Title Analysis

Significance of the Title

The title helps the audience or reader to:

• Identify the theme of the play
• Contextualise the text within apartheid South Africa
• Understand the writer's beliefs and message
• Link the title with characterisation
• Predict the plot or summary
• Focus on key issues in the play
• Develop arguments based on the text

Meaning Behind the Exclamation Marks

• The exclamation marks in the title indicate a lament, expressing grief and sorrow.
• The phrase "My Children! My Africa!" conveys Mr M's emotions about the wasted future of children in Africa.
• It highlights lost human potential due to apartheid and oppression.

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Mr M's Perspective

• Calls for restoration so that future generations can have a better life.
• Believes apartheid dehumanises children, making them less concerned about their future.
• Recognises that oppression leads to violence and hatred.
• The children he refers to are Black students suffering under apartheid and political exploitation.

Education and Protest

• Mr M is frustrated by students leaving school to join protests and boycotts.
• He pities South African youth, especially in the Bantu Education system.
• He sees the world as wasting children's potential through war, hunger, and oppression.
• His famous line, "What is wrong with this world that it wants to waste you all like that… My Children… my Africa!" (p96), sums up his despair.

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Key Vocabulary

• Lament: A passionate expression of grief or sorrow
• Oppression: Unjust treatment and control over a group
• Dehumanise: To deprive people of dignity and individuality
• Bantu Education: A racially discriminatory education system in apartheid South Africa