The Possibility of Racial Coexistence Theme Analysis

The brutal white guard Hannetjie is originally installed by the prison to beat Span One—Brille’s group of political prisoners—into submission. However, after Brille manages to turn the tables on Hannetjie by catching Hannetjie stealing from the prison, he tells Hannetjie that rather than forcing Hannetjie to buy him off with bribes, he instead wants to form an alliance with Hannetjie. The guard agrees, and a transformation occurs to the prisoners and guard that suggests racial coexistence as possible, even if true equality is not.

First, both Span One and Hannetjie benefit materially from this new arrangement. The beatings and degradation of Span One cease. Hannetjie brings Span One extra supplies, while Span One use their skills at resisting prison rules to steal fertilizer for him (which he uses on his farm). Second, and more importantly, the story suggests that the partnership—in which Span One will help out Hannetjie if he becomes a “good warder”—also results in Hannetjie’s moral evolution. In other words, that through his coexistence and cooperation with the prisoners Hannetjie regains his humanity. Brille’s request for an alliance with Hannetjie could have resulted simply in termination of beatings and overlooking Span One’s routine breaking of prison rules. Instead, Hannetjie’s “interpretation of what was good and human often left the prisoners […] speechless with surprise.” The guard actually works the fields with them and gifts them with “unheard-of luxuries.” Hannetjie’s actions suggest that he interpreted being a “good warder” not to mean that he would simply stop being unduly brutal, but instead in a broadly moral sense, according to “good and human” standards of generosity and benevolence. And, in fact, the story also describes Span One with similar moral terms. The story describes Span One is having “responded nobly” to Hannetjie’s benevolent treatment, and that Span One soon gains “the reputation of being the best work span in the camp.” Using the word “nobly” to describe Span One’s response gives it a connotation of moral growth.

When read in this way, the story seems to suggest that racial reconciliation and racial coexistence are possible and achievable—that the moral growth visible in Hannetjie, and the reduced rebelliousness in Span One indicate that there is a potential path to eliminate the racist policies of apartheid and achieve a real “alliance” between races. And yet the story also contains a degree of irony or discordance that suggests such an idealistic reading is unfounded. For instance, the description of Span One as having “responded nobly” to Hannetjie’s benevolent treatment seems condescending. It suggests that when Span One was, out of principle, aggressively resisting its unjust imprisonment, that it wasn’t acting “nobly.” The only people who would really describe Span One as being “noble” when it became “the best work span in the camp,” rather than when it was the worst, would be those who ran the prison—those who saw any instance of black resistance to apartheid as being a sign of ignobility rather than nobility. With this realization comes another: Hannetjie was brought in to try to quash Span One’s rebelliousness. His brutal tactics for achieving this failed miserably. But in failing, and in agreeing to become an ally of the Span, Hannetjie actually ended up succeeding: Span One stopped being rebellious, even as they continue to be prisoners (albeit better-treated ones). Span One has succeeded in its short-term goal of better treatment. But one can argue that in accepting this victory and ceasing to fight, it lost the larger war.

“The Prisoner Who Wore Glasses” does seem to suggest that racial coexistence in South Africa is possible. And taking the story’s plot as a model suggests that the means of achieving this sort of racial coexistence is for the black majority to stand up and take power by working from within the system—just as Brille works from within the system to ease Span One’s situation in the prison by using political power to turn Hannetjie from an adversary to an ally. And yet, the fact that the political prisoners remain prisoners despite this success, implies that such a strategy offers only a small-scale fix, and not an actual long-term solution to the overall structure of oppression. And one could argue that “The Prisoner Who Wore Glasses” did in fact foretell the future of South Africa. Twenty years after “The Prisoner Who Wore Glasses” was published, the political policy of apartheid was abolished in the 1990s, after sustained political pressure both from outside South Africa and from the black majority within South Africa. However, despite this massive victory, in the decades since the end of apartheid, racial inequality has persisted in vast differences in wealth and status between the black majority and white minority. “The Prisoner Who Wore Glasses” seems to foreshadow this outcome.