Hally’s Character and Function

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In the play “Master Harold … and the Boys” by Athol Fugard has many little connotation about life in South Africa during Apartheid. The play demonstrates how the society and a certain personality can destroy a perfectly healthy relationship to stay in a world where he will have no expectation. Sam is a black man whom is a servant in a tearoom and Hally is a 17-year-old white boy who’s mother own the place. Hally’s father is in the hospital and he is a cripple. Hally has a very specific character and a very important function to the play. Hally is so important that it is even important to Fugard, and it helps him destroy his barrier. Hally might seem like a simple character in a play but there is much more to him than a character in a play. Hally isn’t a person with many friends, we could say his father is to blame. Due to his lack of friends he tries to create a bond with Sam and it makes it even more valuable due to Hally’s loneliness. He would always “try out a few ideas but sooner or later” he’d “end up in there with” Sam and Willie. He would always look for something to do and always wonder what he should do and think of some ideas but in the end he knew that they would always be there and he would never be let down by them. Hally feels a strong sense of humiliation and all of it because of his crippled and alcoholic father whom made him feel a constant let down in his life. When Hally was young his father “was dead drunk on the floor of the Central Hotel Bar” and Sam helped Hally bring him home. Hally’s father being him left a big empty space in Hally’s heart of a father figure missing and Sam slowly un knowingly started to heal and close the small hole. Sam would always be there for him and with Hally being always disappointed and sad he knew that no matter what Sam would find a way to heal Hally, like with the kite scene where he made him feel hope and
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