ need for
a woman. The solution provided however, prepares them for the climax when Ethel Lange the pen-pal
to Zachariah gets engaged for marriage when actually the whole savings have been spent on buying a
suit, newspapers which shatters their intended plan and forces them to stay in their room but only
comfort themselves through a game.

Just like, Mandela who is prominently remembered for fighting Apartheid, Athol Fugard devised his won
unique means of fighting the disastrous practice which was effecting the people of South Africa at the
Rehearsal Theatre October 1961, he never gave up the fight. The retrieval of his passport for over 4
years and the arrest of the first cast which was himself and Zakes Makae, the censorship of the play in
South Africa, banning of a mixed audience and cast were the aftermath of the performance. However,
as scholars, we cannot blind ourselves about how significant was this play and the performance to the
lives of the suffering blacks in South Africa. Therefore his concern about fiascos faced by his people is
what is paramount. Moreso, the writing of the Blood is attributed to an inspiration, Fugard got from
visits to his Black friends in Johannesburg who were living under miserable, pathetic and dirty conditions
in relation to their oppressors the whites which accentuated in his setting in the play in question-Korsten
which is dirty, slummy, miserable, with poor sanitation.

Important to note is that the play advocate for a change in the Apartheid South Africa. That is
improvement on sanitation in the black areas of settlement. Thus was a socially dedicated piece of art
which makes it able to fulfill the social significance. As emphasized by Aristotle and Plato that poetry is
the mimetic art of human beings and their actions which had powerful effect on emotions. So, Fugard’s
play actually is the dramatization on what affected the black South Africans though he gives it a comic
touch, it’s social effect is in-depth to the Africans situations.

The playwright intentionally builds human characters and gives them realistic character traits. When he
plants the two main characters into the portrayed pathetic situation, he keeps them with the realistic
bounds. For instance, Morris is well- built as more of the brain washed South Africans more importantly
the coloured and the literacy and understanding he is given is not extreme which exactly matches with
how the educated South Africans beloved as they were constrained by the alienation and segregation
which was coon in Apartheid.

Turning around to Zachariah who is also our main character, the employment he is given is ironic but
similar to what the black did. They were tasked with refraining their fellow blacks fro rubbing shoulders
with the class apart whites. Their standards of living were to poor, pathetic a case we see with
Zachariah. The dialogue and the character traits given to the two accentuates the social stratification
which was a common characteristic of apartheid.

The overriding idea through the play. Blood Knot is the indictment of South Africa’s prejudice told
through the eyes of two biracial brothers, darker-skinned Zachariah and the far fairer-skinned Morris.
When their shared shack in Port Elizabeth becomes the playground for a power struggle, the brothers’
long shimmering tensions explored over the desire for a woman.

Other themes include; intolerance, division and resilience where the characters live a life more
influenced by racial segregation, its influence on their interactions.

Above all, the themes dealt with occasionally affect us as human beings when we are forced to live the
way we do. This was what was prevalent in 1961 South Africa society during Apartheid and even post
Apartheid

The play Blood Knot has been performed in various theatres starting form the Rehearsal theatre in 1961
when Athol Fugard featured on the cast, to the New York theatres. But the most suitability of these play
is a political theatre which has a mixed audience like the Elizabethan theatres, the Renaissance theatres,
and epic theatres.

Athol Fugard keeps the entertainment alive through his light mood and humorous a scenarios between
the two brothers; that is the quarrel that arises over the pen-pal, the suit game, the childish play the two
engaged and the unserious fury that breaks between the two brothers. Most important is the way, the
author maintains the brotherhood which intended the white and black South Africans to stay together
and defy the adds of the heinous apartheid.

Artistically, Athol Fugard tactfully uses two characters which conforms to the conventions suggested by
Aristotle. Between the two action is enshrined and rotates around the two who are the main
characters.
GROUP MEMBERS

1. ATUKUNDA PAMELA

2. MATSIKO EDDIE

3. KAINERUGABA ADAM

4. SEKANSANVU VICENT

5. KALUNGI BRIAN

6. NUWAMANYA ISAAC

7. NALUBEGA IMMACULATE

THE BLOOD KNOT

PLOT

There are only two characters in the play, a pair of brothers named Morris and Zachariah. Both were
raised by the same black mother, but had different fathers, and Morris can pass for white and has done
so in the past, but now he has returned to live with Zacharia in a small miserable shack in the “colored”
section of Port Elizabeth. Morris keeps the house, while Zachariah works to support them both. They
are saving money in hopes of buying a farm of their own some day. Both Morris and Zacharia have rich
imaginations and have taken part in role-playing games together since they were small boys.

The lovely Zachariah has struck up a pen-pal relationship with a white girl, and entertains fantasies that
she might fall in love with him. The more level-headed Morris tries to disabuse Zachariah of such
notions, and warns him that in segregated South Africa, such a relationship can only mean trouble,
especially since the girl has indicated in letters that she has a brother who’s a policeman.

Morris’ fears are soon realized, as Zachariah’s pen-pal writes to say that she’s coming to visit Port
Elizabeth, and wants to meet Zachariah – Zachariah most face the tragic truth that he can never have a
future with her, that she can never love him, and that she would be horrified to see who he really is. To
avoid having her meet Zachariah, the brothers agree to have the white-looking Morris meet her, and
pass himself off as Zachariah.

To prepare for the date, Morris busy some fine “white” clothes with the money that he and his brother
had been saving.
When he puts on the clothes, begins to adopt the white mannerisms and speech patterns that he’d
learned years earlier, when trying to “pass” in white society. As he does so, he begins to treat his
brother like an inferior, as any middle-class white South African would treat a black servant.

When a letter arrives, indicting that the girl will not be coming for a visit after all, Zachariah and his
relieved brother Morris begin a new role-playing game. This time, the game takes bizarre twists. It
becomes evident that Morris secretly holds his brother in disdain and Zachariah secretly harbors
thoughts of killing Morris.

The play ends with no real resolution. Morris and Zachariah will, apparently, remain together for many
unhappy years to come, needing each other, but unable to bridge the gap brought about by their
respective skin tones.