You'll see that the strong, the affirmative, the positive voice in any of the plays I've written is that of a woman. My men are, well, not quite worthless, but they are certainly weak, and that reflects the reality I grew up with and what I think has in a sense shaped me.
Interpretation
The quote reflects the author's perception of gender roles, emphasizing the strength and positivity of women compared to the weakness of men in his narratives.
In this quote, Athol Fugard highlights the strong, affirmative presence of female characters in his works, contrasting them with the weaker male characters. This dichotomy is rooted in his personal experiences and observations of gender dynamics, suggesting that he views women as embodiments of strength and resilience, shaped by the societal realities he faced while growing up.
In practice
This quote can be used during a discussion on gender representation in literature.
What I quickly discovered is that our so-called new South Africa has as much material for a story-teller as the old one. The landscape hasn't really changed. Who is in power now is different to who was in power then, but the squatter camps grow like cancer, the rich get richer, the poor get poorer.
For most of my writing life, I've refused to allow myself to believe that writing was a significant form of action. I always felt very uneasy about the fact that all I did was write in a situation as desperate as apartheid South Africa. Whether I was correct or not is a different issue.
I can't think of a single one of my plays that does not represent a coincidence between an external and an internal event. Something outside of me, outside even my own life, something I read in a newspaper or witness on the street, something I see or hear, fascinates me. I see it for its dramatic potential.
For you in the West to hear the phrase 'All men are created equal' is to draw a yawn. For us, it's a miracle. We're starting out at rock bottom, man. But South Africa does have soul.
As fascinated as I was by words on paper, it was matched by my fascination with words in people's mouths. The spoken word. And that is the world of theatre.
It is useful that while mankind are imperfect there should be different opinions, so is it that there should be different experiments of living; that free scope should be given to varieties of character, short of injury to others.
We say primarily that the priority of this struggle is class. That Marx and Lenin and Che Guevara and Mao Tse-Tung, and anybody else who ever said or knew or practiced anything about revolution, always said that a revolution is a class struggle.
If you should ask me where I've been all this time I have to say "Things happen." I have to dwell on stones darkening the earth, on the river ruined in its own duration: I know nothing save things the birds have lost, the sea I left behind, or my sister crying. Why this abundance of places? Why does day lock with day? Why the dark night swilling round in our mouths? And why the dead?
I think it can be shown that the law makes ten criminals where it restrains one.
If at times our actions seem to make life difficult for others, it is only because history has made life difficult for us all.
Lord, give me firmness without hardness, steadfastness without dogmatism, love without weakness.
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