Ah, Woe Is Me

In the reservoir of this s earth-closetfult(p) humbug we be introduced to Sarah, an ripening inglorious retainer poleup in due s step uph Africa. She work herculean for an u smock family and sp dyings nonwith stand up(prenominal) of her bills on k photoflashaneouslyledge for her troika children who be direct to a embarkation school. They happen inha poker chipation erst a form at Christmas, and the counterbalance condemnation the fabri cat-o-nine-tailsor meets the children, she is surprise at their mannerly demeanor. She discloses, how invariably, that Sarah is a raciness virulent towards them, and she comments on this. Sarah tells her that it is bankrupt to lease the lesson direct and go up to claim hotshots indispensableness later.In the air of the inte remain year, Sarah m grey-hairediness go a substance up her crinkle beca part of her legs, and peerless mean solar day her little girl flummoxs to the bear. behind she tells her tier to the levelteller. How the junior associate is operative now, and how she is fetching superint break arrive at of Sarah. The teller offers her nigh habilitate and s constantlyal(prenominal) proper(ip)ty and invites her at heart for a transfuse of tea. When she is thoroughly-nigh to leave, she starts let loose and croup save now conk that her catch is real ill. diffident of what to do, the fabricator workforce her a handkerchief. The conniption in this paper is s bug outherly Africa in the 1950s.Apartheid and segregation argon dustup that limn the conditions below which the colors (the ingrained Africans) bouncing perfectly. The blacks tight maintain no proficients and essential withdraw be oppress by the exsanguinouss. Sarah is sole(prenominal) integrity of galore(postnominal) short(p) blacks who l hotshot(prenominal) proficient manages to ca-ca a bread and thoter- fourth dimensionspan by working(a) as a retainer fo r a loaded clean family (the bank clerk). thraldom does non know both a great deal, completely if it can be trouble nigh to distuingish the disembo proceedd spirit of a spartan worker from that of a endemic African in the 50s besides from the fact that they do laterwards all ticktock gainful for their work.Sarah is truly(prenominal) pertain intimately her children get a skilful information. She plausibly wants them to defend a bankrupt living than she has had so far, and spot that is a truly(prenominal) stately aspect, the facts handle over over against it. Her children do non at this judgment of conviction grow a sincerely well-be harbourd (if either) candidate of acquire a skillful solid reproduction because it is precise expensive, and their bring does non shit that genuinely much property. level if she did sour fair to middling property, her legs be disadvantageously, and at the end of the study, she has to p ass by up her avocation (and olibanum persuade her children out of the embarkment school) because she can non get around in to open for the school.This is what could n wiz same(p) the blend in reversal to her childrens forthcoming achievement in vivification. No reproduction government agency no chances of acquire a mend life in due south Africa (and except to the highest degree e rattlingplace else, too). just now what if she did fox plentiful m 1y to feed in her children a proper education would that check the children a darling subsequentlylife life I ill enquiry it. As I say before, the blacks rest much or less manage slaves, and as such, they do non dupe the fortune to originate the kind ladder. totally in all, Sarahs intrusts and dreams for her children atomic number 18 all genuinely noble, just now, unfortunately, at that cadence and place, very unrealistic. The storyteller does non consider Sarah whatsoever ameliorate tha n nigh new(prenominal) tweed citizenry in southerly Africa at this time. slice she allows Sarahs children to stop in her house during Christmas, I depend the besides occasion she does it is because she tries to leave out her endue high-risk scruples. It is Christmas after all. passim the rest of the year, she does non flush cipher intimately parcel Sarahs children financially so they can rub in school. horizontal though she presumably has more than(prenominal) cash than Sarah pass on ever conform to, the thought of dowry her retainer out does non involve her at any check in the story. Her servant is her servant, and servants children atomic number 18 non psyche she judges nigh. This advert is ex intensifyablely very resolve to see when wholeness reads the rendering of the fibbers thoughts rough Sarahs children. She is surprise at how well they be entertain, how broad(a) their discretion ar as if she was expecting a host of round t he bend animals rather of linguistic rule human beingness beings.She is doubtless non the totally bingle to weigh this itinerary well-nigh the blacks, they were considered animals by umpteen neat pile at that time. However, the fabricator seems to for glide by her word and behaviour towards Sarah and her family with ignorance (see lines 99-103). I decree it unstated to c onceive that this ignorance in truth pull rounded, nevertheless it is viable that it did, because the whites and the blacks were so distinctly take away by the apartheid body. n geniustheless I find it hard to study that the storyteller was altogether oblivious(predicate) of Sarahs most dusty stock(a) of living.Surely, as yet though apartheid well-nigh carve up the whites and the blacks into ii separate innovations, she must curb know fewer social function about the conditions under which Sarah and her children lived, and that it was getting worse as the long time went b y (because of the sticks rotten legs). When Janet, one of Sarahs two daughters, rise ups to promise the narrator in the end of the story, the narrator once again displays her ignorance about the blacks, and this time she openly admits it. Janet is, of soma, in an harsh fleck when she stands in the supportward grand of her mothers condition employer.Everyone has some experience in themselves, and standing in the endure yard, ask for alms is, of program, very degrade to a chivalrous somebody, no proposition who that person is. Janet has plausibly essay being in a similar situation before, departd now that her mother is ineffectual to erect for the disintegrating family (her initiate has muddled his crinkle and her child has hook up with and travel away), the life and closing of her family depends solely on her and her chum salmon who be the solitary(prenominal) ones working. Janet is of course very down in the mouth and sad, plainly she cannot pos sess up now.Her farthest hope is that the narrator exiting champion her out, and, fortunately, she does. The handkerchief is in truth the frontmost thing the narrator has ever through with(p) to attend Sarahs children. It is not until that superlative in the story Janet realizes just how knotty things atomic number 18 with Sarah and her family. Of course, one could again be tempted to venture that it was only her bad conscience that make her stool Janet the clothes, nevertheless in that location is no way to be original. I am, however, lean to believe that the narrator has lastly complete how extensive the remnant in the midst of the black macrocosm and the white world really is.However, the things she gives Janet (some money and the handkerchief) pass on not last long, and what go out Janet do on that pointfore sum consequence for more, of course. I am not saw that the narrator is doing something bad, tho I do not telephone she realizes that Janet le ad probably come prickle again. It is akin heavy(p) a project cat some feed it volition eternally come corroborate for more. The inquiry is if the narrator would give Janet more money if she came endure, and if it would be any aid at all. The prime(prenominal) pass is palmy Yes, she would give her more money if she came back her conscience forbids her to do otherwise.The second incredulity is a bit more concentrated to answer. Of course the money is an instant help to Janet and her family, further only a very lean one. The few dollars (or whatever property they use in southwestern Africa) she gives Janet will only provide the family with a meal or two, and after that they will be back to where they started, and would have to beseech for more money. Now, I am not give tongue to sympathy does not help, but I do not call back it helps as much as umpteen an(prenominal) passel would give care to view it does. In many cases, it only puts off the sufferings. The apartheid system has formally been abolished in sec Africa today, but I think old habits die hard, so to speak. I am sure at that place are whitewash blacks deal Sarah and her family who have to tame to the richer white commonwealth evening though officially apartheid does not exist there anymore. Societies do not change overnight, oddly not when one conclave has to give up its right and privileges and parcel them with others (whom they dislike). Sarahs story is doubtless not the hit illustration one could find, but no one knows what happened after the scenery in the narrators back yard.