# Master Harold and the Boys

Master Harold and the Boys
(1982) by Athol Fugard is a play Set in 1950, it was first produced at the Yale Repertory Theatre in March 1982 and made its premiere on Broadway on 4 May at the Lyceum Theatre, where it ran for 344 performances. The play takes place in South Africa during apartheid era, and depicts how institutionalized racism, bigotry or hatred can become absorbed by those who live under it. It is said to be a semi-autobiographical play, as Athol Fugard's birth name was Harold and his boyhood was very similar to Hally's, including his father being disabled, and his mother running a tea shop to support the family. His relationship with his family's servants was similar to Hally's as he sometimes considered them his friends, but other times treated them like subservient help, insisting that he be called "Master Harold", and once spitting in the face of one he had been close to. Additionally the play was remade for a suitable audience in 2005.The play initially was banned from production in South Africa.It was the first of Fugard's plays to premiere outside of South Africa

## Quotes

* Anybody who thinks there's nothing wrong with this world needs to have his head examined. Just when things are going all right, without fail someone or something will come along and spoil everything. Somebody should write that down as a fundamental law of the Universe. The principle of perpetual disappointment. If there is a God who created this world, he should scrap it and try again.
* Those are big collisions, Hally. They make for a lot of bruises. People get hurt in all that bumping, and we're sick and tired of it now. It's been going on for too long. Are we never going to get it right?...Learn to dance life like champions instead of always being just a bunch of beginners at it?
* we're bumping into each other all the time...
* Yes! That's what all our talk about a decent world has been... just so much bullshit.""We did say it was still only a dream.""And a bloody useless one at that. Life's a fuck-up and it's never going to change.
* It's just that life felt the right size in there... not too big and not too small. Wasn't so hard to work up a bit of courage. It's got so bloody complicated since then.
* beautiful!Willie: [Can endure waiting no longer.] I'm starting! [Willie dances while Sam talks.] Sam: Of course it is. That's what I've been trying to say to you all afternoon. And it's beautiful because that is what we want life to be like. But instead, like you said, Hally, we're bumping into each other all the time. Look at the three of us this afternoon. I've bumped into Willie, the two of us have bumped into you, you've bumped into your mother, she bumping into your Dad... None of us knows the steps and there's no music playing. And it doesn't stop with us. The whole world is doing it all the time. Open a newspaper and what do you read? America has bumped into Russia, England is bumping into India, rich man bumps into poor man. Those are big collisions, Hally. They make for a lot of bruises. People get hurt in all that bumping, and we're sick and tired of it now. It's been going on for too long. Are we never going to get it right? ... Learn to dance life like champions instead of always being just a bunch of beginners at it? Hally: [Deep and sincere admiration of the man.] You've got a vision, Sam! Sam: Not just me. What I'm saying to you is that everybody's got it. That's why there's only standing room left for the Centenery Hall in two weeks' time. For as long as the music lasts, we are going to see six couples get it right, the way we want life to be. Hally: But is that the best we can do, Sam watch six finalists dreaming about the way it should be? Sam: I don't know. But it starts with that. Without the dream we won't know what we're going for. And anyway I reckon there are a few people who have got past just dreaming about it and are trying for something real.
* Be careful, Hally." "Of what? The truth? I seem to be the only one around here who is prepared to face it.
* Life is just a plain bloody mess, that's all. And people are fools.
* Sam: So then what is art?
Hally: You want a definition? Sam: Ja. Hally: [He realizes he has got to be careful. He gives the matter a lot of thought before answering.] Philosophers have been trying to do that for centuries. What is Art? What is Life? But basically I suppose it's... the giving of meaning to matter Sam: Nothing to do with beautiful? Hally: It goes beyond that. It's the giving of form to the formless
* Bullshit, as usual
* Flicker of morbid interest.
** Narrator, Section 1 (Dance Practice and History Lessons)
* But things will change, you wait and see.
** Hally, Section 1 (Dance Practice and History Lessons)
* I'm all right on oppression.
** Hally, Section 1 (Dance Practice and History Lessons)
* Tolstoy may have educated his peasants, but I've educated you.
** Hally, Section 1 (Dance Practice and History Lessons)
* Sam, Willie ... is he in there with you boys?
** Willie, Section 2 (Sam and Hally Reminisce)
* In fact, I was shit-scared that we were going to make fools of ourselves.
** Hally, Section 2 (Sam and Hally Reminisce)
* Little white boy ... and a black man old enough to be his father flying a kite.
** Hally, Section 2 (Sam and Hally Reminisce)
* You want to get into the story as well, do you?
** Hally, Section 2 (Sam and Hally Reminisce)
* It was you who start me ballroom dancing.
** Willie, Section 3 (A Disturbing Phone Call)
* Not just me. What I'm saying to you is that everybody's got it.
** Sam, Section 4 (The Dance Contest)
* He certainly was trying to teach people to get the steps right.
** Hally, Section 4 (The Dance Contest
* All you've got to do is stand up and walk away from it.
* Sam, Section 5 (Master Harold and Reconciliation)
* "It doesn't have to be that way. There something called progress, you know. We don't exactly burn people at the stake anymore.
** Hally, pg. 15
* We need a definition of greatness, and I suppose that would be somebody who... somebody who benefited all mankind."
** Hally, pg. 19
* It's the likes of you that kept the Inquisition in business. It's called bigotry."
** Hally, pg. 20
* I think I spent more time in there with you chaps than anywhere else in that dump. And do you blame me? Nothing but bloody misery wherever you went."
** Hally, pg. 25
* Life is just a plain bloody mess, that's all. And people are fools.
** Hally, pg. 34
* To be one of those finalists on that floor is like... like being in a dream world in which accidents don't happen."
** Sam, page. 45
* He's a white man and that's good enough for you.
** Hally, page. 53
* I mean, how do I wash off yours and your father's filth?...I've also failed. A long time ago I promised myself I would do something, but you've just shown me...Master Harold...that I've failed.
** Sam, page 57
* Fly another kite, I suppose. It worked once, and this time I need it as much as you do."
** Sam, page59
* Tonight I find Hilda and say sorry. And make promise I won't beat her no more. You hear me, Boet Sam?
** Willie, pg. 60
* Sam: But don’t let me see it. The secret is to make it look easy. Ballroom must look happy, Willie, not like hard
work. It must Ja!It must look like romance.
** line 21
* Hally: I oscillate between hope and despair for this world as well,
** Sam.” – line 175
* Anybody who lets facts interfere with his imagination is a person who will never enjoy anything else again
* There's nothing wrong with the world. It just goes around and around, and you gotta get on with your life.
* Mr. Sam was our father. He knew about our dreams and ambitions.
* I’m in the business of making people realize that their opinions aren’t worth the paper they’re written on
* Aah, violence is the only way I can make people pay attention to me
* There’s no question he’s smarter than I am, but does that give him the right to call me a name like that?
* A hint of water, a whisper of foam. Long, white tails streaming behind them as they twist and turn in the bay
* Without me breathing down your neck all the time, you’d lean even more to the right than you do now
* You were scared of the ball because it was big and hard and could hurt you, just like life can hurt you.
* Somebody once said that there are only two places you can be alone—inside your mother’s womb and inside your coffin.
* I thought I was keeping it straight and I’ve suddenly wondered whether it is straight, and whether it matters whether it is or not.
* Doesn’t it sort of bug you that people like your dad can’t take care of the world?
* Do you think Fathers do any more for their sons, except in terms of money, that Mothers do for their daughters
* Don’t talk crap, Hally! You don’t even know what the word ‘sympathy’ means
* she’s no match for him when it comes to a battle of words”
** Page 33
* best news in the world
** Page 49
* HALLY. It’s a bloody awful world when you come to think of it. People can be real bastards.
SAM. That’s the way it is, Hally. HALLY. It doesn’t have to be that way. There is something called progress you know. We don’t exactly burn people at the stake anymore.
** Page 13
* HALLY. Anyway, that’s my man of magnitude. Charles Darwin! Who’s yours? SAM (without hesitation). AbrahamLincoln.HALLY. I might have guessed as much. Don’t get sentimental, Sam. You’ve never been a slave, you know. And anyway, we freed your ancestors here in South Africa long before the Americans.”
** Page 18
* HALLY. Not many intellectuals are prepared to shovel manure with the peasants then go home and write a ‘little book’ called War and Peace. Incidentally, Sam, he was somebody else who, to quote, ‘…did not distinguish himself scholastically.
** Page 20

## External links

* Master Harold and the Boys
* Goodreads
* course hero
* gradesaver
* ib English literature
* bookey
* supersummary