About the author Athol Fugard South African playwright novelist actor and director best known for his political plays opposing apartheid Born in Middleburg in the Eastern cape and studied at UCT ID: 564288
Download Presentation The PPT/PDF document "Tsotsi" is the property of its rightful owner. Permission is granted to download and print the materials on this web site for personal, non-commercial use only, and to display it on your personal computer provided you do not modify the materials and that you retain all copyright notices contained in the materials. By downloading content from our website, you accept the terms of this agreement.
Slide1
TsotsiSlide2
About the author
Athol
Fugard
: South African playwright, novelist, actor and director, best known for his political plays opposing apartheid.
Born in Middleburg in the Eastern cape and studied at UCT
In 1958 he moved to Johannesburg with his wife and worked in a Native Commissioner’s Court which made him keenly aware of the pass laws (injustices of Apartheid).
Fugard
was 26 when he started writing
Tsotsi
and he left it to start writing plays. He was often in trouble with the
aapartheid
regime and was forced to write and publish outside South Africa.
In 1978 his researcher found the manuscript and prepared it for publication.Slide3
The gangSlide4
About the novel
The novel is set in an unnamed township outside Johannesburg. Why?......................................
The time period is the 1950’s due to specific references to the bus boycott and the first man-made object to land on the moon. Find these references………………………………………………….
The novel describes the difficulties of living in the townships and it is critical of the actions taken by the apartheid government and of the society it created. Find two references to this…………………………………………………………………Slide5
The plot
The protagonist of the novel is a dangerous criminal called
Tsotsi
, who kills and steals for his survival.
The meaningless cycle of his life is interrupted when a woman he is about to attack hands him a baby. The baby’s fragility and simple need for milk awaken
Tsotsi’s
dormant soul. He finds it difficult to keep up his persona as a heartless criminal and discovers that he can “feel” for his victims.
He finds a lactating woman who can feed the baby. Seeing Miriam feed the baby brings up memories of his early childhood.
Confused,
Tsotsi
finds Boston, a gang member who he has virtually beaten to death, in the hope that Boston can enlighten him.
Tsotsi
is reintroduced to the concepts of God, mercy and redemption.Slide6
Themes, motifs and symbols
Apartheid : a system that led to moral and spiritual decline
The world according to
Tsotsi
is : “an ugly place” where : “ the very effort of living is a pain”
The purpose of Apartheid was the segregation of the races and the establishment of the superiority of the whites.
Immorality Acts of 1927and 1957
Townships had few amenities.
David
Madondo
was 10 years old when his mother was forcibly removed from her one-roomed shack because she did not have a pass. He experiences terror “deep down inside of him” and runs away to a group of orphaned boys living in pipes by the river.Slide7
Theme 2. Redemption and mercy
Tsotsi
and his gang elicit fear in the community.
He describes the “darkness” within his soul.
This is linked to the numbness in his emotions, which Boston challenges. He insists that
Tsotsi
has feelings, memory and a soul.
The baby forces
Tsotsi
to express feelings and
nuturing
, exposing him to his own childhood memories.
The change in
Tsotsi
is governed by a godly force: he passes the church, sees a cross and remembers that :”God moved among men.”
Pg
27
Confused,
Tsotsi
finds Boston to help explain what is happening to him and is introduced to God , mercy and redemption.Slide8
Chapter 1
We meet the four members of the gang as they wait for the right time to go on their rampage. It is a Friday night. It is clear that the community lives in fear of their viciousness. The reader witnesses the brutal attack and murder of Gumboot Dhlamini.Slide9
Chapter 1-
Class activity 1
Make spider diagrams of each of the gangsters, including every descriptive word used about them. You may use a table
Tsotsi
Butcher
Boston
De
AapSlide10
Chapter 1: Vocabulary
t
oyed
p
endulous
t
rundles
i
nterminable
i
mpotence
m
eagre
f
railty
b
rooding
m
illipede
exuberance
cardinalSlide11
Class Activity 2
Youth crime soars as gang culture takes grip
Write an article with the above title, as if you are the Daily Sun reporter in 1950. The stimulus for your article is
Tsotsi’s
gang outside Johannesburg.Slide12
Chapter 1: Homework
Answer the questions on Pg 171
.
1-10
11. What is the narrative style of this novel? Slide13
Class activity 3: Contextual
Answer the questions on
Pg
195-196
3.1-3.4
Answer the questions on
Pg
190-191
3.1-3.4
Tsotsi
“To
know nothing about yourself is to be constantly in danger of nothingness, those voids of non-being over which a man walks the tightrope of his life.” Slide14
Miriam: in praise of motherhoodSlide15
Chapter 2
It is later the same night and the gang members are drinking at
Soekie’s
place. Boston is visibly
distrubed
by the killing of Gumboot. Boston insists on questioning
Tsotsi
about his past.
Tsotsi
beats Boston nearly to death.Slide16
Chapter 2 Vocabulary
v
ehemence
f
ilament
g
ramophone
p
alpable
b
lasphemy
i
rrational
f
linching
precipitatedSlide17
Homework Chapter 2
Complete questions 1-10 on
Pg
171-172.
11. Comment on the effectiveness of the simile used to describe Boston on Page 15.
12. How does Boston assume the role of the “conscience” of the group?
13. What is important
a
bout
Soekie
wanting to
k
now her birthday?Slide18
Chapter 3
Tsotsi
is deeply affected by Boston’s words and runs away. He finds himself in a white suburb where he comes across a domestic worker carrying a child in a shoebox. He is distracted by the crying of the baby and the woman is able to escape.
Vocabulary: eddies, unheeded, insensate, vaulted thunder, monoliths, prismatic, quicksilver, intermittently, obscurity, fetish, talisman, evocative, inexplicably, lope, Slide19
Chapter 3 Homework
Questions 1-10 Pg
172
11. Quote the reference to the idea that God is moving in
Tsotsi’s
heart.
Pg
27.
How does the gang leader react to this inner voice?
12. Comment on the effect of the symbols of light and darkness on
Pg
28, paragraph 1, paragraph 4.
12. The knife is more than a weapon for
Tsotsi
. What does it symbolise?
Pg
30 last 5 lines.Slide20
The motif of the baby
Even though
Tsotsi
literally finds the baby, it is clearly of
symbolic significance
.
The baby is described as “wrinkled with age beyond years”
Pg
34
Tsotsi
realises the baby has to stay alive “to work its alchemy again. (
Pg
47)
The baby is the catalyst to
Tsotsi’s
memory and begins his restoration to wholeness.
Class activity 4: Find three other references to the baby’s restorative power.Slide21Slide22
Chapter 4: Tsotsi
keeps the baby
He realises the baby needs milk to survive.
He goes to the General Dealer to buy milk. We learn that
Tsotsi
cannot read and is not as self-confident as he seemed in earlier chapters.
Vocabulary: odorous, gaudy,
tickey
, scrutinizing, cross-grained,
malodorousness
, convoluted, cloying, idiocy, intangible, improbability,
discordancies
, grimace, furtive.Slide23
Chapter 4 : Homework
Answer the questions 1-10 on
Pg
173.
11. Write a detailed character sketch on
Tsotsi
, examining his self - discovery in Chapters 3-4.Slide24
Gang dynamicsSlide25
Chapter 5: Gang dynamics
De
Aap
and Butcher are ready for the evenings work.
Tsotsi
is clearly less enthusiastic and is very vague. They decide to go to the city.
Vocabulary: gravity, comely, enigma, elusive, ponderous presence, encumbrance, nebulous, repertoire, tampered.
Homework: Complete the questions 1-10 on
Pg
133-134.Slide26Slide27
Chapter 6: Tsotsi
chooses his next victim.
The gang arrive on the outskirts of the city.
Tsotsi
chooses his next victim, a paraplegic, Morris
Tshabalala
.
Vocabulary: progeny, bantering, commiserated, calloused, eluded, nondescript, shyster, racketeer.
Classwork exercise:
Pg
191-192 Extract 2
3.5-3.8
Homework:
Pg
174 Questions 1-10Slide28
Chapter 7:
Tsotsi and Morris meet
In a surprisingly frank conversation, Morris realises that he wants to live.
Tsotsi
realises that he has power over his choices and chooses not to kill Morris.
Vocabulary: perverse, grotesque anatomy of life, justification, lustrous, retribution, insubstantiality, paltry, indelible, precedents, presentiment,
inkling
Homework:
Ch
7
Questions 1-10
Pg
174-175Slide29
Tsotsi’s inability to steal from Morris: discuss in groups the two things which stay his hand.Slide30
Chapter 8: Feeding the baby
Tsotsi’s
plan to feed the baby condensed milk fails and he forces Miriam
Ngidi
to feed the baby. It becomes clear that he has started to remember his past.
Vocabulary: staid,
Indispensible
, melee,
Rapacious, dispiritedly
Homework:
Pg
184
1-10Slide31
Chapter 9:The truth about
Tsotsi’s childhood
He was separated from his mother during a raid and runs away from home when it becomes clear that she will not return. He is too scared to meet his father and runs away. He meets up with a gang of children living in
waterpipes
at the river. He changes his name to
Tsotsi
and decides to forget his past.
Vocabulary: surreptitious, pandemonium implacably, pummelling,
Classwork exercise : Contextual
Pg
193-194 Question 1.1-1.5
Homework:
Pg
178 1-10 Slide32Slide33
Chapter 10: Tsotsi
reconnects with Miriam to feed the baby.
It is clear that he is a changed man and has no need for anger, revenge and hatred in his life. He wants to keep
the child so
that he can
somehow
restore his life.
Homework:
Pg
176 1-10Slide34
Ch 10 Vocab
denunciation: criticism
a
ustere: plain/simple
p
acifying : making peace
m
uzziness
: confusion, lack of claritySlide35
Chapter 11:Tsotsi’s quest
Tsotsi
finds Boston in a
shebeen
and brings him home. What transpires between them is not really a meaningful conversation, but
Tsotsi’s
suspicion that something huge and out of control is happening to him is confirmed. There are clear references
to a godly or religious
element guiding
Tsotsi
out of the darkness.
Homework:
Pg
177 1-10Slide36
Chapter 12: Tsotsi
goes to the church
His conversations with Isaiah appear to give him some answers. The relationship between
Tsotsi
and Miriam become more relaxed, and
Tsotsi
trusts her instincts with the baby.
Tsotsi
casts off his old self and becomes
D
avid
Madondo
once again. He returns to the ruins to get the baby the following morning, but is killed as the bulldozers knock down a wall.
Vocabulary: masochistic - gets pleasure out of pain.
Classwork: Essay on
Pg
192
Homework:
Pg
178 1-10Slide37
Essay 1
Tsotsi
is more than a story about a man who finds mercy and redemption; it is a scathing attack on the apartheid system that ruined a society.
Discuss the validity of this statement. Your response should take the form of a well -constructed essay of 350-400 words.Slide38
Essay 2
The novel illustrates how humankind can be deeply and profoundly affected by events. Discuss this statement in the light of the character called
Tsotsi
. Your response should take the form of a well-constructed essay of 350-400 words.Slide39
Actors receiving Oscar with Mandela