To be able to be caught up in the world of thought -

The Model Home Competition was the small group activity in which you were asked to construct a model home in small, single sex groups. Each group was given different amounts of materials to build model homes. The girls were given more resources than the boys, and groups were given the option to share or not share materials. A prize was awarded to the group with the home that best followed the guidelines. After participating in the Model Home Competition, perhaps you were better able to understand why apartheid laws were economically, socially, and politically advantageous to white South Africans.

In the kite scene in “Master Harold” and the Boys, Sam builds a kite out of limited resources. Hally does not believe that the disheveled kite will ever fly. But then, as Hally recalls, ”The miracle happened! I was running, waiting for it to crash to the ground, but instead there was something alive behind me at the end of the string, tugging at it as if it wanted to be free” (30). The kite’s ability to fly is a miracle given its decrepit condition. In a similar fashion, Sam manages to scrap his life together with very few rights and resources. Just like the kite desires to be free, Sam desires to be free from the bonds of apartheid.

The Model Home Competition was intended to simulate segregation and to be somewhat of an analogous situation to the kite scene in “Master Harold”… and the Boys.  In what ways did both the Model Home Competition and the kite scene in “Master Harold” and the Boys deal with prejudice, segregation, and inequality? How can the Model Home Competition be seen as an analogous situation to the segregated and unequal society in South Africa during apartheid? 

In class, we discussed how Camus’ The Stranger critiques the deteriorating state of French/Algerian racial, social, and political relations in the 1940s. As it turns out, President Bush has likewise been discussing the book with his White House cabinet. In Maureen Dowd’s New York Times editorial entitled “Aux Barricades!” she notes the President’s recent studies, and compares the current United States/Iraq conflict to the French-Algerian War. When the United States invaded Iraq in 2003, the Pentagon screened the 1966 movie “The Battle of Algiers,” and President Bush’s reading list has of late has included The Stranger and Alistair Horne’s A Savage War of Peace. Henry Kissinger himself supplied W. with his reading list, but did not require him to write any essays in response to the texts. Liberal Dowd ends her editorial with a tongue-in-check jab at the President by suggesting he move on to reading Sartre’s No Exit, which you have also had the privilege of studying. In her editorial, Dowd seeks to draw parallels between the permanence of hell and the United States’ occupation of Iraq. Are the underlying conflicts of the United States/Iraq war similar to those presented in Camus’ The Stranger and Sartre’s No Exit? Why or why not? Cite specific quotes and examples from the text.