Andorra Vs. Master Harold

Athol Fugard’s Master Harold is about Hally, a white young man, and the damage done by the apartheid and alcoholism. The play takes place in South Africa, in 1950, in Hally’s parents’ restaurant. This is where two black servants, Sam and Willie, work for the white family. Sam and Willie have been part of Hally’s life as he is growing up, and they are close friends. Hally has educated Sam with the knowledge he has from his school books, but Sam has been trying to teach Hally vital lessons necessary for a healthy lifestyle. With a racist environment and an alcoholic father, Sam has bee

Everyone in Andorra has been worried that the Blacks would attack. They all said that Andorra would not be taken over as it is a land of freedom and human rights. Nonetheless, they are invaded, and everybody surrenders easily by allowing themselves to be unarmed and not to fight. The soldiers look for Andri, he is arrested and led away: in conclusion, a spectacular “Jew show” is to take place. The Jew show is deliberately grotesque in order to show how ridiculous it is. The “Jew spotter” identifies Jews by looking only at their feet, a horrible method to condemn people. All the citizens of Andorra have to put black cloths over their heads and walk past the Jew spotter. The Teacher protests a bit but in the end he disguises himself as well. Only Barblin has the courage to stand up for Andri by refusing to walk over the square. She tries to tell everyone that Andri is not a Jew but that he is her brother, but the others think only of saving themselves. Finally the Jew spotter identifies Andri as a Jew and he is taken away. He has been murdered, and his shoes remain symbolically on the stage for the remainder of the play. At the end of the play the Teacher has committed suicide and Barblin has gone mad, and is called the “Jew’s whore.”

I believe that with both plays, the main characters got lost in themselves. Hally got lost in his ego, and he let his anger for his father allow him to lash out unnecessarily at Sam, and as for Andri he just lost all hope in mankind. He is mistreated so much that he just stops having anything to live for, when all his dreams are shot down one after the other. Andri deals with prejudice by simply giving up, and becoming that which he was hated for. Hally deals with prejudice by using it as his outlet for not being able to handle his emotions. The most important thing which both of them failed to learn is that prejudice can only destroy people’s lives. It destroyed Andri’s live by making him doubt himself and become an outsider and it destroyed Hally because it turned him into a tyrant, and it caused him to ruin a lifelong friendship.

The Teacher has told everybody that Andri is his adopted son, who he saved from “the Blacks.” The Blacks are hostile anti-Semitic people from a nearby country, who at the present time are threatening to invade Andorra. Due to all this everyone in Andorra believes that Andri is a Jew. It is revealed, however, that Andri was not “saved” by The Teacher, as he is actually his real son. However the Teacher does not want to make this public cause he is too afraid to admit that he has an illegitimate son. The only person that knows is the Teacher himself, not even Andri knows. The Teacher feels guilty and wants

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