The Prisoner Who Wore Glasses

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The <u>Prisoner Who Wore Glasses</u> is a story that explores the issue of race in an Apartheid South-Africa. The story has only two named characters that are indirectly positioned in a some-what similar situation. Brille a black political prisoner part of span one, a group of black political prisoners, works the cabbage fields on a farm for prisoners. One day he causes a little trouble with a new warder, named Hannetjie, for his span. Hannetjie starts the story as a stickler, who pays much more attention than do previous warders. When Warder Hannejtie is introduced, Brille immediately notices he is different from the other warders, who would ignore rule breaking and certain problems that span one had, and Brille simply states, “We’re in for trouble this time, comrades.” This story touches on an on-going important race issue as well as shows the importance of characters and point-of-view in a story from a literary standpoint. The two main literary points that arise from this short story are point-of-view and character. The point-of-view and characters both affect this story in a great way and without their demanding presence, this story would be left boring and plain. The point-of-view is third person limited. The two characters Brille and Hannetjie are both major characters, however Hannetjie is a dynamic character and Brille is a static character. These few points are very important because they affect and change the story’s flow and outcomes. It also changes the reader’s feelings and impressions of the characters by its conclusion. The point-of-view greatly affects the story because it allows us to learn that Brille and Hannetjie are not that different, but actually more similar before we reach the end of the story. Shortly after Brille is beaten for eating cabbage that is supposed to be sold, he starts to have thoughts of how his children would beat
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