"MASTER HAROLD". . . and the boys/Fences by Athol Fugard/August Wilson

A political allegory, “MASTER HAROLD” . . . and the boys deals with family, race, society, government, and art. Set the fifties in South Africa, the drama exposes difficult relationships that exist among fathers and adolescent sons. The sociopolitical environment for Fugard’s play—the South African apartheid government—infects Hally, a seventeen-year-old, white student, and his relationship with the longtime, black workers in his mother’s dessert shop.

African-American characters live in a city similar to Pittsburgh just before the civil rights movement of the 1960s. The members of the Maxon family come into conflict with each other over how they should live their lives: Should the sons’ futures be limited by their inheritance of attitudes from America’s long-extinct slave culture and Jim Crow laws? Or, is it realistic for the younger generation to follow its dreams based on merit and skill by taking advantage of academic and athletic incentives that the white establishment offers? Fences won four Tony awards, the New York Drama Critics Circle award for best play, and the 1987 Pulitzer Prize for drama.

About the Series:

Novel/Drama curriculum units contain complete lesson plans with preliminary and follow-up work, teacher notes with plot summary, background, and rationale, ready-to-use worksheets, and suggested answers for student questions. These study guides encourage the development of thinking, reading, speaking, research, and writing skills as well as critical thinking skills such as analysis, synthesis, and evaluation.