Themes
Key
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in Boesman and Lena, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
Oppression, Freedom, and Self-Worth
Violence, Cruelty, and Power
Racism and Status
Connection vs. Isolation
Summary
Analysis
An hour later, Lena and the old man are still sitting by the fire together under the blanket. Boesman is drinking his second bottle of wine, but his bread and tea are still untouched. Boesman’s “characteristic violence is now heightened by a wild excitability.”
Throughout this scene, Boesman grows both more violent in disposition and also becomes crueler, as the alcohol makes him even less inhibited than he was already.
Themes
Boesman demands that Lena reenact what she had said that morning: “Please, my baasie,” begging the white men to let them pack their things. She refuses at first, but at his insistence she begs. He demands she repeat it again and again, saying that “whiteman won’t feel sorry” for her. He instructs her how to beg properly, getting on the ground and acting like a dog. He extends the pantomime to a “crude imitation of the scene that morning” in which Lena had been begging and trying to pack.
Boesman’s insistence on making fun of Lena and the other Coloured people they had been living with demonstrates how much the system of apartheid has been normalized for him. Rather than making fun of or trying to implicate the white people in the story for their tyranny, Boesman turns instead to cruelty towards Lena and his own people—perhaps because it gives him a sense of power and superiority over the others.
Themes
Lena is disgusted by his actions, and says that no one felt sorry for them. Boesman describes what he saw: all of the people, “crawling out of [their] holes. Like worms.” He laughs hideously at Lena, then continues his story. The bulldozers smashed everything in one sweep: “slum clearance.” Boesman laughs again, recalling how they all just stood and watched.
Boesman continues to display his own racism and hatred for his own people as he calls them “worms.” He even laughed as all of their things were destroyed by the white men—even though this destruction is so closely linked to his own oppression and suffering.
Themes
Lena turns to the old man, telling him that Boesman then helped the white men build a bonfire to burn what was left of the pondoks. Boesman tells Lena that she should have helped as well: they were burning their sad stories. When the fire burned out, he went back to the place where they “had crawled in and out like baboons, where [they] used to sit with them and eat, [their] head[s] between [their] knees.”
Lena explains that Boesman directly aided in their oppression by helping the white men burn what was left of their homes. This becomes a metaphor for the broader idea of apartheid because the Coloured people are more likely to side with and play into the racism of apartheid than to try and work with the black South Africans to overturn it.
Themes
Get the entire Boesman and Lena LitChart as a printable PDF.
When Boesman went back, he explains, there was room to “stand straight.” This, he says, was freedom. That is why he had laughed and was happy—he had found freedom. When they picked up their things, he didn’t want to go to any of their old places: “the world was open this morning.” Lena sarcastically comments that that’s why they were lost that morning: they were looking for Boesman’s freedom.
Boesman is able to find his freedom when an oppressive system unties him from the possessions (made up of garbage) that he came to rely upon. But this is a false sense of freedom, as eventually he recognizes that not being weighed down by the burden of one’s possessions is not the same as being free.
Themes
Boesman yells at Lena that he’d had his freedom, but when Lena suggested all the “old rubbish dumps” he felt more and more trapped. He didn’t know where else he could go. He says that when he saw the piece of iron on the side of the road, he should have passed it and kept walking. But, he says, “the sun was low. Our days are too short.” He shouts violently, saying that it’s no use to build another pondok—the baas will simply push this one over tomorrow.
Boesman realizes very quickly that his sense of freedom was false. Even though the world was open, as he describes, he has no actual way of escaping the apartheid system that had caused his oppression in the first place. His comment that their days are too short is another reference to how they feel like so many days of their lives have been wasted in being forced out of their homes again and again.
Themes
Boesman has one more revelation: that they are “whiteman’s rubbish.” Boesman says, “He throws it away, we pick it up. Wear it. Sleep in it. Eat it. We’re made of it now.” He tells Lena that the old man is rubbish, too—and yet Lena picked him up and gave him a blanket and food.
Boesman reveals the toll of building one’s life out of garbage. As Boesman articulates here, it makes him and Lena feel as though they themselves are “rubbish”—that their lives aren’t worth anything.
Themes
Boesman turns on them, wondering what Lena’s use for the old man is, considering that she paid a bottle of wine to keep him there. He asks if the old man is “keeping [her] warm” and if they’re “up to something under that blanket.” Lena says no. Boesman continues to wonder why she wants him there, saying she’s gone mad and laughing with “violent bewilderment.”
Boesman’s bewilderment underscores several things: both his jealousy at the connection Lena has with the old man, and his racism in calling the old man “rubbish.” Boesman uses this connection between them as a tool for cruelty, as his implication that they might have a sexual relationship is both ridiculous and spiteful.
Themes
Lena lets Boesman laugh, then slowly asks him why he can’t leave them alone. She surmises that he’s jealous that she turned down his pondok and the bottle of wine. She explains that the pondok really represents a coffin: her life is buried in the pondoks, and she refuses to get into them anymore.
Lena makes the connection between the trash in which they are forced to live and how this makes their lives feel wasted. Without anything around them to truly call their own, or any feeling of permanence, they are left feeling as though they are useless.
Themes
Lena sees that the old man has started to close his eyes, and she shakes him and tells him not to go to sleep yet. She turns to Boesman and that says if he doesn’t want his bread and tea, to pass it to them. Boesman turns over the mug of tea onto the ground and hurls the bread into the darkness. He disappears into the pondok with his bottle of wine, saying that he’s kicking her out, and even if she changes her mind she can’t come in.
Boesman again exhibits cruelty by preventing Lena and the old man from getting additional nourishment simply because he has the power to deprive them of it. But, in choosing not to sleep with Boesman, Lena has started to flip the power dynamic between them.
Themes
Lena moves closer to the old man for warmth, saying “Hotnot and a Kaffer got no time for apartheid on a night like this.” She thinks about the next day, when they’ll have to dig for worms to sell—that will make them nice and warm, she says. She adds that a good dance can make them warm as well.
Lena demonstrates once more how treating the old man with respect (even simply getting near him) is not the norm, and she attributes this racism quite explicitly to apartheid, as there were many policies in place that dictated that Coloured and black South Africans were meant to be segregated.
Themes
Lena starts to sing and clap, doing a dance to a song in Afrikaans before making up lyrics like “Kleinskool got prickly pears / Missionvale’s got salt / Lena’s got a Boesman / So it’s always Lena’s fault.” Lena sits next to the old man once more, giddy that she’s now feeling much warmer. They huddle under the blanket again as Boesman watches them.
Lena’s happiness is driven not only by her ability to get warm, but also by the fact that someone will listen to her singing. But, as she notes earlier, whenever she is happy, Boesman immediately tries to quash that happiness in order to maintain his control over her.
Themes
At that moment, Boesman explains very deliberately that he was the one who dropped the bag with the empty bottles, then blamed Lena and hit her for it. Lena, stunned, continues the story: Boesman hit her until the white men laughed. He then took off his hat and smiled, saying “Jus’ a ou meid [old maid], baas.” Lena looks at her body, covered in bruises. She asks him why he’s told her, before realizing that he just wants to hurt her.
This revelation constitutes the culmination of Boesman’s cruelty towards Lena. He is so manipulative that he completely altered her sense of reality, making her think that she made a mistake and then beating her for the mistake that he had made instead. This is the ultimate exercise of power and a way for him to exert that power over her in revealing what he had done.
Themes
Lena asks Boesman why he hits her. He tries to understand why, looking at his hands, smashing one into the palm of the other. She guesses, “Maybe you just want to touch me, to know I’m here.” She tells him to hit himself instead: that this is her life, and he should hit his own. Boesman asks Lena to show him any indication of his life. The pondok has been pushed over, the road has no trace of them, the wine bottles are empty. He grows desperate, wondering where his life has gone.
Just as Lena questioned earlier in the play how one would document her life, Boesman here asks the same questions. As he is desperately looking for evidence of his life, he finds that they have made no tangible mark on the world because of the oppression that they have faced and the tragic losses of their children.
Themes
Lena looks at the old man, asking if he’s heard what Boesman has said, that he hits her just because he can. She sees his eyes closed, and shakes him violently, pleading with him to listen to what Boesman is saying. Boesman tells her that she’s gone crazy, because the old man can’t understand her—she’s only been talking to herself. She begs him to say in Xhosa that Boesman hit her for nothing. When he refuses, she asks Boesman to show the old man by hitting her.
Lena again demonstrates just how desperate she is for acknowledgement and for someone to be sympathetic to her situation, even as Boesman reveals the fallacy of her connection with the old man. He cannot understand what Lena and Boesman have been saying, and so Lena goes to such extremes as to want to be beaten in order to have the old man understand her abuse.
Themes
Boesman calls Lena “Sies [shit]” in disgust. Lena is taken aback and sits beside the old man. Boesman explains why he calls her this: all she’s done tonight is cried for wine and begged him to hit her. Boesman then concludes that they can never have freedom, and that their life has no meaning, particularly after Boesman had to bury their dead child. He says that when they are dead, they will have left no trace. Boesman insists that the old man not see them, telling him, “Don’t look!”
Boesman here sums up the hardship that he and Lena have had to face, oppressed by a system that deprives them of possessions and provides them only with degradation, humiliation, and loss. Boesman’s insistence that the old man look away from them is because he wants to continue to cut off the old man and Lena’s connection, but Fugard also implies that Boesman is ashamed of his own social standing and degradation, despite the fact that he has no way of changing it.
Themes
Lena realizes that the old man has died, saying that he was holding her hand and then let go of it. Boesman gets nervous, sitting down in front of the pondok and away from the body. Lena sets the body down on the ground, upset that she never learned the old man’s real name. She mourns over the body, speaking about the importance of holding onto the things in one’s life.
The old man’s death cuts off Lena from the connection she gained, but his presence still allows her to maintain a shifted power dynamic. While Boesman grows increasingly nervous about the dead body, Lena becomes more and more assured of wanting her life to have meaning. Perhaps this is in response to the old man’s death as well, because there is no one who can truly acknowledge the life he led.
Themes
Boesman tells Lena that she needs to get rid of the old man’s body because dead men are dangerous. Lena comments that the old man is a “real piece of rubbish now,” and asks how to get rid of it. Boesman tells her that it’s her problem—the body has nothing to do with him. Boesman grows more and more agitated as she doesn’t respond, saying that there’s going to be trouble when people start asking questions about the body. Lena wonders why white people don’t ask questions when black people alive.
This is one of the first instances in which Lena starts to deliberately take control of the power dynamic between them. Just as Boesman didn’t respond to her at the beginning of the play, here Lena’s disregard for what Boesman is saying starts to make him more and more disconcerted. Lena’s statement also raises questions about the apartheid system, as she suggests that white people only care about black South Africans when they are dead.
Themes
Boesman tells Lena that she has to be a witness for him: to tell anyone who asks that Boesman didn’t kill the old man. Lena toys with Boesman: when he starts telling the story of what happens, she gives sarcastic and unhelpful answers to the police’s hypothetical questions, enraging him. He grabs a bottle and moves toward her, but stops himself when he sees that Lena has not made any move away from him. Lena tells him that he has to be careful now, because there’s already one body.
Lena takes the power completely in this moment. Now that Boesman needs something from her (a witness statement), Lena is able to control her situation in a way that upsets Boesman. Prompting the thought that killing her will make him look even more guilty for the old man’s murder, Boesman even seems unable to beat her.
Themes
Boesman is very frightened. Lena tells him that he is “whiteman’s dog, his tail between his legs because the baas is going to be cross.” Then Lena suggests that maybe the old man is not dead. Boesman grows more and more uncertain, “tormented” by the possibility that he might still be alive.
Just as Boesman used mental manipulation to gain control over Lena, Lena now does the same to Boesman. By suggesting that the old man might not be dead (even though she knows that he is) she is providing him with false hope that she will only use to hurt him later.
Themes
Egged on by Lena, Boesman nudges the body with his foot to try to wake him up. The nudge becomes a kick, his violence building up. When it becomes clear that the old man is really dead, Boesman is so “rigid with anger and hatred” that he pounces on the body and beats it violently. Lena coolly comments that she always knew what his beating felt like, but now she knows what it looks like.
Lena is able to manipulate Boesman completely now, causing him to beat the body violently. This will have even greater implications when Lena argues that the bruises will make Boesman look even more guilty, but it also shows how Boesman’s instincts are simply to be violent because it is the only means he has to control those around him.
Themes
Lena tells Boesman that he shouldn’t have hit the old man, since now anyone who comes will see that the old man and Lena both have bruises, and Boesman is sitting nearby with raw knuckles. She says that they won’t even ask questions—just take him away for something he didn’t do. “That’s the worst,” she says, “when you didn’t do it.”
Lena continues to flip the torment on its head here. Just as Boesman beat Lena for something that she didn’t do in order to prove his power, so too will the white people punish Boesman for something he didn’t do, simply because they have the power to do so.
Themes
Boesman starts to panic, collecting their things as fast as he can. He tells Lena that they are leaving. Lena refuses to go. She says she’s had enough. Boesman pauses in shock. She notes that his hands are balled into fists again—that when Boesman doesn’t understand something, he hits it, like he hit the old man.
Lena’s statement that when Boesman doesn’t understand something, he hits it, can be seen as a metaphor for how he understands his life under apartheid. He doesn’t understand why he doesn’t have control over his life, and so he reacts in the only way he can to regain some of that control: with violence.
Themes
Boesman continues to pack urgently. Lena refuses to join him again, saying that she’s done running, and that when he leaves she’ll crawl into the pondok and sleep. He smashes the pondok in response. Lena starts to laugh, and passes him everything she can find. She tells him that he couldn’t have freedom because he couldn’t fit it on his back alongside all of their possessions.
Lena now also uses laughter as a form of mental torment: while Boesman is terrified of what is happening around him, Lena is mocking him derisively. She also makes an incisive comment about why it is impossible for them to truly find freedom: they are so weighed down by the oppression of constantly having to reset their lives that they have no means to gain freedom.
Themes
When Lena sees Boesman awkwardly loaded with all of their belongings, she laughs at him. She tells him which way to walk to Veeplaas. She yells at him, saying goodbye and telling him to go. Boesman stands motionless.
Just as Lena threatened to walk away from Boesman earlier but could not, here Boesman tries to walk away from Lena. But the sense of stagnation hinders them each time, as they both recognize that they could not survive without the other. For all of the venom in their relationship, they need each other to feel like their lives have meaning.
Themes
Lena turns to the old man’s body, asking why he had to die so soon—there were things that she didn’t get to tell him. “Can’t throw yourself away before your time,” she says. Lena looks back up at Boesman slowly and tells him to give her the bucket on his head. She says, “might be whiteman’s rubbish, but I can still use it.”
Lena acknowledges here that even though they live lives that might seem meaningless, and surround themselves by things that other people consider trash, life is still worth living. It is a form of rebellion—perhaps even a hope for the future that someday they will be able to build a truly new life from the things they have.
Themes
Lena tells Boesman that they’d better be going far—to Coegakop, where they began their walks. Boesman then finally tells her the order of the towns they’ve been to since Coegakop, naming 14 separate walks they’ve done. He notes where their child died. Lena says, “it doesn’t explain anything.”
Lena’s statement here is perhaps the most tragic of the play. For all the time she spent trying to reconstruct her past, being able to name the order of the towns doesn’t actually amount to anything. Even while she might have a new sense of determination to live, it doesn’t change the fact that so much of her past has been wasted. But, it does demonstrate how Boesman no longer feels the need to manipulate her, potentially signifying an end to the ongoing power struggle between them.
Themes
Lena acknowledges that at least “somebody saw a little bit. Dog and a dead man.” Lena then declares that she’s alive, and that there are still “daylights” left in her. She tells Boesman that the next time he wants to kill her, he should really do it. She is then ready to go, and as they start to walk, she says, “But not so fast.” They turn and walk off into the darkness, leaving the old man’s body there on the ground.
In the play’s final moments, Fugard ties in a few of its key themes: Lena once again demonstrates her desire for connection, and to have her life witnessed. Fugard also illustrates how their relationship has changed: even if Boesman might still be violent, she puts his violence on her own terms and is now the one in control of their pace. And as they walk off into the darkness, Fugard implies a call to action, asking the white South Africans in his intended audience to address how the system of apartheid strips people of the ability to live a meaningful life, even if it doesn’t strip them of their determination and hope to do so.
Themes
