“Ha’penny, a short story written by Alan Paton, is about a young orphan who wants to be taken in by a family. Ha’penny is a believable character and is characterized directly by his background and indirectly by his actions and motivation.
Ha’penny is a mosuto, which is a member of the Black South African people. He comes from Bloemfontan and twelve years old. He is naughty and uncontrollable but also clever. He lives in a reformatory with six hundred other boys. He is believed to have a “mother [who works] in a white persons house and he [has] two brothers and two sisters”, however, he was “with no relatives at all” (411). Although, he told others he had a family, he had made it all up. “Taken from on home to another,” he was really never taken in and never had a steady life (411). He always had different changes and experiences. Having been raised without the support of a family or discipline from a parental fig
Throughout the story it is revealed to the reader that Ha’penny is in need and desires a family; however, the family he desires to become a part of wants absolutely nothing to do with him. His mother, Mrs. Betty and his two brothers Richard and Dickies and sisters, Anna and Mina were in fact a real family. Although, Ha’penny was not in anyway related to them “he wrote to her as a mother and she [is] no mother of his, nor [does] she wish to play any such role” (412). Ha’penny always wrote to her, but she never replied. “She [has] no thought of corrupting her family” (412). Just because he was in a reformatory he is believed to be a delinquent; moreover, he is so in need of a family of his own. He did as he was told and because of this he had no record in the reformatory. So in need to be a part of this family “but did not know the secret to open her heart” (413). Throughout the story he tries his best to reach out to Mrs. Maarman and t
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