Themes
Key
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in The Train Driver, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
Race and Empathy
Language
Helplessness vs. Agency
Names
Hope vs. Despair
Summary
Analysis
The next day, the men return to the graveyard, and Roelf tries to get Simon to remember where he buried the mother and baby. After examining several graves, Simon points one out, but it is simply an old grave that he reburied after some wild dogs dug it up. Roelf erupts at Simon, swearing at him with such anger that Simon backs up in fear. Roelf threatens to dig up all the graves until he finds Red Doek and then bury Simon himself.
As Roelf’s frustration reaches a boiling point, he changes from the helpless and confused man that Simon met to an angry, somewhat unhinged man with a single-minded obsession with fulfilling his goal. It becomes clear that his unresolved feelings about Red Doek’s death are deeply damaging his psyche as he lashes out at Simon, the one person who has tried to help him.
Themes
An agitated Roelf wanders among the graves. He condemns the graveyard as a “disgrace to humanity.” Once again his attention turns to the rubbish on the graves, and he wonders if Simon has any respect for the dead, or if the gravedigger is no better than the wild dogs. Roelf insists that the dead are human beings and Simon should be one as well. Roelf gathers rocks and begins a “deranged,” frantic attempt to make crosses on all the graves, while Simon watches with confusion and fear.
Returning to the graveyard has renewed Roelf’s obsession with respecting the dead. He still cannot understand the oppression and deprivation that might have led the residents of Shukuma to neglect their dead, so he instead dehumanizes them. He calls their graveyard a “disgrace to humanity” and compares Simon to a wild dog, all the while oblivious to how his own “deranged” behavior is growing less rational and respectful.
Themes
Roelf calls to Simon to join him. He suggests that Simon fetch the stones while Roelf makes the crosses, since Simon might make the cross upside-down and accidentally send a soul to Hell. As Roelf recalls leaving flowers at his own mother’s grave, Simon cautiously tells Roelf to stop––not only stop messing with the graves, but stop looking for Red Doek entirely.
Although Simon has cared for Roelf and helped him on his quest to find Red Doek, Roelf still assumes a position of authority and expertise over Simon. He instructs Simon to assist him in making crosses but forbids him from making a cross himself. Despite this, Simon continues to try to help Roelf. He can see the effect the search for Red Doek is having on Roelf, so he interrupts Roelf’s mania to advise him to stop.
Themes
Roelf takes a moment to remember his search for Red Doek. When he does, he goes limp and silent, whispering that Simon must realize the woman was a mother who brought her baby to wait for the end. Roelf makes one more cross and then crawls away. He expresses his fear that his mind is “all fucked-up,” since he keeps seeing the woman as she looked on the railway. Yet he understands she no longer looks like that; she will be decomposing as all bodies do. Roelf muses, “black man or white man…the worms don’t care about that.”
As Roelf breaks down after his outburst, he reflects on Red Doek as an entity unto herself—she was not only the woman he killed, but she was also a mother with a baby. This moment of empathy allows him to stop making crosses and assess the situation more clearly. Roelf has so far failed in his aim to swear at Red Doek, so he swears at himself. He has no description of what is wrong with his mind besides that it is “all fucked-up,” which he repeats throughout the play. Roelf frames death as an equalizer, since Black and white people alike become corpses when they are in the ground. However, the disarray and neglect of the Shukuma graveyard calls this into question, especially compared to Roelf’s expectations of a graveyard and his memory of placing flowers at his mother’s grave. After death, Black and white people might be equal in terms of the forces of nature, but they are still segregated and treated with unequal degrees of respect.
Themes
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The wild dogs bark in the distance, and Roelf points out that dogs don’t care about race, either. He tells Simon that he has a dog whom he hates, and Simon notes that as a child he had two dogs, one black and one white. Roelf laughs that the pair of dogs are like Simon and Roelf––one black and one white.
Roelf and Simon are two very different men of very different backgrounds. And yet, when Roelf jokingly compares them to Simon’s two dogs, he conceives of himself and Simon as a pair. The characters do not lose their awareness of race as they begin to bond with each other, but as Roelf learns to empathize with Simon and Red Doek, race loses its status as an insurmountable hurdle in the way of friendship.
Themes
Simon speaks more about his childhood. He grew up by Hluleka and was called Andile Hanabe before he adopted Simon as a “whiteman’s name.” He hunted fish with his dogs and made fry fish for his mother and sister. As he tells this story, he switches from using the Xhosa word for “yes” to using the Afrikaans word. Simon smiles thinking of fried fish, and Roelf agrees that fried fish are good with fried potatoes.
Simon’s story about changing his name adds another aspect to the play’s connection between names and identity. While Red Doek has lost her name and her identity, Simon has taken on an additional name in order to construct a new identity in a predominantly white area. His use of Afrikaans words also illustrates the growing bond between Simon and Roelf, as Simon is adopting some of Roelf’s vocabulary.
Themes
