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Simile
Explanation and Analysis—The White Neighborhoods:
In the preface to Chapter 13, Noah depicts the incredible lengths that White neighborhoods went to protect themselves and ultimately separate themselves from Black and "colored" (mixed-race) people. With an ironic metaphor and a simile, Noah describes his personal struggle with these supposed safeguards:
The white neighborhoods of Johannesburg were built on white fear—fear of black crime, fear of black uprisings and reprisals—and as a result virtually every house sits behind a six-foot wall, and on top of that wall is electric wire. Everyone lives in a plush, fancy maximum-security prison.[…] I’d hear people laughing and playing and I’d get off my bike and creep up and peek over the wall and see a bunch of white kids splashing around in someone’s swimming pool. I was like a Peeping Tom, but for friendship.
Once again, Noah uses comparison as a method of mutual understanding—a bridge between the radical and the unchanging, between the ideals of the free world and the world still stuck in the past. The metaphor comparing White people's homes to prisons highlights these dichotomous principles. The device helps the reader to understand, in their own vocabulary, how completely isolated each racial group was during apartheid. And yet, there is situational irony in how the White neighborhoods are so afraid—White fear, as Noah calls it—of Black crime that they put themselves in "plush, fancy maximum-security prison[s]." The irony lies in being so afraid of a possible crime or uprising that the White people imprison themselves. In this way, the so-called criminals are running free, controlling the lawful through instilled fear.
While the topics of White fear and segregated communities are sobering, Noah manages to insert some humor into the situation by comparing himself to a Peeping Tom. Despite the implications and danger, Noah is just a boy in need of a friend, peeking into people's prison yards to see if anyone wants to play with him. This downplay of seriousness through humor is a trademark of the book. Noah's memoir poses the following questions: How did children growing up during apartheid view themselves and the problems at hand? What was their perspective and how did they overcome the challenges they faced? Noah tackles these questions with not only a comedian's touch but with the levity of a child's perspective.
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